Busy day - Y's mobile - Nikon Ext. Rings

As predicted Karen took about 10secs to open the battery cover on Y's new Samsung mobile phone. She looked at the thing, grabbed it firmly and pulled and bingo! Y and I had been scared of breaking it.

Now we are steadily demystifying the gadget. Y can 'phone, send texts (we both prefer predictive) and also take pictures. I've worked out how to put a photo of the grandchildren as the 'wallpaper' instead of the Samsung poppy. Next step we'll enter numbers in the inbuilt phone book.

Around 9.30am London Camera Exchange rang to say that my Kenko extension tubes had arrived which was excellent because I didn't order them till yesterday. Jessops would still be thinking of writing the order down and maybe, in a few days, ringing the suppliers ! We decided to go to Nottingham (never a hardship) and collect them. after our customary mooch about we decided to lunch in The Bell and both our meals were first rate, from the 2 for £10 menu. And that link is pretty good too, a 360degree view. My Picture 1 was from our table looking out over Market Square.

While on the subject of pubs, beer springs to mind and following an earlier conversation Reg sent me this picture of hops growing in the hedgerow at Shipley Boat Lock. If you scroll down the revealed webpage the lock itself is picture 2. The Wikipedia page about hops tells me that the flowers are called 'umbels' because of their resemblance to 'nested inverted umbrellas'. Well I never ! You learn something every day.

Bungus had already mentioned some weeks ago about hops growing in North Nottinghamshire in earlier times - hence the Hop Pole Hotel at Ollerton.

Reg apologised for the photo not being sharp due to his hands shaking. Whether this was before or after a visit to the pub I don't know. Anyway, it looks sharp enough to me, and I looked at it plus 100%.

Must come to 'comments' now. Thanks Jill for your hopes and best wishes. And it is around 4 miles to Steven and 1 mile to Tracy, as the snow-goose flies (crows are boring) about 7 miles each to John and David and the usual 130 to Debra. Thanks Bungus for your professional input (for new readers - Bungus is a retired architect). And 'Aunty Etty' has now really blown her cover ! She lives there and loves the house. And thanks to her for explaining the demesne for everyone.

As mentioned yesterday, tomorrow is one of our National Trust outings, this time to Dudmaston Hall which sounds promising. Good art collection and Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth works in the grounds. Hope they aren't imprisoned in a courtyard like the poor War Horse at Chatsworth. Ray has e-mailed and he has a DVT episode and is wearing the anti-embolism white stockings. He is supposed to keep his feet up but 'computing' is tricky under those conditions, even on a laptop. Hope he is soon better.

Just a comment on the dreaded McCann case and the discovery of traces of blood in the car boot. As far as I am aware, dead bodies don't bleed. So what the implications are I don't know. I have felt from the start that there is something just not quite right about the whole business. But as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in 1887 -

"It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery"

The blog tomorrow will be subject to ETA from Dudmaston. I might have lots to tell you or I might be coachtripped out. Sleep tight. Catch you soon.