This morning our WoW took us to Shipley Park nr Heanor, Derbyshire and the weather was fine. Not much wind and lots of sun and blue sky While Roger, Denis and Reg went on a more serious walk, I messed about closer to the car-park. Even so I found plenty to interest me.
Picture 1 for instance is the centre of the wind-turbine vanes. Can you see a face saying "Wind-turbine in Shipley Park? Oh no !" ...... Perhaps I should crop even closer ? But I want people to be able to have a guess at what it is.
I also found more mushrooms (see Picture 2) for us to talk about. These certainly look edible but I'm hoping for reassurance from Bungus.
The Visitors' Centre was pleasant and I then sat in the car and enjoyed my flask of coffee. When the chaps returned we went to The Bell at Smalley for our chip-cobs which were adequate but not absolutely top of the pops. I couldn't find a decent webpage to link you to but please click here for a local newspaper snippet of information about the pub being broken into over the weekend just passed.
Y has been using her laptop to send and receive several e-mails - she has now mastered this aspect and also understands Google-mail's filing system.
Commentsbungus ........ I am so glad to hear of your 'more reasonable' blood-pressure. Y says it is high but quite good. And she knows. Pleased also to hear about Dr Ward - our lady doctor is similarly lovely and we both have confidence in her.
I didn't realise you have a touch of arachnid trouble because today there is yet another picture of our porch dwelling garden spider. A large insect had become entrapped and during the day the spider wrapped it up in silk and then devoured it.
The outside edge of the porch roof is obviously a prime spot to site your web because many smaller insects are caught there. Perhaps these are for pudding ? I don't know if spiders realise that they have web-sites !
For the benefit of other readers. Re your "Who are the Beatles?" point. This is a 'criticism of Judges' cliché regularly trotted out by media hacks who should no better. It is simply that, if a Judge feels that a term being used in Court, is new and hasn't been properly defined, he needs to take 'judicial notice' notice of it. As a for-instance, some lawyer might use the term 'Web-site'. The Judge might then say "What is a Web-site please Mr. Lawyer?" and some pig-ignorant media hack would have a field day saying how out of touch the Judiciary is. Fancy a Judge not knowing what a Web-Site is. etc., etc.,..... The Judge no doubt fully understands what a web-site is - but he is just doing his job.
No. I can't say I ever practised these acts of sadism to animals of which your speak. I did collect birds eggs and blow the yolk etc., out through a hole in the shell and I tried, most unsuccessfully, to net butterflies and pin them out on cardboard sheets. But I was hopeless at it and soon gave up. These however weren't gratuitous acts of violence but necessary in pursuit of the hobby.
Without opening up the 'camera-club judges theme' again, I must say I love 'snap judgement' - precisely right !
I think you are wrong to caution 4 ticks against painting 'Sun Flowers'. I am sure that, if you were to have accused Vincent Van Gogh of 'gilding the lily' he would have cut something off ! Off you, not off himself.
reg .... Thank you for the 'sparrow information' and your 1980 reference book sounds authoritative. As you know, I trust books that have stood the test of time. One of my favourite quotations dictionaries is my Penguin Dictionary of Quotations which set me back 10/6d in 1964. New too ! I wasn't such an aficionado of charity shops in those days. Come to think of it - I don't think they had yet been invented.
jill ...... Thank you also for the low-down on Sparrows. From all of your accumulated knowledge I realise that black heads, browner/greyer birds, ground-feeding, thick beaks, finely pointed beaks, come into it. All I need to do now is to remember which is which !!
I must apologise for publishing out of date stuff about Peter Jones. Y has been telling more about it, and she had a really super day with you there.
I think we would also enjoy Paul Merton's India Journey. You no doubt read the Telegraph reviewer who identified him as successor to Michael Palin. We shall no doubt find it on BBC iPlayer or the commercial equivalent.
4 ticks ....... The spiders webs intrigue me too. I must google until I discover how and over what period they build their webs, and then perhaps sit quietly for an hour or two to see if I can see one actually at work.
Thanks for the invite to the cake-tasting ! And, if it fits, I will certainly pop-in.
Quotation time ...... A Peter Kay one-liner ! May have a certain resonance in this organ.
"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before"
The link behind his name is a bit of YouTube for your amusement.
Sleep tight - catch you tomorrow.
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3 comments:
DIARY
I have just returned from having my ear syringed. Perhaps that will make it easier for you to understand me.
Finding five mice together on the bird feeder at the weekend made me think that something should be done. So, on Monday, I found the humane trap and baited it with peanuts.
Wed morning I checked and could see that three had entered the trap and, apparently quite happily, taken up residence.
I took the trap to the old pit tip site (now woodland) and opened it in the car park. One mouse immediately jumped out and legged ut into the long grass. All I could see of the others were two tails sticking out of the entrance tunnels. I pulled gently on the tails and, somewhat reluctantly, the little creatures were drawn out of hiding. They too diappeared into the grass.
When I got hone, I decided to clean the trap a bit. I opened the lid, turned it upside down, and gave it a bang. I was somewhat startled when three more mice shot out and made for the hills (their tree anyway).
I reset the trap and and at least another one had taken up residence by the afternoon (update: another 2released Thur).
Radio Nottm website:
“The author of the Horse Whisperer book, Nicholas Evans, was taken to hospital last month after picking and eating poisonous mushrooms while on holiday in Scotland.”
Apparently he and 3 friends were taken to Aberdeen Hospital and received immediate dialysis and other treatment to save their lives.
I like photo 1 and, yes, I see the face (it looks as though it has the wind in it).
I think you may have rather spoilt the competitive element, however, by telling us what it is. My guess is that it might be ‘the centre of wind-turbine vanes in Shipley Park’ but I am probably wrong again.
Apparently the wet weather has made it a good year for fungi and several new varieties have been found in Clumber Park.
As for your photo, I would suggest that you do not eat them (see above) unless they are rather greener than they look in the picture and smell VERY strongly of aniseed, in which case they would almost certainly be Aniseed Toadstools (Clitocybe odora) and a small quantity would enhance a fish dish. They can invariably be smelt from a yard or two away and can often be detected by scent without being found.
Other varieties of Clitocybe are DEADLY poisonous but although of similar appearance they are buff or flesh coloured.
Having consulted Phillips, the Aniseed Toadstool appears the most likely but I suppose they could possibly be Wood Blewits (Lepista nuda), often referred to as Blue Buttons in Nottm or Bluestalks in Mansfield. They, of course, are also edible. But Phillips only covers about a 1,000 of the 3,000 or so British varieties. And I must make it clear that for proper identification one needs samples from which to obtain spores and to study all parts – and even then there are frequent confusions and doubts.
What is Google-mail's filing system? Isn’t one supposed to just make piles, as with papers?
Although I have always liked money spiders and others of similar size, my arachnophobia used to be quite intense until one night, arriving home in a George Brown state, I spotted a big bogger in the bath and forced myself to pick it up. Since then I have been much better. I would happily watch weaving and fly catching but I still shudder at the display in Mansfield museum (giant centipedes are far from the loves of my life too) and at illustrations in books. I have never willingly killed a spider; they are among the good guys.
I’m pleased that I allowed you to explain why judges ask apparently daft questions. Obviously I had remembered your teachings, Wan Obi Kenobe (was he really wan?).
I too was briefly a catcher of butterflies. I tried to gas them in a jam jar (over the hob) prior to pinning them down (I wanted them to explain themselves absolutely clearly) but was not successful. End of another hobby (collecting car numbers, train spotting, chess, tennis, rug making, etc).
Nor were my animal experiments gratuitous acts of violence. They were scientific study of the behaviour of our fellow creatures. I knew nothing of Buddhism at the time.
I must make it clear that 'snap judgement' was Rob’s coinage.
I thought the ‘lateral thinking’ introduction would provide a clue for readers to spot that I meant ‘painting sunflowers’ as in ‘painting a fence’ (as opposed to ‘painting a picture of sunflowers). It was asort of joke. I shall have to work harder on ‘the way I tell ‘em’.
The ‘gilding the lily’ was a reference to someone who would enhance, using paint, the actual petals of a flower (a bit like photoshopping as opposed to real shopping).
My problem with sparrows is exactly as yours. When watching them I cannot remember. Obviously there is a great deal to be confused about but the ground feeding Dunnocks should be a start.
I didn’t watch ‘Paul Merton's India Journey’ only because ‘Silent Witness’ was on at the same time and it was a good first episode (no doubt it will end weakly).
I like Merton on ‘Have I Got News for You’ and some other things (not Room 101) but do not see him as a Michael Palin. He is much less gentle.
I am a great admirer of Peter Kay. I am sure he works very hard at his craft but he is obviously a natural.
After viewing the Parky episode, I also watched his piece about dunking biscuits. Hilarious; I was in tears.
Reg:
Thanks for the further House / Hedge and Tree Sparrow info.
I should have looked in my book! (Blandfords ‘Birds in Colour’ 1974).
Jill;
Ditto as Reg re bods.
Thanks also for ‘clearing’ the matter of Peter Jones. But, as I avoid London like The Plague (or The Great Fire), I shall be unlikely to see for myself anyway.
May I suggest that staff attitudes are all down to training and local management. We were always impressed by the staff at Mansfield Tesco in the 70s. But Tesco’s training standards must have slipped because our Ollerton branch seems to rely solely upon the nature of the staff (and some are not so good).
4 TICKS:
The praise of the tatting (particularly, for me, yesterday’s ‘the web’) is all well merited. And well worth seeking a bigger audience. ‘How’, however, is not my bag.
Can we please have the Apple Cake recipes. Our grass is covered with fallings and we cannot keep up with preparing them. But the more variety the better.
Recipe exchange might be better done by email so I will start the ball rolling by sending an apple scone recipe (Bero book) via RG.
Sandra used to suffer agoraphobia in Asda, etc (the Nottingham one is huge). I was once paged over the tannoy as she had actually passed out. She also had her purse lifted after fainting in Woollie’s. Fortunately she seems to have largely got over it but she is still claustrophobic – avoids lifts if possible, esp small ones, and will not enter caves (had to be brought out of Blue John as a teenager).
She is a great fan of old-fashioned street shopping where the butcher sells meat, the greengrocer sells fruit & veg , etc (although our last sack of – very good – potatoes came from the butcher’s!).
Yes, mice do smell. The car yesterday was suffused. Not so rats. We had a white rat suddenly appear in our back garden in the 80s, obviously tame and friendly. Eventually we discovered that our teenaged son had been keeping it caged in the garage for six months before it escaped. Eventually it got flu and died but they are lovely pets. Years later, the same son’s daughter had one that would sit on one’s shoulder and travel down the arm for a sip of tea.
I am OK with Collared Doves but a friend (a keen and knowledgable bird watcher and RSPB volunteer) cannot stand their noise. Different strokes…
See above for sunflowers.
I give you my unqualified support if you want to ‘paint a picture of’ a sunflower. (Echoes of ‘Ceci n'est pas une pipe’ there, perhaps).
Like you (I think) I am quite strongly acrophobic. It is something which started in the 60s – but what didn’t (ask Philip Larkin). In 59, I went 20 feet or more up a ladder, open space all around, to measure the height of the brick arches in the Thoresby Estate Riding School (now a theatre) but by 1970 I only managed 3 steps up a ladder against the wall of a three storey building (aiming to inspect the guttering).
What an industrious child you were; at least a generation (eg, my mother’s) out of sync perhaps? (That is an obseravation not a criticism and certainly not intended to appear in the slightest offensive). You sound like a veritable ‘Little Woman’ Shirley Temple (or Judy in her Dorothy years).
RG
Like the face, it reminds me of Elvis Presley, who do you think it looks like? Hope you managed to mske it to the club this evening. I'd hate to think that your trip out to sample the Apple Cake resulted in your being too tired. Have e-mailed the recipes to RG for interested parties. Can't find any mention of Apple Scones in my Bero Book. Is yours older or newer than mine which is the 33rd. edition?
Fungi, as I think I said before, I don't pick them in the wild for eating.
Spiders, let me know if you have any luck with the study. I don't enjoy handling them and if it's a very large one I call himself to deal with it. I do put them out into the garden with the aid of my duster on a stick or the dustpan, whichever is nearest to hand when I encounter one.
The finest of stores in Nottingham for the best trained staff was, as far as we were concerned Pearsons. We do miss it. A good second were the staff in Jessops who seemed to disappear overnight when they became John Lewis.
I can't do railway footbridges, the space at the back of the step has a strange effect on me. Similarly floors made from mesh or with holes in, manhole covers and cellar access covers in pavements scare me stiff. Those holes in the road covered with a sheet of metal which you have to drive over because you can't turn round and take another route terrify me. Don't do heights or caves, I like my Blue John set in silver so that I can wear it when dressing up. Was taken out for dinner one evening when himself was judjing a model aircraft flying competition in Wales and was subjected to a horrifying trip on the canal which took us across the Pontcysyllte aqueduct. Can you imagine how I felt and of course the return journey was the same route in reverse. When it was all over I was stiff with fear. However, I always have taken great delight in climbing trees.
Been shopping in Beeston today and, as everywhere else we try to do our shopping, couldn't get everything we were looking for. I still want to emigrate.
I had to be an industrious child, born during WWII and the eldest female of 7 children I was taught needlecrafts, in particular Knitting. had to spend lots of time making winter woollies, jumpers, gloves, hats & scarves, balaclavas for the boys, pixie hats for the girls. Even socks. Loved listening to the radio whilst working at this and loved hearing singers and learning the words of songs. Yes Shirley Temple and Judy Garland as well as Petula Clark among others. Our family didn't get TV until after himself came and took me away from it all.
Have to go now, although there's no evening class tonight I still have to prepare a lesson for the Arts Group meeting in the morning.
Yes it is a face, but can't say it reminds me of anyone....
Bungus, I got your point about painting the sun-flower.....
4ticks, I was an only child but also had to knit pixie hats and blanket squares. I also did socks for 'our boys overseas' - I learned to knit at the age of four,. in an air-raid shelter, on 4 needles doing socks. I did the plain bit after someone had done the ribbing, then they turned the heel and I did the foot. I also did balaclavas. I was very happy doing this, sitting with the grown-ups and either reading or listening to the radio. We had tv for the coronation.
I don't mind spiders or any other creepy-crawlies. Don't like wasps though, have had some bad stings that ended up with me in A & E.
I'm no good on heights, ordinary lifts are OK but hate the glass-bottomed ones.
Enjoyed Paul Merton - but it will certainly make your eyes water, G! Tonight I'm watching another BBC4 prog about trains in literature.
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