Picture 1 was taken yesterday when I took Y to have her nails 'serviced' Let me point out that she doesn't need to go to a Power Tools Shop, the chinese hand-care salon is on the opposite side of the road. This shop-front, the brilliant light, and the garish colours appealed to me. I suppose I ought to be on 'Big Brother'. Seeing extracts on the news, due to the allegations of racism and Jade's eviction, was my first experience of it. Really! Is it always so awful and the people so crass and stupid? My job took me into several houses where you wiped your feet on emerging, not before entering - but most of those were upper-range in terms of intellect and politeness by comparison. And according to the Telegraph, Jade is a £millionaire twice over from her previous performances. The extent of the news-coverage also surprised me! One can only assume that there is little of importance happening in the world at the moment. Picture 2 is to show that our two goldfinches are back. I apologise for the poor quality of the photograph but it was through the closed kitchen window and has been heavily cropped.
Also, I was excited enough to cause camera-shake. Actually "two goldfinch" sounds more correct than "two goldfinches". Opinions would be welcome - particularly from those with 'O' level English Grammar as opposed to English Literature. One never forgets the content of good 'ol English Lit. though. We did Henry V, Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, and Paradise Lost. Our teacher was Miss Furnace who seemed positively ancient - I guess she would be in her thirties. She was an excellent teacher and left me with a deep love of both the English Language and all literature, not just English.
Won't bore you with food today (thank god for that says Tracy) except that I marinaded the chicken for a couple of hours in Teriyaki. It does add a certain exotic flavour of the East.
My hope of 2 days ago that the gales wouldn't result in an loss of life wasn't met and altogether 11 people died. Some under the most tragic circumstances - a lady was walking along a pavement when a large wall blew over and crushed her, for instance.
I've been researching Llandudo, our hotel, the views, things to do and the weather which sounds OK not good the day we travel, but the next day is forecast to be sunny. It isn't my intention to go into detail because one is never sure of a blog's readership. But my loyal readers should not expect the usual daily bulletins. And staff and neighbours will be popping into the station on a regular basis. And we recently had the burglar-alarm serviced.
....Visitors this evening. Looking forward. Y loves a bit of 'social'.
We have occasional visits from goldfinches (and I did get English Grammar though you would not always think that nowadays) mostly in the Autumn, I keep a patch of thistles for them. But have never seen them on bird feeders.
ReplyDeleteWe have a 40 ft. evergreen tree (not Leylandi) from next door lying at the top of our drive - luckily it missed the cars, and if it had been a couple of feet taller it would have gone through dining room windows. The lower half and roots are still next door - there is a little damage to brick wall/carport. We can still get in and out, just as well, as ins. company say it will be some time before they get round to us....
Forgive me for thinking the Power Tool shop is a foul colour; far more offensive than Big Brother! I don’t like the programme but I watch bits occasionally because it seems to be regarded as essential viewing by so many people (including numerous intellectuals who feel able to draw conclusions from it about society as a whole). I suppose it is something like the experiments where rats are crowded into a small space until eventually they start devouring each other.
ReplyDeleteI think the contestants reasonably represent a broad cross section of society all having to mix with people they would normally avoid. A bit like a bisexual barracks room I suppose (that came as a culture shock to a well brought up boy like me, even though I was 25).
My job also took me into properties such as you describe (the smell of bedbugs, walls spread with rancid dripping) but I usually found the people therein very sociable and welcoming even if it was difficult to find the right side of the cup from which it might be safe to drink. Life’s rich and varied whatsit, I always thought. Education, education, education.
In 24 years I think our garden has only seen 2 goldfinches (they were together) for 30 seconds. Or perhaps they come when I’m not looking?
Surely you must have done English Language? You couldn’t get School Cert and Matric Exemption without it. I had a friend who had great difficulty becoming a Probationer of the RIBA because he could not pass English. He ended up taking an exam called College of Preceptors which seemed to exist to provide pass marks for the terminally incapable. I think his big problem was that he never read a book.
As for Eng Lit, I hated it apart from Macbeth which I thought was great (I read it again 40 odd years later for ‘A’ Level). Our other books were Hugh Walpole’s ‘The Cathedral’ which was to boring to finish and a tedious play called ‘Abraham Lincoln’ – I managed a Credit on Macbeth alone.
My love of books came from reading Mumfy, Dr Doolittle, the Daily Express, Leslie Charteris, Sapper, Edgar Wallace, Dornford Yates, Boccaccio, etc.
I don’t know how you cope with life at such a high level of security. Unless I forget, or can’t find the key, I do lock the outside doors at night (which is more than Sandra would do). But that is it. I couldn’t be doing with setting alarms and so on. Are there any statistics on robberies at houses with alarms and those without? Yes, there must be; somebody will have made some up.