It has been a day when neither of us felt we had any energy and there's been, in my case, much lying down and in Y's case much old films on the telly. We are surviving though. I was hoping tomorrow to help Reg at theEPS 'Open Day' at Durban House but I don't think I shall be able to.
I tried for nearly an hour to succeed with some close-up bellows which Brian has lent me but had to give up. Back pain and sweating. So the above was taken conventionally, against my bedroom curtain.
The papers have been good and in the Telegraph 'Weekend' supplement an interesting article by Jonathon Ray about Cuba. If the link works, it will be of interest not only to Rob but those who followed his entertaining Cuba saga.
Picture 2 is a clip from the article and Cuba sounds just as Rob describes it.
It must certainly be added to our holiday list, if ever we both feel well enough to go ? A more modest hope is that we shall be OK for our coach holiday to The Isle of Wight at the end of the month. I guess we will be - the firm pick us up at the door and once we are on the bus there isn't much that's demanding is there ?
The weather has been interesting to say the least. At the moment we have the heating on because we were both cold. Perhaps it's because we aren't very well.
Picture 3 is - I think - a very juvenile Goldfinch, sitting on the trellis waiting to be taught about the niger-seed feeder. He/she will soon get the knack of it I feel sure.I might be completely wrong and we have had a visit be some different specie.
Comments please if anyone actually knows. I bet Roy does.
Comments..... Bungus .... I'm not sure how we manage it, but we keep missing The Culture Show.
I would have liked to see the Architecture bit.
You are quite right about place names. Radio and TV people never say Munchen, they say Munich. But always Beijing and Mumbai wherever it is.
Thanks, to Jill as well for the compliments about the fridge. It looked like that of course because I had just sorted it our with the new storage boxes. It will soon deteriorate don't worry.
Are we becoming confused between Guernseys and Ganseys. Both have recently been mentioned and I would welcome clarification. Thanks for the Billy the Kid information. I didn't know any of that. Talking of DVDs, the other day I saw a newspaper banner on the front saying 'Free Michael Caine DVD' and immediately thought that the old lad had been incarcerated for something.
Jill ..... Please see above, re fridge. Yes, some of the plastic boxes do have 2 compartments not 4 under the single lid.
So much 'chat' about Mama Mia and Meryl Streep. The only solution I think is see it ourselves. It is on our list and will no doubt cheers us up more than the Dylan Thomas film, also newly released.
Glad your friend had a good Buck House day. Re heels. When we went Y was very impressed with HM's sensible flat shoes ! She obviously knows what is appropriate.
Very impressed with your Xword success. I never do the non-cryptic ones because one needs to know the factual answers to the clues, and I never do. You have obviously got to grips with the new compilers.
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5 comments:
I think it might be a young chaffinch? Back/wing has a bluish tinge, and a grey head? Not sure, though.
What have bellows got to do with the rose in your bedroom?? Is your central heating that ancient? Obviously a gap in my knowledge here.
Crosswords - the 'quick' one is more vocabulary than facts, mostly just synonyms with a few anagrams. The first few clues across always make a phrase or saying phonetically. I often have to keep saying them aloud to 'get' it. Sometimes there are some very clever ones.
I always have a go at the large GK one in the weekend supplement - I think I have only ever finished it a couple of times, and then looking up answers on internet or reference books. I think if I do about half I am doing well. There always seem to be words (mostly scientific) I've never heard of.
I have kept the Cuba article to read in bed - think I will do that right now. I've got the electric blanket on - can't wait!
Best wishes to Yvonne, sorry to hear of her unfortunate turn. As promised, the explanations for words are as follows;
Crunchy sausage is of course a battered sausage. Helen inadvertently asked for one once at the chip shop but the server new what she meant!
Drawing windows is my favourite, it is when you have condensation and the children can draw on them.
Flower munchies are bits of 'playmobil' that the girls use in a game.
Ramstamin is when you stomp about, more for effect than purpose.
John runs, I believe comes from Helens dad and is a term for having diarrhoea.
Cross kings is another of Helens dads. He told Sky and Brooke that if they didn't want other children to hurt them in a play fight they could cross their arms in front of them and shout 'cross kings. I have tried it on Helen and it seems to work as she falls about laughing.
Cappadoodle is the name that Sky made up for one of her teddies!
Now I am sure that most of your readers will be kicking themselves that they didn't get 1,2 and 4.
I think your rose picture is lovely. The fading to out-of-focus is particularly appropriate.
Better weather than awful Friday with its lunch time and teatime downpours. I can understand you having the heating on. I have done the same but not until after 10.30 pm and largely because no one else presently living here seems to know how to shut the outer kitchen door!
Not a good summer so far but October and November will no doubt be unbearably hot.
I read your rum link with interest. The blogged extract sounds right. I get the impression Jamaica and Trinidad are similar but with vicious crime in the case of the former.
I drank rum at 18 but little since. There was only dark rum then and my dad always swore by ‘Blue Mountain’ (from Timmy Taylor's where I had my first intimidating teenage encounter with a prossie - the first of 2 if memory serves, and in both cases I was not tempted to indulge). I have certainly never tasted any as good. A friend, landlord of Mansfield’s ‘Old Eclipse’ in the 60s, had a 150 proof Navy Rum that he used to give to anyone who bragged about their prowess as a drinker –heavy stuff.
Like everyone else in the 60s, I also had my share of Cuba Libra but liked it made with dark rum which, for me, made Coke drinkable. I think Bacardi and other white rums that I’ve encountered taste foul – worse than neat gin.
Timmy Taylor's, on the Mansfield Market Place end of Stockwell Gate, was also the only source of my dad's favourite whisky - 'John Begg's Blue Cap' which I have never encountered anywhere else.
See response to Jill about your chick. I have no idea what ‘a visit be some different specie’ means. It sounds a bit Long John Silver to me.
Like ‘black over…’ I had never heard of a ‘gansey’ until I worked at Sutton-in-Ashfield, where it was used (by only one person of my acquaintance) to mean any sort of pullover. I have since concluded, rightly or wrongly, that it is a corruption of Guernsey, which I was unaware of until even later, although Jersey (very similar to a Guernsey and knitted from the same heavy water resistant wool – no doubt Jill will expound) was a commonly misused term for any long sleeved pully.
I wonder when Michael Caine was awarded his DVD, and what it stands for?
Jill:
I can only say that Meryl Streep in Culture Club’s ‘Mama Mia’ extract made me think of an old sheep trying to gambol with the lambs. Or dad dancing at a teenage party. Apart from Mick Jagger, only Cubans and some black people can get away with it. I think I shall have to treat it like ‘The Sound of Music’, ie, refuse to watch it ever.
Could Graham’s chick be a baby Bluetit?
David:
1, 2 and 5 now seem obvious. I got nowhere near with any of them.
Yet another outstanding failure to add to my CV.
Wrong to say I was not tempted.
I was tempted but terrified in the first instance, tempted but circumspect (there's a joke there somewhere) in the second, which was down 'The Gut' (Straight Street - or is it Strait Street?) in Malta, when on leave from the army.
Jill gets the award for Twitcher of the Day, it is a young chaffinch.
Am I the only one who can’t stand Abba? All their songs seem so monotonous with the same beat. The new film seems to be getting great reviews but here’s one who will not be seeing it. Must admit I did enjoy Sound of Music though.
My old dad always called any form of woolly jumper a “Gansey” Anything with no sleeves was a “Wescot”.
Graham – sorry you missed the Workshop today. Although not overrun with visitors the ones who came stayed for quite some time. We all enjoyed it as the enthusiasm of our two young ladies seemed to rub off on the rest of us and quite a lot of pictures were taken.
Roy
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