Day 136 - Funky Li'l Dude

international toadlet rescue

So this is what Anna calls "work".  

After going in to work early, to attend a meeting to resolve a challenging staffing issue, I then spent a full day in a course on Public Sector Finance and Budgeting...

(I can feel you all falling asleep as I type that...don't panic, I'm moving right along...)

Anna spent the day hunting for snakes, and playing with toadlets and newts.  I think that's right, let me try to recall what she said, exactly...

Loads of work...blah blah...quite stressed....blah blah...SNAKE HUNTING...blah blah, relentless demands...blah blah...RESCUED A TOADLET...blah blah...no time to think....blah blah...GREAT CRESTED NEWTS...long, tiring day...blah blah...

So yeah, I think I was about right, mostly just playing with cute animals. 

Toads are pretty cool, aren't they?  I used to have one living in a hole next to the path in my garden.  If I peered into it, I would see him hunkering down at the bottom, looking up at me.  

Yep, I had a toad in my hole...I'm sure you can all enjoy yourself with that one - you're welcome.

But this was before Anna and the cats lived here (good band name - Anna and the Cats!)...not sure I've seen him since....hmm

Anyway he was a funky li'l dude...he'd come in the house once in a while and freak Bluez out.   
I'd find Bluez in the hall, in a closed loop of barking indignantly at something by his bed, sniffing it, retching at the smell, barking indignantly at it, then sniffing it, retching....and so on. 

Not the sharpest tool in the box, our Bluez...

Next up, Female Great Crested Newts don't seem to have a crest...

show us your crests

What's up with that?!  

I bet if you were a male great crested newt, meeting up with this female having hooked up via an internet dating service, you'd be all like, "Woah dude, wtf?!  Your ad said you had great crests...was that a really old photo, or what?"...

And just to show you that I took a photo myself today too, here is a cool spider web on the privet hedge under our bedroom window.

practising to deceive

The whole hedge was covered with them this morning, and it was foggy and damp too.  I took this photo at around 7.30am, just to get a banker in for the day.  I could have worked with it, had Anna not come up trumps with the amphibian wrangling snaps. 

Apropos of nothing - just to keep you in the loop really (whoever you are) - Andy asked an interesting question in the comments on yesterday's blog;

"Actually, I WAS wondering how you were going to crank up without annoying the neighbours, which I'm sure you don't want to do."

I bet you don't even know why that's an interesting and insightful question!  It is though, isn't it Andy?   I'm going to address that tomorrow, I think.

(psst, everyone else...I apologise in advance for tomorrow's geeky blog post about how to get  a decent guitar sound indoors - it's Andy's fault, blame him...)

Then he asked, "Why has the prove you're not a robot thing changed from legible numbers to the usually indecipherable letters I wonder." the answer to which escapes me (and to be honest the question mostly escapes me too).

Andy concludes this literally wonderful post by helpfully pointing out that "That's two wonders". 

I presume he's talking about the act of wondering, rather than the word wonder...cos there's three of those...

Just sayin'...