Couldn't sleep in the night and there, on the window sill was this stout lady with hairy armpits chasing this lay-figure away from her book-chair. He is preparing to kick over a floral display. I borrowed the general idea from a Bungus picture of his lay-figure being used as a head-phone stand.
Picture 2 is a pink Japanese Anemone which hitherto Y has been unable to grow in this garden. We can grow the white variety without any problem but not the pink. With Tracy it's vice versa.Anyway. this one is growing strongly but Y has no recollection of planting it there. It's very close to the bird-bath so perhaps it is a little gift from nature.
Good luck to it anyway !Picture 3 was also a stroke of luck. While I was in the kitchen cooking a spag/bol I went over to the sink and looked out of the window, there was this Green Woodpecker.
Jill has told us before they are called a 'Yaffle' which according to the link comes from their distinctive song.
I only managed 2 snaps before he/she flew away. The second one was a better pose but more evidence of camera shake.
A Nikkor VR lens, which reduces camera shake, beckons I think.
A quiet rest day has been enjoyable and Karen cheered us up. We still need frequent rests but I'm confident we shall be OK for the Isle of Wight. We are in the same hotel in Sandown, The Burlington Hotel, for the whole week and there are 2 full day and 2 half day excursions if we want them. But often we prefer to do our own thing as our interests and the rest of Tim Drapers customers don't necessarily coincide.
I really do appreciate Bungus's concern and I'm sure his approach is the common-sense one. Mine however is "if I'm going to be ill, or worse, I'd rather have my boots on etc..."
Comments..........
The tool is certainly a bradawl and not a gimlet. So Uncle Vince was right and my Dad was wrong. I'm not surprised because my Dad and tools weren't best suited and I've inherited the gene. Yet John and David are surprisingly handy. A gimlet has a little screw end while the bradawl is plain. By e-mail from Brian S, he used to use one all the time in the Shop to start off the screw holes in picture frames.
Bungus .... (who for some reason appeared as 'blogger')...... I am really glad that you managed to go, even if unsteadily, to the Presentation and that you heard Daniel play his bassoon solo. He has done very well to gain a place at such a prestigious School of Music.
Alex sounded very witty - has she inherited the gene? ..... And I love your 'chain gang' title for the civic dignitaries. I shall certainly 'clock' that one for future use.
As above, you are probably right about The Isle of Wight. I think the difference is that we both actually enjoy the coaching experience.
Jill ..... Since I stopped drinking completely I don't seem able to doze off on coaches.
I take your point about motorways but they traverse as much beautiful scenery as any other road. As you will see above we are in the same hotel throughout. About this aspect we agree completely and would even consider a holiday involving different hotels.
Very interesting about the polio scare. Fancy you being part of it.
..........................................
....... Hope I haven't forgotten anything. Sleep tight and I'll catch you tomorrow..................
It was Hannah's birthday today. One of her presents is a mobile phone, so we have texted her. I'm sure we will hear all about it soon. And Ruby passed her ice-skating test. According to Debra she looked gorgeous in her skating dress and proper boots.
....... Hope I haven't forgotten anything. Sleep tight and I'll catch you tomorrow...................
5 comments:
Your surreal photo is of particular interest because I had a cousin-twice-removed who strongly resembled the lady in the picture. My mother always said she was a bit ‘screwy’ (a term used to define anyone who defied convention or ‘showed off’).
We too had easy success with white J anemones but no luck with the pink variety. But some ten years ago we attended a U3A garden party at an Elizabethan manor house at Whitwell (home to a couple of members) and they, like Tracy had the reverse problem. Sandra and Mary swopped plants and we have managed to keep a few pink one’s since. But the white ones are still the variety that proliferates.
No doubt, 'the answer lies in the soil'.
Lucky you with the yaffle. We still have a very limited range of birds (or I don’t get up early enough).
Your cavalier or ‘frontier’ approach to travel bears testament to your intrepidity.
Re Jill’s comment:
If I fall asleep on a bus or in a car I wake up feeling awful. And I find most motorway travel boring (esp cuttings), preferring unclassified roads if possible. Being stuck behind a horse and cart for five miles is part of the pleasure.
The Isle of Wight polio was more than a scare; it was an epidemic and avoidance was very strongly recommended. Jill’s account bears out the seriousness with which it was regarded.
When I was in Tripoli, the colleague in the bed across from me contracted it and was shipped out pronto. So far as I know, no one else was affected.
I have found my bradawl (which came from ‘home’). I too have limited DIY skills but reckon it beats the ineffective gimlet hands down at drilling starter holes.
Alex is no Chickette Murray but is a girl of few words with a deadpan technique. Inherited from Sandra rather than me as her father is my stepson (although it could be nurture rather than nature).
Young people, esp teenagers, tend to come in for a lot of criticism.
But the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Mayor of Ollerton and other dignitaries who attended yesterday’s presentation were full of praise for the pupils of the Dukeries Community College who were pleasant, polite and helpful when giving directions and acting as unofficial self-motivated guides to those who came in the wrong entrance.
This pleased Sandra more than anything else about the day because it echoes our own experience. The vast majority of the pupils are smashing kids.
I cannot claim credit for the 'chain gang' title. A former deputy principal at the Dukeries used it and, having asked him to whom he was referring (doh!), I was as impressed as you.
Esp for Jill:
I think that’s it!
The second episode of ‘Bonekickers’ was just as ludicrously complex and inconsequential as the first.
I don’t know where The Observer found their TV Programme Critic Mike Bradley. He is either more suited to The Sun or a master of irony, who said:
“refreshingly intelligent, cutting edge, contemporary drama … Cleverly constructed with a good script delivered by a well chosen cast.”
In fact, it was total rubbish. No suspension of disbelief could make the convoluted storyline convincing and the actors were understandably and appropriately robotic in appearance and delivery. The nadir was reached, for me, when the scriptwriters felt it necessary to explain Mt Rushmore to the audience.
fancy the fat lady in photo 1 being Rumanian (coming from Bookrest)
That looks just the sort of hotel we like, and the food is the kind we like too. As long as tnere is sufficient parking..... R tends to judge hotels by their parking facilities! I am not too concerned about you being taken ill there as opposed to at home, the IofW is not Third World (they tell me) - look how well they dealt with the polio crisis!
Lovely yaffle in your garden.
I had another posh tea yesterday, with friend (Barbara, tell Y.)We went to the Wolsley Hotel in Piccadilly - price-wise and content very similar with Fortnums, but it is more of a bistro, you can have all sorts of things besides afternoon tea, you can sort of mix and match. The room was not as light and airy though, chairs not as comfortable, and the china definitely not as lovely! But possibly a place more suited to the young and trendy? Fortnums had the air of being more of a 'treat'.
'Chain Gang' has gone into my vocabulary too. Very pleased you managed to get there, Bungus, and that you saw your grandchildren. (haven't sorted out your family yet...).
And thank you for the quotes about Bonekickers - I watched about 20 mins. last night before putting it off in disgust. The letter of the week in the Radio Times says:
'At last, the drought affecting the Great British sitcom has ended, we have the brilliantly hilarious Bonekickers. I'm sure that some people will be fooled into believeing that ghis was going to be a straightforward drama, but not me.The episode careered along with the pace and painful inevitability of a knight templar cutting his toe-nails on horseback with a sword. Logical plot develoment and characters both went missing. Only a cast of truly committed actors could have so effortlessly avoided 'corpsing' while uttering side-splitting remarks like 'it's a medieval mystery' and 'use your archiological imagination'. There were three other letters, all slating it, and the info. at the end said that the majority of letters thought it was rubbish.....
Happy Birthday to Hannah, and well done Ruby!
We haven't watched Bonekickers, preferring the F Word instead. It sounds so awful that it's bound to become a cult programme and, in 10 years time, people will be watching re-runs.
I have to confess that I hadn't recognised the sunset picture as being 3 stops underexposed, but then again I am a judge so what do I know about photography? I am delighted, however, that you are making adjustments in camera instead of relying on Photoshop to rescue things. I remember, a few years ago, judging a club competition where one of the entires was a slide of very poor technical (and artistic) quality. I said "I am going to award you 3 extra points for not using Photoshop to rescue this shot. You could have used Photoshop to do this and that, or you could learn how to do it properly in the camera in the first place." I got a cheer and a round of applause from half the audience. For some reason I don't understand I've never been invited back to judge at that club!
More about my great-great-great grandparents who had the first ever chip shop in Ireland. They actually gave a fried, sliced potato the name of chip. This came about because they founded a community hospital in Portadown which was known locally by its initials C.H.I.P. This, in turn, led to great-great-great grandad acquiring the nickname Chip and his fried fish and potato establishment being called the Chip Shop.
Today, at work and to while away the time, I caught up with the events at Mansfield Town FC. I am somewhat surprised, Bungus, that the Sports Desk has carried no mention of the end of the Haslam error, sorry era...erm no, I think I was right first time. Maybe a brighter future awaits, assuming they can get a team together in time for the start of the new season.
Rob
A bit more .....
Anemone Japonica, we have both sorts, but the white is by far the sturdiest of the 2. In the spring we broke up some clumps in the garden and put them down the drive, the white ones shot away and are flowering, the two pink ones have produced just one pale little trembly flower. BUT all mine originally came from two clumps given me years ago by friend, who swears they were both white, she never had any pink ones.....could it be something in the soil?
And we had a large clump of white lilies - about 4 ft. tall in the summer, were there when we moved in over 40 years ago. Present gardener managed to break them up (roots went down four feet, he said) and we split them, some of which have flowers on. But where we had the original clump, about ten feet away one has sprung up, and it is dark red....Gardener doesn't go along with the bird theory, as these are bulbs.
Watched a very interesting Timewatch on Hadrian's Wall tonight earlier - never been there.
Post a Comment