Picture 1 is an anonymousrob suggestion for the definitive - 'A bit black over Bill's mother's' - type sky (I think). As an ex- camera club judge my only comment would be that it looks black over every-one's mothers rather than just Bill's and is therefore marked down for not 100% fitting the competition title. Nice photo though.An interruption ............. Hannah says Hi ! ....... We are doing last minute baby-sitting duty at Burton Joyce. It is rather like Coleridge's marginal note on Kubla Khan - "interrupted by persons from Porlock" ....... unfortunately posterity didn't record who they were. We aren't really sorry about the baby-sitting because it gets us away from the post-carnival Fair. Loud music and thump, thump!
Picture 2 is also Rob's and continues the Cuba saga. His friend and now ours, Leonardo performing at the 'talent night' of which we heard tell.
This morning it was bright and sunny again and I tried some 'bees in flight' pictures. Mostly useless because, silly me, I was still on aperture-priority when I should have concentrated on a fast shutter speed.
I'll try again tomorrow.
Picture 3 is the best of a poor bunch.
Also before setting off I contacted Vodafone about my dongle problems. Re my having reached a 50mb limit, I was told that's just how they are sent out and it was easy, in settings>usage> to manually change the limit from 50mb to 3,000mb (same £15) simply by typing in the new value. I did that and my usage is now a tiny blue bar on a big bar chart. Very reassuring.
Burton Joyce hasn't been a strain because everyone is so well behaved.
We went to The Ferry Boat for an evening meal and had a table with a lovely view of the Trent a few yards away. Would have done you a link but couldn't find one with a picture. So I reckon they don't need the publicity.
Comments........ Bungus ...... Pleased Danny remembered Fathers' Day but we are all sitting on the edge of our seats curious as to what the present was? If it is something private, or contained under a plain brown cover, feel free to ignore my impertinence.
Re the Mansfield Bullfinches. The air-rifle was a deterrent. I never actually hit one !
What a strange Dictionary you have. Our Shorter Oxford has a large entry for 'gullible' and even Wikipedia holds forth thus >
The term gullibility refers to the state of being easily deceived. Someone who fits into this category is said to be gullible. There are several causes of gullibility. The person may be naive, have some form of learning difficulty or may display gullibility as a result of wishful thinking.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullible
I think I agree about the tanker drivers pay. But I haven't heard all the arguments ! And the employers may be having them over, not honouring previously agreed formulae etc., etc.,.......
anonymousrob .........I take on board that mobile broadband has some catching up to do speedwise with my Virgin Cable and a Belkin Router. So I might indulge myself and run both. The Vodafone facility will be ace when away from home for whatever reason.
Hope your Spanish meal goes well. And fancy Dennis being 65yrs old. When we saw him at Attenborough he didn't have a grey hair on his head and no wrinkles !
anonymous ....... Commenting on Saturday's .... Well done with RIANT. don't know when you actually solved it but I suspect Bungus beat you to it (see his comments).
Jill ...... On an earlier draft of today's blog post. I agree with you about the size of Bill's mother's house Ha Ha !
Re the apple-blossom devouring bullfinches. See David's recollection of the air-rifle at Mansfield, and my explanation today.
Springwatch was good we thought. Kate is good and she made powerful points about the plastic bag pollution. We never use them now and take a perverse pleasure in taking our sturdy Lidl reusables into Sainsbury's and Morrisons.
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No access to reference books for quotes etc., but this is from my igoogle homepage ...............
"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't"
5 comments:
Good to see a photo of Leonardo!
And that threatening sky - Bill's mother must have a very big house - a stately home with grounds?
Have got nowhere with the crossword today, I am so not on the right wave-length. The clues are so obvious once someone clever like Bungus points it out....I sometimes find I get the anmswer right, but don't understand why.... I did finish the General Knowledge one today though (but not the quick one!)
Bullfinches again, you are honoured. I think bullfinches also eat the fruit buds on the trees, have a feeling that's why village lads in Kent were allowed to have a pop at them in the orchards of yesteryear?
I am going for a bonescan tomorrow - Charing Cross Hospital - I hope there are plenty of chairs, watch this space.
I'm also going off to watch Springwatch, although I am not so interested in underwater life, am looking forward to Bill Oddie and his garden birds.
Love the jokes, wherever they come from!
I agree with your criticism of Rob’s 'A bit black over Bill's mother's' - type sky. The dark threatening clouds should be on or just beyond the horizon, not overhead.
Nice to see Leonardo though.
Hello to Hannah, too.
But a pity you could not stay at home and enjoy the fair.
I think your bee in flight is fine (unless you wanted to stop the wings flapping in which case he would nosedive).
Pleased to hear about your enlarged dongle.
Nothing exceptional about Dan’s pressy – just a bottle of wine and some Co-Op buttery biscuits with pieces of ginger. Sorry if you expected more!
I never thought you would fall for it! Aren’t you gullible?
The tanker drivers' pay seems to vary by about £6,000 pa depending who is talking.
But, as Flipping Rob, a trucker who has driven tankers, says (I paraphrase): “Flipping time bomb, my backside. How many times has anybody ever heard of a flipping tanker flipping catching fire. Flip off!”
We too now use ecologically correct canvas bags (nice Tesco ones with ladybirds on).
Where is David’s comment on the Mansfield air-rifle?
Jill:
You are right about crossword answers being obvious once you have them.
But I am not that clever! I do the Observer crossword (slightly easier than the Telegraph) while at the hospital. But I seldom complete it. Here are 2 clues I missed out on:
‘Coarse male in group in paper’
(10) – R – A S - - -T (transport ???)
‘Very good French composer produces curried meat on skewers’
(7) E - S - - - - (My ignorance about classical music cannot help).
I think it is probably the buds that bullfinches go for on blackcurrants too.
But I never thought the lovely things were in such numbers that people would shoot at them.
Good luck with the bonescan.
Re the rose-apple tree:
When we came here, 26 years ago, the (roseless) tree bore only 4 to 8 fruit per year (it must have been about 100 years old then). Sandra planted the rose some 5 to 10 years later. Recently the tree has cropped extremely well and it is full of fruit again this year.
Rob:
I missed Turkey’s comeback; possibly the best since JC.
I bought a new telly on Sunday and could not get any programmes until son Danny sorted it as an extra Fathers’ Day Gift. About 20 min from the end of the match I decided to check the (built-in) DVD player. It worked fine but I could not get back to any programme (and have not solved it today). Drat!
Haulage companies - Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport - said unions had rejected a pay offer that would have taken the drivers' average salary to £41,500 by January 2009.
However, the Unite union says that excluding overtime, the offer would have increased salaries from just under £32,000 to £36,000.
G, when Bungus said gullible wqs not in the dictionary, I thought he was having you on, pulling your leg, etc.etc.Then I thought these cryptic crosswords are affecting my brain, I was wrong when I read your reply. However it looks as if I was right!
Bonescan completed, in and out in 15 mins, plenty of chairs. Not quite as straightforward as that though, owing to the fact that I turned up at wrong hospital!Letter said 'Charing Cross Hosp.Trust' in big letters at top, followed by time and date - I didn't read the last bit which said that it was actually at Chelsea & Westminster Hosp. My fault, but bet I am not only one. Luckily I was early, so got a taxi to the right hosp, as the info desk couldn't tell me how to get there by public transport.
I turned up ten minutes late (in a part of London I had never ever been to before in my life)and was seen almost immediately, heel scan followed by hips/shoulders. Findings being sent to GP. Had a good cup of coffee (in a china cup and saucer in spotless pleasant surroundings) asked how to get back to Chiswick, three different routes offered. I felt much more confident in this hospital, it seemed more efficient, more helpful and pleasant, even though it is harder to get to (and am still not sure where it really is!).
Snap, Bungus, I have a Tesco ladybird bag too. And a Waitrose one and a M & S one, we shop at all three!
I thought Kate was good on pollution too.
Am working on the crossword clues... I finished today's all bar one while drinking coffee in the hosp, straight through it.
RG! I cannot believe you actually went to your dictionary! Also, I would like to know how long apple-blossom has been devouring bullfinches - no wonder we don't see many about. Ha Ha.
In defence of my black over Bill's mother's picture, I would like to point out that I was standing in Bill's mother's garden. There is nothing in the competition rules that says I must stand at least a mile away.
Bungus, given the distinct lack of any excitement in the Czech Republic v Turkey game for the first 75 minutes I can understand why you chose to play with your DVD. How could you, or anyone, know you were about to miss what was arguably the best 15 minutes of the tournament so far?
I like the idea that the Czech Republic goalkeeper is called Cech. I think all nations should be forced to have at least one player whose name is pronounced the same as the country's. How exciting would it be to see Jordan scoring?
Whilst it is indeed Leonardo who is featured in the photo, sadly it was not taken at the talent night we attended. When we saw him he was dressed as a Mexican with a sombrero even bigger than the cowboy hat in the photo.
The meal at La Tasca last night was a great success. It is a tapas place and the food is excellent. We had as much as you can eat tapas for a tenner which is only available Sunday - Tuesday. Well worth going. I've had very little to eat today, so far. Denis still does not have any grey hair or wrinkles but he does have a portrait of himself where he looks very old indeed.
Rob
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