Picture 1 is the seaweed on the sea-wall outside Southsea Castle which I think I mentioned earlier.It was so beautiful - as if, instead of being random nature, it had been designed. When I commented on it to a chap walking by, he introduced himself as a marine-biologist and explained all the different seaweed types and why they are as they are. I remember kelp and fucus but I finished up with slightly too much information.
It was he who pointed out the yellow buoy where The Mary Rose went down though. Everybody was interested in that bit.
Picture 2 is the gatehouse at Charlecote Park. As I said yesterday, it reeks 'Tudor' and we both loved it.The Tudors are Y's favourite period.
As the picture shows it seems as if the National Trust, Mansfield Centre, is preparing to lay siege with swinging handbags.
For my snaps I was so lucky with the light - it kept being in the right place and almost nothing has needed the good offices of Photoshop. Some cropping - little more
I must share the picture on the right with you. The bench was on the grass verge about 20 yards back from there.
It does look rather as if your blogmeister has been sitting on the right-hand edge doesn't it?
Comments..... anonymousrob ...... Thanks for the 'poppy' praise. As per e-mail, the effect is due to f1.8. And that width gave me a shutter speed of a 4,000th sec which more than coped with the wind effect. All your suggestions are sensible and the position in the frame is easily rectified by a judicial crop. And Yes ! Det.Insp. Rob - I admit it - I had over-sharpened it. Now dealt with. Can I have the offence 'taken into consideration' please?
The poppy haiku is excellent. The last line however raises the question "Why is it still what?".
Jill ....... Sorry about your computer problems and I'm pleased they seem to be fixed.
Most 'servers' have their problems. BT, Virgin, AOL, etc., makes no difference. My broadband from Virgin is mostly OK but the TV, which comes down the same cable, is a nagging problem. We have to regularly shut-down, and reboot the system, as if it is a computer going wrong. Usually it is fixable but the system isn't cheap and it should be more reliable.My beak was indeed successful ! She kept me in order for the entire break.
Re the current crossword compilers. Steadily we become more in tune. Different mind-set to the last people but they produce some excellent clues and another week or two and we will be with it.
Thanks for the Tommy Cooper info. Very interesting. As is often the case with comediens of genius their lives are tinged with pathos. But a chap in a grey suit just wouldn't be able to 'do' it. Horace said circa 45BC.... "No great poetry was ever written by water drinkers" and I suspect that comedy is the same.
Bungus ..... Lovely story about the funnel count ! Clang ! or what?
The 'Ram on Toast' was just my follow-on to Reg's original 'toast in owls' during Maureen's Hospital stay.
How disappointing that the sketches weren't from the desert or something. I knew you had served in the East and I put two and two together and made four hundred and thirty. My imagination can be too vivid ! Mark Twain said "When I was young I could remember everything - whether it had happened, or not".
Your line of poetry “Do churches have a value still?" deserves the rejoinder "Of course they do. Spirits are distilled in them".
...................................................................
Quotation time ....... This is funny, or not, when you see the glum people queuing for their lottery tickets at the Supermarket :
"I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not"
..... Signing off now. Sleep tight. Catch you tomorrow ......................
Hugh F-W revealed last night that no British seaweed is poisonous. So eat up.
ReplyDeleteI’ll bet Yvonne wouldn’t have been so fond of the Tudor period if she had lived in it! But the gatehouse is very good.
The sloping bench could have been made for the von Trapp family.
You comment, correctly, that the poppy haiku is excellent. The last line however raises the question "Why is it still what?". My poem (see later) used this very play on the word ‘still’ (but I didn’t think of a whisky still).
"No great poetry was ever written by water drinkers"
(Churches) "Of course they do. Spirits are distilled in them".
If you are going to misinterpret my poems in that way I shall have to find the original and blog-comment it.
I shall not be taken lightly; I never drink water.
Sports Spot:
After seeing Croatia beat Germany (the favourites) it is even less surprising that they triumphed over England.
Spain were superb on Tues. Not quite as exciting as the Dutch but a better match because Russia were more enterprising and entertaining than Italy.
Austria v Poland was weird.
Crime Corner:
Donald ‘Black Panther' Neilson, having had his plea for a reduction in sentence turned down, was featured on the R Nottm website.
Those who call for a return of National Service as a way to reduce crime may be unaware that he learnt his survival and organisational skills, as a NS conscript, fighting the Mau-Mau in the Kenyan jungle.
This experience served as the basis of his criminal career and he was only arrested in Rainworth, by chance, while casing a further job.
Uneventful 'drip-trip' to City Hospital on Thur.
ReplyDeleteArrived there at 11.30 for 12.30 appointment.
Taken in for 1 hour treatment at 1.00.
Waited till 3.00 for transport.
Home at 4.00 after dropping off another patient at Rainworth.
No ill effects.
Loved the Mark Twain quote, and the men in white coats taking away my computer.....
ReplyDeleteWe had a greenfinch incident this morning - three fledglings and two agitated parents, in the corner of the car port. No idea how the babies got there or where nest is - my guess is that it is in a fir tree next to carport, and there is a little gap somewhere that the babies got/fell through. They couldn't fly. In the end I opened the side gate onto the garden, and the parents flew through it, calling, and finally two of them hopped their way after them - but the third one wouldn't budge, then a parent came back and chivied him/her along the ground and through the gate. Luckily there aren't any cats near here!
Debating whether to put the central heating on or not - cheaper to put my vest back on again I suppose...
Looking again at the photos, I wonder if that lop-sided bench could be anything to do with getting on a horse? Different heights for different people?
ReplyDelete