The border on the left is, I admit, 'robust' but Y considers it OTT and brash. At the moment you can only see the red tulips, the yellow ones have still to come.I assure her it is Fauvist and André Derain with 'complimentary colours' but she remains unconvinced. As you can see from the foreground roses, we aren't going to have to wait till June to be ablaze.
Today has been dull and overcast and in need of some brightening-up anyway.
Yesterday's 'bottle-top garden' did very well on Ephotozine, gaining 13 ticks which is good for me. Some folks regularly score 25 plus.
So I thought I ought to show the bottle in question, in place on the kitchen window-sill.
As people can see, it isn't a complicated technique - just a matter of positioning the bottle so as to obtain a decent picture in the top, snap it, and then crop till you are satisfied with the result.I think it deserves to be Idea 6,332.
We've had a quiet pleasant day. Caught up on yesterday's papers and supplements. I cooked mackeral (so good for us) and chips, with courgettes and mushrooms. For pudding we had Long Eaton Easter Cake which was most pleasant.
David sent me 2 pictures via his mobile phone, one of characters at The Blist Hills Museum and the other a nice landscape from their caravan site. A minor problem is that I can't work out how to move the pictures from my mobile phone to my PC. But I'm sure I shall. When David rang me this morning he said that their weather has been gorgeous and bright, as against our dull and uninteresting. Apparently Sky was going to exchange her entire 'holiday tenner' into old-money at the Blist Hills Bank and spend it in the oldie worldie shops. The Museum is in fact a recreated Victorian Town and is great fun !
Picture 3 is a 'collage' of some of this mornings garden-birds. No Blue Tits or Great Tits, and certainly no Wren.The two on the bottom row are a Chaffinch, and a Sparrow (Tree, House, Dunnock ?) but I'm not at all sure about the top two.
Y has found 2 'birdsong' DVDs but I find that, if I can hear the bird singing, I can seldom see the bird and vice versa.
My responses to your previous comments
Yvonne ..... I know of your scaredness of birds, but of course you overcame it to reassure Millicent. Bob is quite right to identify your look as 'apprehensive' and Misty's as well. You did well to cope and at least to force a smile.
Bob .... Glad you are enjoying RhymeZone. There is such a lot there to browse around in.
Jill ..... Y is e-mailing you a picture of Millicent and I think that, when you see it, you also will feel that she doesn't look like a Milly.
Re the nationality of Owls I am at a loss. As nocturnal creatures I worry a little about them having to be 'on parade' each day, in the sunlight !
Re the source of 'expressions'. Chaucer of course is another good bet. 'Thin as a rake' - 'Dull as ditchwater' - 'Brown as a berry' - 'As Merry as the month of May' are just a few which spring to mind !
Re Eschallot sauce - Eschallots are of the onion family and it was just that Lidl had them in. We've used them before and found them delicious. If you open the link you will see that they hail from Palestine, which I didn't know.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, my Eschallot Sauce is onion sauce made with Eschallots.
Tilly ...... It is really good that you all had such a super day. The little birds look very dear.
..........................
Quotation time ......
"Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:
Unquiet meals make ill digestions"
Unquiet meals make ill digestions"
.
I too have struggled to try to transfer and open photos sent to my mobile as multimedia messages and been completely unsuccessful. I came to the conclusion that the compression system used is incompatible with anything on my computers. The picture is stored in the mobile as a jpg. and there is no problem when you can have the mobile in connecting it to the computer and transferring. A possible solution, which I have not yet got round to trying, is to ask the 'sender' to send the picture as an email to ones email address. In this way it should be possible to send the picture as a jpg. file that you can open in the usual way.
ReplyDeleteTo do this will require the 'sender' to have a suitable mobile phone that permits email sending. I will be very interested to know if you are successful.
Liked the quote - I am not familiar with Chaucer. I would have ascribed some of the ones you quote to Shakespeare....
ReplyDeleteBirds - I think the top two are chaffinches too, Mr. on the left and definitely Mrs. on the right, though I admit that the colouring of Mr's head is a bit different, but pattern on wing the same. Dunnock/Hedge Sparrow/Accentor bottom right, why a little brown bird has three names I don't know. I don't think it is even a member of the sparrow family? I call them dunnocks....
Never heard of eschallots before, now I know.
I think the garden photo looks a bit like Rousseau, wonder if there is a tiger lurking in there somewhere?
The Blist Hills Museum is indeed a most fantastic place. We visited last year when our friends got married in the upstairs room of the pub. It was all themed and it was great. We had old money to spend on real ale and stuff, as a gift from the bride and groom and there was music courtesy of a trio playing olde style stuff on the piano in the bar. An excellent wedding. In fact the best I've ever been to apart from my own that is....Great pic of Y yesterday. Nice to put a face to the name.
ReplyDeleteJill is quite correct with her bird identification. I suspect that top left is a last years male which hasn’t yet got its full mantle. She’s also right about the Dunnock which is not a member of the sparrow family but is sometimes incorrectly called a hedge sparrow. Apart from the colour the markings are really nothing like a sparrow. The beak is much thinner and you would know the difference if you heard it sing. It has quite a sweet song unlike the sparrow which can only chirp. We’ll have to keep an ear open for one on our next WOW
ReplyDeleteWatched ‘Groundhog Day’ on Sunday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteImmediately wanted to watch it again.
Current linguistic irritation:
The use of ‘would of’ instead of ‘would have’ (even in print).
BLOGCOMMENT
I’m with Yvonne – I never much fauved the Favours anyway.
I rather like the bottle itself; nice shape/proportions.
‘Eschallot’? ‘PAN-fried’? ‘FINE-beans’? Pretentious? Moi?
Good on ya. Do it myself. Fun. Rather like caravanners; harmless. Nobody gets hurt!
I think ‘Eschallots’ are what Netto call ‘Shallots’ and Marshall’s Seed Catalogue ‘Long Red Florence Onions’ (email follows). They’re OK.
Jill:
Name shortening is hard to stop
Sandra thought eldest son Simon's couldn’t be shortened/amended.
Result – Sim, Semen…
Daughter was always Stevie (her choice) until she REFUSED to answer to it in her 20s – since then it’s Stephanie or Steph if you want a response.
Daniel was Dan or Danny (which HE spells Dani).
All Jessica’s friends call her Jess (not heard Jessy yet) and I prefer Bob to Robert (which used to signify I was in trouble!).
Roy:
I’m sure you’re right
I know either House Sparrow or Hedge Sparrow has pointy beak but can never remember which!
Hedge Sparrow/Dunnock? Tito/Josip Broz? Eschallot/Onion? If it’s called it, it is it. Discuss.
Jill: Re. Chaucer - you should be reading my 'Great Books' (G.s blog of 28 March) .... I always think one of the most interesting things about him is that he didn't live around Shakespeare's time (late 16th century - Elizabeth I) but 200 years earlier in the reign of Edward III and Richard II. (Not my period but I know a lot about them too .......).
ReplyDeletePete: a question for your wife after your nice comment about my photo with the owl - why is it when I look in the mirror I have light brown hair but in any photo/video I become the old- woman who-lives-in-the-shoe with white hair?
Incidentally, may we see you in your lifeboat gear - I do love a man in uniform ...... One day, maybe, G. will print a photo of himself in uniform - he looked a corker.
Graham: Sadly, I'd never heard of Andre Derain until I read your link - but I suppose those of us who like the pre-Raphaelite dreamy pictures and Vermeer (my very favourite - what would I give to own 'The Kitchen-Maid') - are not up to date with modern pictures.
P.S. Is there anyone who reads the blog a size 10, 5'4" - Tracy has decided to refurbish her wardrobe and has brought me four binliners of super clothes - AND NONE OF THEM FIT ME!
P.P.S. Have you counted the words, Bob?
9.00 p.m.: Graham has been very unwell all day but is rallying now. I'm sure he'll be back tomorrow.
ReplyDelete