Day 356 - Music Night

dark beauty

Whilst pondering the imbalance betwixt the amount of music in my blog and the amount of music I've been involved with in the last half a century, it occurred to me that Friday Night is Music Night!

This is my trusty Yamaha APX10 steel string acoustic guitar.  It's a beautiful thing, and one of the best things about it is that it's very similar in feel to an electric guitar.

I'm an electric bluesman at heart, and to be honest, I've never really got on with acoustic guitars...in fact I only bought this guitar so that I could play with Jezz, who is an acoustic guitarist through and through. 

But I'm no great shakes on the acoustic...I can play a bit, bang out a few chords or riffs, or a little solo here or there...but I can't really make it into a full performance - I always want drums and bass to be playing over!

But over the years I've come across a few brilliant acoustic guitarists, who manage to get a really full, complete sound out of a guitar, in a variety of ways.

First up is Foy Vance with a sublime cover of the Jimi Hendrix song Crosstown Traffic...the video is poor quality, and out of sync with the audio...

...but wow, what a storming performance this is:


That just completely blows me away every time I listen to it...what wouldn't I give to be able to sing like that?!   I can play the guitar part pretty convincingly, but those vocals...

In a completely difference style, Antonio Forcione doesn't sing, but instead conjures an impressive variety of sounds from a single guitar, and plays with such soulful, bluesy funk that you can't help but get drawn into it:



He also does a great job of playing a bass line with his thumb whilst playing chords, melody and licks with his fingers...again, I would love to get my guitar to sound like that (albeit he has the sound soaked in forgiving effects more commonly associated with an electric guitar).

Then of course there's Tommy Emmanuel, the Australian genius who can make a solo acoustic guitar sound like...well, like this:



That white boy sho' can play!!

It's incredible how he seems to manage to play bass, rhythm, melody and lead guitar, all at the same time...

And so many notes in so short a time - always a winner with other guitarists!

Now, I can't believe I'm going to do this after those three amazing video's, but here's my little addition to the party.

This wasn't really a performance, more a simple recording to help me to remember the arrangement I'd written for the classic Hendrix electric guitar song, Voodoo Child.

The point is, the sound quality is dubious, and it starts fairly tentatively, taking me about two minutes to relax and get into it...and I'm wearing my pyjama's...

But anyway, here it is:



Several things strike me, having just watched that for the first time in ages and ages...

• Firstly - oh yeah, I do remember it now - so that worked!
• Secondly, didn't I look a lot younger back then (around 9 years ago)?!
• Thirdly, I'm sitting typing this in exactly the same place that I'm sitting playing that!

Somehow, that seems to conclusively prove that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Something like that, anyway.

Happy listening!

:-)

Day 355 - Pictures of Drawings Part Deux

horse drawn

Some of you may remember the most popular post of the first couple of months of this 365-day-blog, originally posted on Day 5 - Pictures of Drawings of Photos...

Well tonight, not much more than the same distance from the end of this blog, I can bring you a late update.

Anna was out of town for the day, which meant that I was on dog management duty...so I had arranged for Kim to have The Boy Wonder for the day, and I dropped him off with her this morning.  It's the first time I've left him anywhere else, and Kim's only met him a couple of times...

But it all went fine...albeit Robin didn't really fit Kim and Roob's tiny home...

Anyway, when I went round to pick up The Boy, Kim showed me two amazing drawings that she did last week.

I knew immediately that I'd found a blog subject for the day!

This beautiful horse is hand-drawn, using some sort of fine crayon pencils...and my photo really doesn't do it justice, the detail is remarkable!

And this elephant is drawn in pencil on grey paper...

eleghant

It's so intricately detailed, it's almost photo-realistic, and I find myself blown away all over again at how amazing and talented Kim is!

I'm so proud...though it's got absolutely nothing to do with me...Kim has worked hard to hone her natural skill and insightful eye, and deserves every credit for her artwork.

Great work, Kim!!

Also, just outside Kim's front door, were these two interesting mushrooms.  

last 'shroom standing

I've no idea what they are, but I spotted them immediately I arrived this morning.

It's always a relief to get an early Photo of the Day, even when said photo is ultimately usurped by a later, better subject, as in this case...but I wanted to post them anyway, to add to my growing collection of funghi photos.

Which reminds me, is the word "photos"...or is it "photo's"?!  

The frustrating thing is, both are correct.

It's the plural of the word "photo", and as such, an "s" can simply be added to the end, with no apostrophe required.  

But the word "photo" is itself a contraction of the word "photograph", and so in the word "photo's", the apostrophe represents the missing letters "graph"...

The point is, every time I type the word - which is relatively often, given that this is a blog where I post photo's(!!) - I have to wrestle with the dilemma of which version to use.

During the early days of this blog, I tended to use "photos" (or even "phtotos" in one memorable example (apparently!))...

Then for the rest of the blog I've mainly used "photo's"...but now I find myself more on the fence than ever.

Frustrating, n'est ce pas?!

Damn photos....argh!!

;-/|

Day 354 - Halogen Heater Hogs

soggy sunrise

Sunrise through melting ice-water...there's a photo it hadn't occurred to me to pursue for my blog!

I nearly missed it, to be truthful...I got in the car, switched on the electric windscreen heater, and sat for a moment, marvelling as the icy glass gradually cleared to reveal the lovely morning sun.

As I waited for it to clear, I suddenly realised I was missing a great photo opp, which was rapidly disappearing as the ice melted.

I'm not sure I quite caught the beauty of it as I saw it at the time, but it's a nice effect nonetheless. 

Of course, it was long dark by the time I arrived home at nearly 7pm, so there was no chance of the evening equivalent.

However, in the house, I found they were playing Fantasy Sunset.

You remember that electric halogen heater I mentioned yesterday?  Well as I wasn't home the fire wasn't lit - and therefore, there was a queue for said heater.

Queen Loz was first in line, as you'd expect...

warm me!

As soon as Loz vacated the spot, The Treacle SpongeBob moved in for his turn, with his trusty sidekick, The Big Yellow Snake, in his mouth...

what, me? no, it just fell out...

The Boy Wonder, in all his wondrousness, has decided that the appropriate course of action to take with his indestructible, dog-proof, ruff'n'tuff(tm) stuffed snake, is to tear a hole in it and de-stuff it, sharpish. 

This is apparently endlessly amusing, not least as the crazy synthetic stuffing seems to go on forever!

As a nice little bonus, once a decent pile of stuffing has been thus acquired, it can be immediately re-purposed as a handy chin-rest...

basking

Being at the back of the queue, as I am, I don't even bother fighting for my turn at the heater...but that's ok because:

I am man, I bring fire!  B-)

I just get the actual fire going, that kicks out some proper heat!

...and then I can't get near it for the rest of the evening as it's utterly hogged by Anna and the Animals (another good band name right there!).

On a final note for the day, you may have noticed a new feature down the right of this page, below the Popular Posts section - Labels.

I went back to the beginning of my blog, and started applying labels to each post indicating their content.   The Labels display shows them in cloud format, where the size of the word is representative of the number of times that label has been applied. 

I'm going to try to add a few more labels each night, and see if I can get caught up by the time I finish the blog in...ooh, only about 11 or 12 posts time!

I'm very curious to see what patterns will emerge!

:-)

Day 353 - Warmer Winter?

shiny

Well, would you check out the swanky bathroom window on our house!

Not much to write home about, I know...although come to think of it, this blogging malarkey is in some ways the opposite of writing home - it's more like writing away!

But I digress...

The point is, those of you who are (probably painfully) familiar with our bathroom will no doubt recall (with horror) the utter skankfest that it was before.

But yesterday, only several years after four of our old, leaking, draughty, single pane, rusty metal framed windows were replaced by sparkly white plastic ones, they returned to replace the remaining seven!

I have to say they do look really nice inside the house (especially by comparison), although they have made a bit more of a mess outside...where there's still been no remedial work done...our car park is like a building site - very muddy...all the slabs in the garden are broken, including the main path, so we have to step carefully through the mud in order to get from car to house, or vice versa...now we have random scaffolding strapped to the house...who knows how long before they come back to retrieve that.

But anyway, I've lived here for nearly 10 years now, and it's always been a chilly house.   

When first I was here, we were fairly poor...we only have electricity (no gas or oil), and so the heating is via electric storage heaters.  These are notable for their very high running expenses, coupled with spectacular thermal inefficiency. 

Matched with no loft insulation, no cavity wall insulation, very poor fitting doors and cold, damp, not even remotely sealed windows, and it could get fairly bleak here in the winter. 

One winter in particular I was here on my own and couldn't afford the electricity, so went through the cold months with virtually no heating other than a cheap, 400W halogen heater...it wasn't roasting hot by any means, and you had to sit right next to it to feel any benefit, but at least it gave off a lovely warm glow!

We still use it now, before we have got the fire on of an evening.

Of course, I was here for a few years before I even realised I had an open fire - there was an electric bar heater stood in front of the fireplace, which I never used, and which I always assumed was attached to the wall...turned out it was just free-standing, right in front of a simple, yet functional fire place.

Over intervening years, lots has changed...

Apart from discovering fire, I insulated the loft too...  a few years ago some of the windows were replaced, and a couple of years ago, the cavity walls were (shoddily) insulated. 

Even with all that though, the house was still unpleasantly cold...the chilly draughts howling through the front door were matched only by the icy air falling down from the un-heated upstairs.

So I wasn't exactly over-burdened with optimism that the remaining windows would make much difference...there's still the extremely leaky front and back door to leech out all the warmth, after all. 

Then yesterday evening, the first with the new windows, it seemed a little warmer in the house...I dismissed that this represented an improvement, on the grounds that it seemed fairly mild outside, as it has been of late. 

However, this evening, it's very cold out!   I have excellent warm winter clothing, but walking the dog this evening, my face and fingers suffered from the bitter cold for the first time this year. 

Before taking The Boy Wonder down the lane, we put the oven on in readiness for our return...and were very pleasantly surprised to return to a warm kitchen...the oven had actually appreciably affected the temperature of the room!!

That's never happened before in all the years I've been here - the kitchen is always cold!

It was lovely though, and it's made me realise how much I miss living in a warm house.

Maybe we're in for a warmer winter than we've become used to...

What luxurious decadence!

:-)

Day 352 - Remembrance

down by the canal

Most days now, it seems as though the only real chance I have of getting a Photo of the Day is during my drive to work in the morning...otherwise I'm indoors, and/or it's dark...

Fortuitously, there are regular traffic issues on my route, and I often end up being stationary for a few minutes...less often, I'm in a place where there is something of interest in view...much less often again, I remember to actually take a photo!

Today I was sitting in a queue waiting for the traffic lights to turn green to get through some roadworks just north of Brinklow, when I realised I could see the boats lined up along the Oxford Canal, down through the hedgerow to the side of the road.

The photo seems to reflect my hazy memories of the canals - the details somewhat obscured by all the stuff between there and here (or then and now)...

When I was a child, way back in the 60's , my maternal grandparents bought a canal boat...it wasn't one of the traditional narrow boats, rather a small cabin cruiser, as they were known. 

Over the next decade, they upgraded twice to successively bigger boats, and they were named Jofresco I, II and III - Jo standing for my Aunt Jo and her husband John, fre being the first three letters of my grandparents surname, Frearson, and sco being the beginning of my parents surname. 

Here is the only photo I have to prove any of that...

motley crew

This is Jofresco I, complete with a selection of my closest relatives, taken around 1966 or 67...

My Mum is on the bow, then (from left to right), my sister Debs, my Great Aunt May (or some such aunt-ish relation), my Dad steering, then my Grandpa and Grandma Frearson (Arthur and Molly). 

We had lots of holidays on the canals, and the canals always remind me of my grandma and grandpa...and also of water voles (scarce these days, but common back then), locks (noisy, powerful, scary, exciting things!), and tunnels (dark and dank and creepy and quiet)...

I don't know why I'm not in this photo...although somewhere in existence, there is a German holiday brochure extolling the wonders of British Waterways, that uses as its front cover a full colour photo of this boat, with me (aged around 4), my sister (aged around 5), and Grandma sitting on the bow, with Grandpa driving (or I suppose more correctly, piloting)...

I wonder if I'll ever see that photo again?!

Having said all that about no chance of getting a good photo, I just had an opportunity to capture a moment at home, that I couldn't resist taking...

Here's Queen Loz on Minion Anna's lap, and The Boy Wonder lying to the side. 

contact

They're just dozing by the fire, but notice that The Killer Queen has one of her back feet and her tail actually touching Treacle SpongeBob.

touchdown

You can see that it's not just resting lightly, there is a little pressure there.  

This is one of the first times they've made physical contact in this way, and almost certainly the first time when they've been relaxed and sleepy with it. 

Good progress, I'm sure they'll be snuggling up together against the winter cold before long!

:-)

Day 351 - Get Loz'd

all aboard

Have I had any selfies on my blog yet?  I'm not sure that I have...possibly...in any case, as it seems to be The Year of the Selfie, it would be rude not to include one...

First thing this morning, as I was sitting in my chair waiting for full awake to arrive, Loz came and settled on my lap, as she is wont to do of a morning. 

As soon as she's had her breakfast (or whilst waiting for it), she loves to come and sit on my lap.  Sometimes she will even herd me towards my chair in an attempt to get me to sit. 

Immediately I sit down, she'll sneak in and settle down, purring happily.  If I have time, I'm happy for the warmth, and if I'm working from home that day she'll sleep on my lap for most of the morning.

Usually I don't have time, and I have to jump up before she settles in. 

Having a warm lump of furry, purry cat on your lap can have quite a soporific effect, though...in our house it's referred to as being Loz'd..."I got Loz'd!" is a common (and accepted) explanation for having fallen asleep in my chair (again)...

Anyway this morning I got Loz'd, but before I'd fallen asleep, The Boy Wonder decided he wanted to join in the fun. 

He got his front paws up and across my belly, and wanted to climb on fully...but fortunately he accepted my firm "no" without complaint, instead choosing to simply settle where he was.

So I had both of them laying on me like this for about half an hour, which made for a warm and pleasant Sunday morning, thanks!

Once I'd eventually removed them, I realised that the day had warmed and brightened considerably after the early mist, so I wandered out with the camera to try to catch a photo of the tiny wren that's been flitting around the hedgerow for the last few days.

I completely failed to spot him.

However, I did catch a glimpse of one of our winter visitors, the fieldfare...

'fare play

There are loads of these out in the fields and hedgerows, but they're quite skittish and fly off at the first hint of human (or maybe it's just me)...

I also got a shot of a magpie in the big tree over the road...

more 'pie

I thought I hadn't got a magpie on the blog yet, but on checking, it turned out that I had...

Only two more weeks to go, and it's apparently getting trickier to avoid repeating myself!

:-)

Day 350 - Typically Atypical

sunny

Have you noticed that as time goes by, abnormal weather is becoming increasingly, well...normal?

Two days until December, and we have had a gloriously warm, sunny day, with fresh green winter wheat growing in the fields and fresh green grass growing in the borders.

The Boy Wonder seemed to glow in the low sun, as he foraged in the soggy soil at the top of the hill. 

A few minutes later, amongst the trees not 100m from here, the light was very different...

shady

A spooky stillness sat over the woods, the peace only disturbed by the intermittent caws and squawks of crow and blackbird.

Robin seemed to sense it too...at one point he just stopped and stood perfectly still for a minute or two...

stillness

He didn't seem to to want to cast disruptive ripples through the quietness any more than we did. 

I love these woods...

They're like a huge, natural cathedral, and coming here soothes my soul in the same way that I imagine going to church soothes the soul of the committed Christian.

I think it's fair to say that Nature is my religion, if I have one. 

It was up in these woods that our trailcam was stationed earlier this week, and I promised to edit the highlights together and upload them...





Stay tuned until the end for a little bonus scene... ;-)

In other news, one downside of having a lovely big blonde dog is the amount of hair he sheds...we have to hoover through the whole of the downstairs of the house every other day, as a minimum.

Brushing him once a week helps a little, and we're hoping that his raw food diet will help his coat.  His fur is feeling a little oilier than before, but not in a bad way.  He feels soft and silky, and looks really nice. 

But this is two days worth of shedding...

animal

This is part of a Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner, and I'm not sure it's going to survive the strain of this dog much longer...

But he does seem to be really enjoying the new diet, and it's not proving too onerous or distasteful to us, so fingers crossed that the shedding eases a little!

:-)

Day 349 - A Tale of Two Jugs

solid

I had to ask The Boy Wonder to save you from what would otherwise be an exceptionally dull photo of these two jugs...you're welcome!

As it's Friday night, and therefore both you and I are low on interest, being rather more keen to get our collective freedy neet's on, I'm going to simply tell you a little story...

A tale of two jugs... 

For years, I would enhance Jazz and Bluez' kibble (dried dog food) with a thin marmite soup, which I would make by melting a little marmite in boiling water, then cooling a little before pouring it over their dinner. 

I always made it in the same Pyrex jug, which was never used for anything else, and was kept by the sink, rather than in a cupboard.

Anna and I are partial to scrambled eggs now and then, but preparing them in a plastic jug was frustrating and liable to end up with sticky egg all over the kitchen...so Anna bought a second Pyrex jug, identical in every way except for the surface scratches from years of stirring marmite soup in it, with a steel fork. 

This new jug was kept in the cupboard by the cooker, and that, combined with the age-worn look of the older one meant that there was no chance of confusion.

Indeed for a few years this system ran smoothly and surely, with never a hint of confusion and no problems whatsoever...

Even after The Legend JazzyB died, we left it in the same place, not wanting to do anything that signified acceptance of his passing...his food bowl, his collar and lead, even his old slippers still linger around the house to this day.  

I suppose I don't want all those little signs of him not to be here any more.  

The Treacle Spongebob even found an old bone of The Bloozer's, stashed under the storage heater, which (true to his ancestral breeds) he happily retrieved, and has had a good gnaw on several times since.

So all was well and good...until we went to Fontainebleau in September this year.

We left the house and cats in charge of house/cat-sitters, giving nary a thought to the possible fate of these two poor jugs.

Upon returning home, weary from our climbing adventures and a long car journey, something seemed wrong, out of place...but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Some days later, when scrambled eggs were on the menu, I found the jugs huddled together, cowering shamefully in the bottom of the cupboard, inextricably entwined...

And I really mean inextricably.

Having tried hot water, oil, hot and cold water, and of course a liberal dose of brute force, they really are not letting go of each other.

For a few months since, I've adopted a strategy of really hoping that they'll somehow come unstuck...but for reasons unknown this seems to be a completely ineffective strategy, making no measurable difference whatsoever.

Poor jugs, I fear they are doomed to the recycle bin and whatever horrors await them during the recycling process.

:-/

Day 348 - Mist-eerie-ous Ent

fogness

It was a beautifully atmospheric, foggy, November morning when I arose this morning, although my perspective was possibly biased by the fact that I was working from home today, and therefore didn't need to go out driving cross-country through it...

In any case, I loved the look of the leafless, skeletal trees in the misty damp morning light...in this case I particularly like the ivy (or whatever evergreen it is) that is wrapped around the main trunk...the tree looks like an Ent, waving his long arms in the air, and wearing a nice thick puffy coat, to protect him from the winter chill...

Whilst perched on the planting trough outside our lounge window, trying to get a clear shot of the misty tree, I noticed a pair of Eurasian collared doves in the tree in next door's garden.

nice collar

Typically, the two doves that were there were constantly hassling each other, and flapping about the tree noisily...I didn't get a single decent shot after this, the first one.

However, I then noticed a great spotted woodpecker on the peanut feeder lower down the same tree...

woody?

I took about a dozen shots of him, but at no point did he move around the feeder to provide me with a decent view...but at least there's enough to show that it is indeed a great spotted woodpecker!

At lunchtime I took The Boy Wonder up to the woods to retrieve the trailcam, which had been up there for a few days by now.

It was another successful mission, capturing several new species on video, as well as some old friends...when I have an hour or two to spare over the next few days, I'll mix the highlights into another short youtube movie, and put up a bonus post...

I think there's a tendency to think that the British countryside is fairly dull, as we have no significant predators any more...but I hope my blog demonstrates that there's incredible diversity of life all around.

I've been living and walking out in the woods and fields daily for years, and it's fair to say that it takes a few years to start to tune in to the wildlife that is in evidence.  Every passing year, I see more and more, read the signs better, intuit what I might see where more effectively (Anna is brilliant at this...).

However, it's taken the dozens of species I've managed to actually photograph this year, to really demonstrate to me the full breadth and depth of what's out there.

I really must compile a list as a sort of feature post, and a log of the many and varied species we've seen.

In't all this wildlife brilliant!?

:-)

Day 347 - Murky Musings

soggy old tree

You may remember the incongruous cormorant that I spotted last week, sat up high in a tree?  Well this is that tree, taken just before it slides behind the hedgerow and out of my view.

This morning, as I was driving to work, traffic was a little more chaotic than usual, the weather a little more inclement, and my energy a little more jaded than is the norm these days (due to the ongoing lurgy situation).

As I reached my halfway point, the roads were running with water and clogged with more cars than usual...it quickly became clear that I was going to be there for a while (20 minutes, as it turned out).

I sat there feeling tired(!) and with dampened spirits, pondering how difficult it was going to be to get a photo today, unless there's some sort of clarion call for more photo's of The Boy Wonder - which clearly isn't going to happen.

I realised that the miserable weather might make an interesting subject, so started snapping away.  As I approached the centre of the jam I remembered that I'd been wanting to get a photo of the tree, and now might make a good opportunity.

As it happened, this was the last photo I took, and the only one that isn't full of traffic jam.  I've no idea how I managed to to get a shot with no other vehicles in it at all, as I'd been surrounded by them throughout.

But somehow the shot captured the feel of the morning in all its murky dampness, and the fact that I possibly had a PotD in the bag already lifted my spirits somewhat.

I actually like very rainy days like today.  I don't even mind being out in it, as long as I'm dressed warmly.  I find stormy Autumnal days to be atmospheric and evocative.

Having said that, I'd much rather be out, cold and damp, walking the dog in the fields, than sitting warm and dry in a traffic jam!

Another thing I've been pondering is next year's challenges...I have a few thoughts.

Rather than blogging next year, on each day I'm going to read the blog post from the same date a year earlier.

I'm also going to put the whole blog into a book (or a series of books, given the extent of it!).

I have a few of this years challenges to catch up on, notably a few climbing ambitions and a few other bits and bobs.

I'll hopefully complete Anna's 35 Challenge with her (whatever it turns out to be), in Fontainebleau in the Spring.

But I think my priority is musical...

I want to use all that lovely time that I won't be blogging to do something productive musically.  Perhaps I'll write and record some songs.  I do want to start playing the guitar more, and develop my looping skills.  And I'd still like to follow up on the improvisational live music thing I was hinting at early in the year.

Oh, and I also want to move house...and get a new car!

Hmm, seems like I've maybe overloaded my plate again - but that strategy did make for an interesting, eventful and insightful year this year...

So why not aim high again?!

I love it when a plan starts to come together...

B-)

Day 346 - Dog in the Dark

in the spotlight

Honestly, if it wasn't for this dog, I've no idea what I'd be bringing you in the way of daily photo's, as we head into the last few weeks of this epic adventure.

Today has been a bit of a mess, quite frankly...

As consciousness rudely intruded upon my slumber, the infection that has been lurking for the last couple of days in my sinuses and chest made itself immediately felt...no improvement then, great.

I struggled to wake, and ended up leaving for work late, having forgotten to shave, which is quite unlike me.

We'd had the first hard frost of the winter, and my car was iced up to the extent that I had to go back for tepid water, and one of the doors was frozen shut and took some budging.

On the way to work, it was obviously chillier than of late, so several drivers felt it prudent to stick around 30mph, despite virtually normal road conditions...grrr... 

I had a a busy day at work, eventually leaving just before 6pm and so not getting home until 7pm.  

We walked SpongeBob down the lane, where it was very dark.  I noticed how white his bum is in my powerful head-torch light (still on its first charge, w00t!), so played around taking some photos with that as the only light source (the head torch, not his bum - although he sometimes does behave as though the sun shines out of it).

Mostly they were a bit rubbish, as I'm sure you'd expect by now, but this one isn't too bad...I like the effect of the bright dog in a sea of inky blackness.

After walking him, we had to go to Sainsbury's to do the weekly shop, and whilst there, I twisted my knee...I was just hanging about by the pastries, resisting buying all the doughnuts whilst Anna nipped back for red peppers (although she came back with red wine...huh?), and idly doing some twisty balance problems on one foot.  

Somehow, whilst twisting my knee, I sort of, erm...twisted my knee, which is still sore now. 

On the way back to the car a pack of biscuits (yeah I didn't resist those) fell out of the shopping cart and I ran over them with the cart, breaking the packet open in the process.

Once home, I waited until a critical point in the dinner-making process, then randomly threw a raw egg onto the floor of the kitchen. 

Ten minutes later, I trod in the foamy cleaning product that Anna had put down where I'd dropped the egg, and walked it around the kitchen a bit.

It's now 11pm and I've just eaten...I think I need just sit and try not to do anything for a bit...

Although I feel rough as a dog (not one of our dogs of course), everything hurts, and I still need to shower...damn...

It seems to me like there's one phrase that pops up time and time again throughout my blog, and could quite reasonably be used as the subtitle for the whole thing, after the usual strap-line...

Over the Hill, and Picking Up Speed!
(I'm so tired...)

:-zzzz

Day 345 - Shoddy Snaps

crap photo # 1

The light was amazing when I got up early this morning, so I immediately took some photo's with my phone.

I suppose I should have gone to get the camera...but it was early, I was tired, it was cold, I wanted to get on with some work (I know, right?!)...

So anyway I just rattled off a few shots on my phone, none of which did the morning any sort of justice at all...that'll learn me!

On the subject of failed and/or poor quality photo's, this afternoon I tried to get a shot of The Boy Wonder playing with his big yellow snake...

crap photo # 2

This time I managed to fail on several counts...glare on the lens from the low sun, too slow a shutter speed for such a bouncy dog, generally horrible framing...when I tell you that this was the best of the dozen or so photo's I took, you'll perhaps understand just how bad they were on average...

They were (again) taken on my phone though, so contrary to what I said above, apparently that won't learn me!

It seems it's getting harder to get a decent photo for the blog, so it's perhaps as well that there's only another 20 posts to go after this one...

It's probably cheating a bit, but I'll flesh this post out with this amazing video that Top Commenter Andy sent me a link to...





This video blew me away...such maturity in both her singing and her guitar playing, for one so young...although in fairness, I guess she's probably a little older than she looks to me (me being an old fart and all (although not quite such an old fart as Andy :-p )).

But still, wonderfully tasteful, restrained and classy jazz...

Very much reminds me of the first time I saw Eva Cassidy playing and singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Thanks for the intro Andy!

B-)


PS Oy, Isham - are you seriously refusing to come to see me for my birthday??

Day 344 - Dog Treat

choices

We're currently on a mission to find toys for The Wonder Boy, that he'll find stimulating and interesting...So we took him for a trip to the pet shop, to see what we could find.

We were hoping to find something he can chew on; to exercise his jaw, consume some energy, and satisfy him psychologically.

I'm not sure why, but Treacle Spongebob loves going out in the car. 

When I opened the door to let him out to go to the loo this morning, he looked at me as if I was crazy, and took on a distinctly disdainful air at the suggestion of going out into the light rain.

An hour later, I got his lead and called him again to the back door, and he still showed a reluctance to go outdoors...we decided not to take him for a walk, but to simply go straight to the pet shop. 

I went out to clear the boot space, and came back for the dog...as soon as he saw the boot of the car open, he found his enthusiasm, bounced straight over to it and hopped in!

In the pet shop he was like...well, like a dog in a pet shop! 

Not only was there a smorgasbord of toys and treats and tasty tidbits, liberally spread along every aisle, but there were also people, and more excitingly, lots of other dogs!

Biggles got to meet an enthusiastic golden retriever, a wary but dominant young black lab bitch, a fat bernese mountain dog, a pair of red setters, a jack russell terrier type, some kind of bull dog cross, and a couple of other random small dogs that I have to confess, I didn't pay much attention to. 

He was reasonably well behaved, given all the over-stimulation, and we asked him to let us know which treats and toys he preferred.

He nosed through the soft toys, and any he showed interest in, we picked up and offered to him.  Judging by his response to each one, we gradually homed in on the ones he most liked.

Robin quite liked one particular toy which consisted of a short length of rope attached to a hard plastic ball.  Not only does it have chewable rope, but if you do the death shake thing (as dogs are wont to do) with it, you sometimes get smacked around the face by the ball...bonus!

Curiously the thing he liked most was a yellow snake. It's a big fluffy thing about 2 feet long, with a rope or some such inside, and a squeak in its head.  

Sure enough, since being home he has played with the snake a fair bit, and seems to really like it.    Fortunately he only finds the squeak once in a while, so it surprises him, and hasn't yet annoyed us.

We took him for a walk in the later afternoon, when the sun was low in the sky, and I got another nice autumn shot of the fading day.

autumnal afternoon

I quite like these crops of the skyline, especially with an interesting or dramatic sky, and I think there are two or three of them scattered through this blog now.

Oh well, I think that's it, from a slightly uninspired Sunday...

Sorry about that...I'll try to be more interesting tomorrow!

:-)