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Windhovery
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| I have been at Twickenham today in the blazing sunshine, watching Harlequins v Leicester in the Aviva Premiership Final. We had tickets right up in the Gods, or Upper Tier, and spent a good 10 mins actually getting there - walking up a huge ramp like something from a nightmarish never-ending multi storey carpark.
The view was worth it though: ( Read more... ) | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | MOT | | Time: | 04:50 pm |
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| Took my car in for its MOT this afternoon. The bad news is it failed, the good news is it was only because of a broken headlamp bracket. However the second bit of bad news is that the shop is keeping it in overnight, and fixing/re-testing tomorrow. So I had to walk home. And today is the first hot day of the year (at least it seems like it), so right now my brow is bathed in moisture, and my feet likewise.
*flops
p.s. And as I was typing this, I had that feeling on the back of my neck that told me I was being watched. Turned round and found myself staring into the eyes of a black cat, sitting in the middle of my carpet. He/she was wearing a swish scarlet collar, and a gold name tag, but fled before I could read it.
Clearly the first open back door of the summer has led to an immediate upsurge in housebreaking and attempted burglary. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| So how about nature - are we for it or are we against it?
Early yesterday morning I looked out of my back door and saw a blue tit systematically flying from point to point on my rose bush, picking off all the aphids and eating them. Hoorah for nature, I thought.
Then a little later I went into the garden to examine my newly planted tomato seedlings, which I had planted out in a growbag the day before. All still and alive and well - except for one, now absent and with an incriminating silvery trail traced to the place of its demise. Boo for nature.
A few steps further, and I discovered that one of the neighbourhood cats had decided to open a public toilet under my rotary dryer.
A few steps further still and I caught a slug - in the act - consuming a tendril of lavender, which again I had planted only the previous day. I tore him away, still munching, and propelled him with some force over my garden fence.
This afternoon I bought slug pellets. And I'll do something nasty to that cat too, if it's not careful.
On a brighter note, marvel at the rude health of these pansies, grown all the way from seed by yours truly:( Read more... ) | | comments: 21 comments or Leave a comment |
| The Bank Holiday weekend is disappearing fast in the rear mirror now, but before it fades completely in a cloud of exhaust fumes, here is a very brief summary of my travels.
I took Friday off, to make a four day weekend, got up early and drove south to East Sussex, stopping en route at Stedham to admire their yew tree and then visting the national nature reserve at Kingley Vale.
You might wonder why I haven't pictured the yew tree at Stedham - and the answer is that, impressive though one ancient yew tree is, Kingley Vale features a yew tree forest, the biggest in western Europe apparently, and with trees well over 500 years old, and probably a lot older.
It's dark and spooky in a yew tree wood. The photos capture a little of it, but you really have to be there - and to have walked a mile or two from the car park and up a stiff slope for the privilege: ( Read more... ) | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| These past couple of weeks I have mainly been out admiring the effects of Spring, which have had a boost from the deluge of rain - and then from a respite from that rain in the last few days. So here we go with a few of the flowers and creatures I've come across:
I shall kick off with some ridiculously scenic buttercups. Blue sky, contented cattle, and a sea of yellow:( Read more... ) | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| Greetings LJers
You find me in Chichester, taking advantage of the free wifi in the Bull Inn, and drinking excellent bitter beer, and contemplating their unique (in my experience) collection of potato mashers. Seriously, they have potato mashers of all shapes and sizes bolted to the wall.
( Read more... )
I was up early this morning, and have contemplated ancient yews in several locations, visited three churches and one cathedral, and also a Roman Palace.
This was Fishbourne, which last benefitted from my patronage during my teenage years. When I arrived there were two school coaches in the carpark, which struck fear into my soul. But once I walked in, there was only blessed peace. And then, reader, I got careless. I let myself get suckered in to the 12 min introductory film, and an artifact handling session, and the next time I turned round there were 50 plus pre-teens surging around me, and all peace was gone. They are a bit like shrill puppies at that age mind you. I was actually a bit sad to have to break it to a small enthusiast in the gift shop that she couldn't buy a (wooden) Roman sword and a t-shirt showing a bear dressed in Roman armour for £5.
Fishbourne only really has one international class mosaic. Everything else is fractured, inferior, mundane or destroyed. But a lot of scholarship has gone into the museum, and it was nice to see it all again. And to contemplate a king of the Atrebates, welcoming the Romans into Britain in 43AD, giving them a base for the invasion of the rest of us, and rewarded with a palace for his efforts. Tribalism rules. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's Sunday morning, it's with pouring with rain (I can hear it battering against my front door right now) and I have slept the sleep of the justly knackered, after putting 22,000 paces on my pedometer yesterday out on the hunt for birds. It was raining yesterday too, of course. But there's a particular satisfaction in going out in foul weather, when dressed correctly, and willing to return home soaked and plastered to the knees in mud.
Most of my photos are sadly of blurry, rain soaked dots on the horizon, which I would have to assure you were rare, interesting birds. But I did take a few shots from inside my car, of the two level crossings I have to negotiate to get to a particular gravel pit. There's a canal and a railway line running in parallel - and a level crossing for each.( Read more... )*wonders if there are any other types of level crossings I have not yet sampled the joys of*
ETA: I did go out in the end, despite the weather.
There were fallen trees:( Read more... ) | | comments: 9 comments or Leave a comment |
| The front entrance to my office is inside the police cordon mentioned here. Luckily the back entrance isn't (not that I'm going home for a few hours yet):
http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16217431
Meanwhile, our office support staff have put out snacks in the kitchen for anyone who didn't manage to get out for lunch. *plays uplifting music*
ETA: the back entrance is inside the cordon too now.
ETA2: And now he's been carted off by the police and it's all over. | | comments: 25 comments or Leave a comment |
| | I've been out at a colleague's leaving do this evening - it was a fun party, and Young's Gold is a very decent beer. I am willing to give it a testimonial. Not so the dazzlingly pretty Asian American girl who served me a short measure of said London Gold. I insisted on a top up - and ignored her on round 2 in favour of a squat, hairy Kiwi guy who served me a proper pint. Hmph. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | I was out in the wilds of west Berkshire yesterday, on the hunt for a pair of ring ouzels. The ring ouzels have chosen the highest hill in the area, which is crowned with a gibbet, put up in 1676 for a couple called George Broomham and Dorothy Newman. They would have lived and died in obscurity if not for the fact that they had an affair - and when it was discovered by George's wife, they murdered both her and her son. The gibbet's been replaced many times, and nobody else was ever suspended from it, so I imagine it just proved to be a handy local landmark. For example, it is now the chosen image on the Newbury Ordnance Survey map, which I was clutching in my hand as I walked:( Read more... ) | | comments: 14 comments or Leave a comment |
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Windhovery
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