Our National Trust trip yesterday was first rate, notwithstanding the School Holidays and a bad traffic jam in York which probably delayed our arrival at the Railway Museum by over ¾ hour. However, we had plenty of laughs, and when we got there The Museum was excellent. Considerably refurbished since my last visit, not suprisingly as it must have been 30 years ago.
As Y and I are keen on the Ferris-Wheel type experience we boarded it (second item on webpage) and I took a snap (Picture 1) of the nearby Railway Station. We were about a third of the way up when I clicked and considering the poor light and the misty plastic of the module, I'm quite proud of it. Wasn't the Station and its curved roof recently discussed on the blog ?
The picture makes the scene look remarkably like a very expensive model train set, in my opinion.
This morning our Mr. Bullfinch came for breakfast at around 5.30am, but the light was so bad I couldn't grab a shot. Picture 2 is a Card received by Bungus and I have a sinking feeling that we may have missed his birthday. If so, a belated 
Picture 3 is also courtesy of Bungus, received by e-mail, but he offers little information about the creature - unless I've missed it.
I know he doesn't like a 'song and dance' to be made about it, but I don't like to have inefficiently missed it.
Is it The Common Toad 'bufo bufo'? and we are really at a loss as to how big he/she is, without the customary 50p piece. The picture on the linked webpage looks very similar.
However, in the Bungus picture, I really link the twinkle in her eye.Due to time/space considerations I will cover Beningborough Hall and the Art collections tomorrow.
Comments
Bungus .... Baby goldfinch it is then.
No. You said nothing untoward about The Archbishop. And I wasn't being sarcastic when I said I was impressed.
The 'cycling rules' are very well covered in this piece of video by the gold-medal cyclists themselves. Mind you - we've finished the cycling now haven't we ? and by 2012 we shall have forgotten anyway.
anonymousRob ..... I didn't mean to damn your Haiku by the faint praise which 'unpolished may have suggested. And the first 2 lines made me think -
Chris Hoy, cycling boy,
Three gold medals from pedals,
They fixed in Heanor.
Three gold medals from pedals,
They fixed in Heanor.
Jill ...... I certainlty join you in hoping that Bungus's dental problems have abated.
Y knew all about Hillary Jones, even though we don't receive that Channel, or read the News of the World. No crticism implied of either.
Y still enjoys 'pen and paper' but only today she said she would quite like a laptop of her own ! Do I hear tectonic plates moving ? Soon Joan will be all alone in her pre-IT cave.
Quotation time ......
Y knew all about Hillary Jones, even though we don't receive that Channel, or read the News of the World. No crticism implied of either.
Y still enjoys 'pen and paper' but only today she said she would quite like a laptop of her own ! Do I hear tectonic plates moving ? Soon Joan will be all alone in her pre-IT cave.
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future"
Nice shot of York Station (which did indeed lead to correspondence).
ReplyDeleteI don’t know whether or not it is a common toad but it is the first one seen in our garden recently. Jessica and her friends found it on the drive late on Tue night and put it on top of the bin for my delight. I‘d say it was about 5” long, nose to bum. I hope it is now making mincemeat of slugs.
My comments on your comment about Rob’s first cyclical haiku were, as usual, tongue in cheek. I like your tweaking of it.
Dr Hilary Jones of TV fame is a witty and amusing personality. He would be excellent company I am sure.
I like the Quotation
Bungus Diary:
Computers are a pain. As are mobile phones of which I was bought a new one yesterday (Wed) for my birthday today (battery of old one gave up ghost). Although the cheapest and simplest now available, can I understand the instructions? Can I ****? And I vitally needed it operative today. So far, the text messages I have sent (I do not intend to use it for anything else) have all been repeated 3 to 5 times which is going to be expensive if continued. Happy ******* birthday my ****. I can see it ending up in the middle of a field.
This morning (Thur), I woke at 5.30and, there being no Olympics on the radio, I took a paracetemol for the toothache and discovered how to lock my new fiendish phone.
As a birthday treat, I was allowed to take Sandra to King’s Mill Hospital and, while she attended her clinic, go cheap shopping. I bought some purple sprouting from Lidl, small chocolate puds from The Bargain Shop and frozen Marlin (delicious) and Mahi-Mahi (not tried yet) steaks from Aldi.
Afterwards we went to the Junction 28 Macarthur Glenn Shopping Complex and I bought myself a M&S pink check linen shirt (reduced from £35 to £7). Sandra bought a power saving water heater to use instead of a kettle for single cups of coffee and (if, unlike me, you don’t mind the water being at 92C) tea. It also doubles as a (cold) water filter. Some skirts and tops were also acquired but not in my size.
We sat for a rest outside a catering kiosk where I saw the sign ‘English Breakfast - £1.50” which I thought sounded very fair until I realised it was just a cup of tea. We had an Americano each (no, you don’t have to put it together yourself with fiddly little nuts and bolts) but I refused to pay 60p for a ring doughnut. Later, at Thorntons, Sandra had a ‘regular’ (about ½ pint) black coffee and I had a ‘large’ (about 2 tbspns) ‘espresso’ that hit the spot. S also had an apple Danish that looked good and the total cost was under a fiver - which these days, I am told, is very reasonable.
We left in heavy rain which became torrential, called at Morrisons for petrol and Netto for a bottle of Bell's, Strong Cheddar, a doz 250ml bottles of ‘Spitfire’ and some chocolates which were on offer.
I don’t expect to receive birthday cards because I don’t send any. But Jen & Baz, Tommo, Steph & Jess, Alex and Mary (whom I first met when I was 15 and a friend from my early 20s) all sent them anyway. I have no doubt that Dan & Em’s and Simon’s will arrive tomorrow. All unnecessary (and certainly no intended admonishment of anyone who DIDN’T send one) but much appreciated nevertheless. Thank you for publishing Mary’s – she has a certain nack of finding something to raise a smile.
Sandra made me the obligatory Victoria Sandwich which my teeth will prevent me from eating completely before tomorrow. For tea/dinner I had liver and bacon with purple sprouting and swede/potato mash accompanied by 500ml of Ridley’s ‘Old Bob’.
Extract from Wikipedia biography of Sporting Hero, Reg Harris:
"The cycling world expected that Harris would take three titles in the 1948 Summer Olympics (sprint, tandem sprint and kilometre time trial) but three months before the London Games, he fractured two vertebrae in a road accident. After hospitalisation, with a few weeks remaining to the games, training, competing and winning, he fell in a ten-mile (16 km) race at Fallowfield and fractured his elbow. Completing the rest of his preparation in a plaster cast, he had to be satisfied with two silvers, being beaten by Italian Mario Ghella in the final of the sprint, and partnering Alan Bannister to second place in the tandem sprint (timetable constraints meant Harris's place in the kilometre was taken by another rider, Tommy Godwin, who won a bronze medal). Two weeks later, he claimed a bronze medal in the 1948 world championships sprint in Amsterdam."
News from the animal world:
1) Magpies can recognise themselves in a mirror, scientists have found - the first time self-recognition has been observed in a non-mammal.
Until relatively recently, humans were thought to be uniquely self-aware.
Scientists now know that most chimpanzees and orangutans can recognise their own reflections.
2) A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.
The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.
One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there.
Scientists studying the group say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of "culture" among this group.
Comment:
Jill:
Thanks for your kind thoughts. The offending tooth is due for extraction next Tue if I don’t managed to wiggle it out before then (it is very wobbly).
It is 6 months since I first complained but I understand the reluctance to do anything (risk of bleeding) while on chemo.
Anonymousrob:
Forget haikus at the moment as far as I’m concerned. I’ve this new Nokia to sort out (see above).
A belated Happy Birthday, Bungus, I do hope next year's is a better one! at least without the toothache.
ReplyDeleteMai-mai is a sort of porpoise (or dolphin?), it often turns up on the menu on board ships, they changed the name otherwise they think it would put people off. I have tried it, it's a bit like swordfish. There's something else they changed too, Chilean Sea Bass is nothing like sea bass at all, quite a different family of fish. Hope you enjoy it, anyway.
I hate my mobile phone too, dreadful things, I only ever use mine to tell R I will be late/early or if I'm meeting up with people, I don't chat on it. I've hated all of mine (3 to date) with the exception of the first one I had which was the size and weight of a brick, but had proper size easy to manipulate buttons, and was really simple to use.
G, I looked at that picture of York Railway Station and thought it looked like Toytown, before I read your comment....we were last there fifteen years ago, stayed in The Railway Hotel, very faded splendour, right next to station? It had a private waiting room and entrance right out onto the platform for the London train....It was vast, with a big garden and car-park at the back, I think there were only the 20 of us (package) staying there in these huge high-ceilinged rooms. Absolutely ripe for development - you didn't happen to notice? We were supposed to be on half-board, but something had gone wrong in the kitchen and they handed back lumps of cash so we could eat dinner wherever we chose.....but it was a very handy place to stay. As Marnie is now going to be there, we thought we might go again.....
My friend Jenny is hopefully being moved into rehab today - her son and his SRN wife went and Made a Fuss, insisted on seeing someone who knew something, resulting in a phone call last night saying she was being moved today. It should be a great improvement, 3 sessions of physio a day for a start.
Hilary Jones is indeed a lovely chap - he did go and take Noreen out the day following her birthday, so all is well.
Jill:
ReplyDeleteI have taken the following from Wikipedia:
The Mahimahi (in Hawaiian), Coryphaena hippurus, also known as common dolphin-fish, dorado maverikos, or lampuki (in Maltese) are surface-dwelling ray-finned fish found in off-shore tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. They are one of only two members of the Coryphaenidae family, the other being the Pompano dolphinfish.
Called by the common name, dolphinfish,
MAHI-MAHI IS A FISH,
UNRELATED TO
THE DOLPHIN.
Although, while technically incorrect, it is also common to refer to the mahi-mahi simply as dolphin, rather than dolphinfish.