As you will see from Reg's pictures of 'Attie' (our Attenborough Nature Reserve's cousin of 'Nessie') she has moved slightly to the left during a gap between the pictures of perhaps 2 minutes. While we had coffee at the Visitors' Centre she moved slowly but surely, completely behind the island. You will no doubt note a slightly increased gap between her humps. And the Reserve is not tidal so a change in water level cannot be the explanation.
Suggestions, as always, would be welcome ! Rob solved the last mystery so, if you are reading Rob, you might like to wrap your brain round this one. Or David is course, because you live less than a league away.
After dropping Y at the tram I took my faulty power-cable back to Megatech and they agreed to swap it as soon as poss. Then home for a turkey and chutney sandwich and, I am ashamed to admit, a kip, which was much enjoyed.
Thanks 'commenters' and I think we can be sure the water-edge plant is Himalayan Balsam and I am not at all surprised Jill, that it is invasive and difficult to eradicate. It has a look of Japanese Knotweed about the stem and leaves and I remember Bungus and Sandra having to excavate about 4 feet down to get that out some years ago. In view of the unanimous
received by Robbie Coltrane I think we will prolly give it a miss as we recorded it rather than watching it live. It is so handy that you can buy a machine to watch the television for you.Better ways of spending the evening surround us. I'm reading a book by James Delingpole called 'HOW TO BE RIGHT' which I'm enjoying. In other words it panders to my prejudices of anti political correctness, global warming doubter, etc., . I shall probably bore you with quotes eventually. We shall however, watch Rick Stein because it is a nice series with nice pictures; even though Y finds it soporific. We approve of his plain & simple peasant food approach although rumour has it that he doesn't serve such in his restaurants. If you can get in that is !
Picture 3 is from our Erewash Meadows walk yesterday and as you will see the subject was a rather explicit notice on a gate. Fortunately we were spared the demo!By the way, although pictures 1 and 2 at the top abut, they are in fact separate and each is clickable.
This quote amused me :-
"Weather forecast for tonight: dark, continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning"
Before closing I must just ask you to join me in a cyber-chorus of Happy Birthday for Bungus ! I know it is around now even though the actual date is a State Secret. And he will be cross with me anyway for mentioning it ! I hope everyone enjoys a good night and see you tomorrow.
3 comments:
Are you sure Attie isn't just a wooden cable spool floating in the water? It has the right shape, and the stripes look like wooden boards fixed together. The distance between the 'humps' is fixed, so it looks like it rotated from photo 1 to photo 2.
Here is a link to some google images of a 'cable spool'
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=cable+spool&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Are you sure that rather than Nessie moving to the left it wasn’t Reg who moved to the right?
But it probably is cable spools as Timothy says.
No it isn’t! It’s a real MONSTER!
Re ‘How To Be Right’ and political incorrectness:
My longest serving friend (I have known him since I was 5), who now lives in Stevenage, has never ever smoked. I asked him, when he phoned last weekend, how the ban on smoking in public places had affected the pubs he frequents.
“Oh,” he said, “I go outside with my friends who smoke. It’s no fun drinking inside with people whose company I don’t enjoy. But then I get in trouble for taking up a seat that should go to a smoker.”
I am reading ‘The Electric Michelangelo’ (a tattooist who moves from Morecambe to Coney Island). Incredibly dense, imaginative writing, mainly about bodily fluids. One critic's comment likens the author to DHL but I don’t see it. It has humour for a start (not jokes) and to me is more a distilled echo of Dylan Thomas with its idiosyncratic images, surprising similes, and allegorical alliterations, etc.
I am quite enjoying the Rick Stein programmes but do get a distinct impression that he does not very much like most of the food he is seen pretending to enjoy eating. In many cases I can understand it: boiled salad and weeds served with an excess of fat/oil!
Having received a jolly email birthday ‘card’ from RadioG, I have already sent an encoded reply revealing the actual date of my birth. I am happy to tell everyone that it coincides with the birthdays of, among others, William IV (1765), Aubrey Beardsley (1874), Count Basie (1904), Chris Brasher (1928), Princess Margaret Rose (1930), Chag Shaw (1929) and Dorothy Parker (no, not that one, c 1922); so it iasn’t really a secret.
And on the same date, in 1858, the one-armed Major Sam Browne of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, invented a new belt (or modified an old one) with a shoulder strap, for sword or pistol.
I tend to keep quiet about it to avoid people threatening a party. I don’t mind parties for other folks’ birthdays but don’t want them for mine, especially as I get older. The pictures one sees, esp of 'celebrating' centenarians, always look so condescending – but did anyone see on the news that splendid 97 or 98 years old woman who still competes throwing the hammer and the javelin and does the long jump and 100 metres? But, as she remarked, she is running out of people of similar age to compete against!.
More Ronnie Scott patter (from ‘Some of my Best Friends are Blues’):
“Later … we’ll be presenting Zoot Sims, Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, Dizzie Gillespie, the Massed Bands of the RAF, the Luton Girls’Choir, the Red Arrows, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Moscow State Circus … and Miles.
Sir Bernard Miles [that is]. He may not play as well as Miles Davis, but he always turns up on time;
and he’s a Sir, and everything."
Hello again. I'm not sure I want to rise to the challenge of 'solving' the mystery of Attie as I think she should remain an enigma. Reg's photos have that beautiful (lack of) quality that can only add to the debate. Whilst Timothy is probably right I much prefer some sort of romantic explanation, so let Attie stay a mysterious deep water creature that we may be fortunate enough to glimpse every so often.
Anyway isn't it fitting that Attenborough Nature reserve should have its own natural history mystery?
I fully intend to be at EPS on 11th October to see Geoff Young and may join; how much are subs these days?
Happy Birthday for next week Bungus.
Rob
Post a Comment