Sky Watch - Reflective Mood

The sky over my little portion of Great Britain has been full of grey these past few days and so I've reverted to doing what I do best when the weather is inclement - cooking!

Here my cooking utensils are reflected in the glass trivet - along with a piece of that grey sky!

For more Sky Watchers visit Tom at Wiggers World.

1930's Husband? Me?

Found this at Mrs Nesbitts Place

102 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

ABC Wednesday - W is for.....

Let's face it, without this none of us would be here doing what we do. We'd probably never have heard of each other. Our paths would never have crossed. Many a hobby and interest would never have been made public, millions of images would never have been posted, billions of words would never have been written and even more emotions would never have been expressed.

W-here W-ould we be W-ithout....

The World-Wide-Web

World Wide Web

and

Wireless (??) Technology

Of course, it has it's drawbacks as spaghetti junction above proves.

Why can I never find the right charger or cable??

(Don't you just love the 'ancient' brick sized Goodmans Digital Camera, LOL!!)

Nightmare

Bit of a nightmare with a scheduled post "ABC Wednesday" was supposed to post itself at 21:00 and didn't!!

Apologies - but it's too late to faff about with now - I'll try to rectify in the morning!!

Interesting Reads

Obviously the best place to keep treasured books!

(Apologies for the flash!)

For more Odd Shots visit Katney's Kaboodle.

Weekend Wandering

David McMahon has asked the following question:

"What are you most afraid of?"

Quite simply...

These little blighters!!

For more fearsome admissions visit David at Authorblog.

No Pot of Gold here!!

Caught the tail end of the rainbow last night - checked around the foot of the tree but failed to find the pot of gold.

Must've been at the other end!!

Better luck next time, eh?

Sky Watch Friday - Sunshine after the Rain

The clouds have cleared after yet another day of rain and dullness, revealing a brilliant June sun.

Shame it's too late in the day to enjoy it!!

Top marks to those who spotted Napoleon in this shot!!

And here he is again!!!! (Above)

For more Sky Watchers visit Tom at Wiggers World

New UK Comedy Double Act

My Wife and I watched a fantastic new comedy show, broadcast live from The Mansion House last night. It starred Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England (Below Right)and Alastair Darling, our much troubled Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Below Left). (Pictures courtesy of the Press Association and Reuters.)

Darling and King

The New Morecambe & Wise?

We were in fits of laughter when both men urged restraint in wage demands to combat higher prices of, well everything really!

They both demanded that we keep our wage rises below 4% - absolutely hilarious!! I was given 2.5% this year, my wife's employer didn't put her wage up at all, I don't know what Mr King is on but I know that Darling and the rest of his fellow MP's voted themselves a pay increase of around 25% (No, I haven't missed a decimal point out!) in April / May time.....

Did they know something we didn't??

Respect.

I thought that the age of respectful silences and removing of hats and stopping of traffic to allow a funeral procession right of way was a thing of the past.

How wrong I was.

I attended the funeral of a friend of my wife last Friday and was amazed at the respect shown to the cortege.

At a busy T junction traffic in both directions stopped to allow the whole procession to turn right, the same thing happened turning right into the Crematorium.

Respect. (And for my younger readers "respek...innit?")

ABC Wednesday - V is for...

The 'V'isitor with a 'V'oracious Appetite

Snapped this little chap, chomping on a snail (shell and everything!) behind one of our flowerpots. Quite odd to see a Hedgehog in the daytime so I had to take a few snaps of him. He didn't seem particularly phased by his new-found celebrity and happily chomped on some of our left over Sunday lunch.

(I say 'chap' - could be a 'chap-ess'!!)

For more ABC Wednesday snaps visit Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Odd Shots

Here's an Odd Shot - see more at Katney's Kaboodle

Is it Sky Watch Friday?
Had the element of surprise over Lesley!

Found the Unicorn!!!

I failed to post a picture on last week's ABC Wednesday but (rather oddly) said that my post would have been a winner as it was "something to do with Union Jacks, Upturned Umbrella's and a Unicorn' (Last week's letter being 'U' of course!!)

Well, I found at least one component of that trio (and this is a genuine photograph!!)

This is a Unicorn Deer

A 'real' discovery (unless I've got the dates wrong and it's actually April 1st!)

Read more about the Unicorn Deer at the following link:

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/90879/6430038.html

Testing Picasa Collage Function

Testing, testing, testing.....

Emily's Foody Face

Emily decided to cheer up a dull Saturday afternoon by making a fruit foody face!

The best part being...

Eating her hard work!!

Well done Emily!

Thanks!

Firstly, to all of you well-wishers out there - your healing words and thoughts must have had an effect as I'm feeling much brighter today! (Still can't hear the TV over the noises coming from my guts - but not in so much discomfort and feeling a lot less 'icky'!!) So a big thank you to you all.

Secondly, I had a record number of comments on my SWF post this week and I'm chuffed to bits about it.

I must get ill more often!! (Erm, no, scrub that thought!!! LOL)

Anyhow - thanks for visting.

Gary

Friday the 13th - No longer unlucky, apparently!

Here's a post for the triskaidekaphobe (a person with an irrational fear of Friday the 13th, also called a paraskevidekatriaphobe) in your household!!

According to the Daily Mirror, Friday the 13th is no longer unlucky - so you can relax for what remains of the day...





"If the superstitious among you are worried that today's date (Friday the 13th) could bring you a lifetime of bad luck then don't.
Dutch statisticians have established that the date is actually safer than an average Friday with fewer accidents and other unfortunate incidents happening.
The number of crashes on the roads is also less and statistician Alex Hoen from The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics said: "I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th." (Copyright Daily Mirror - click to read article)

However Sky News paints an entirely different picture! (Stay at home, at all costs!!)

Another link to the subject: Why is Friday 13th Unlucky?

Sky Watch Friday

I hope you'll forgive this 'old' picture but I haven't been feeling too good of late and so haven't been able to get out to snap something new.

Anyway - this was the sky behind Guisborough Priory last Saturday afternoon. As you can see - it was a fairly grey day. Almost as ashen as my face after this little episode yesterday!!!

For far more interesting sky watch pictures please visit Tom at Wiggers World.

No ABC Wednesday - U is for Unwell

Not feeling too good today (or for the past week or so) Crohn's seems to be flaring somewhat now that I'm off the steroids - pre diagnosis symptoms are back with a vengeance!

Too unwell to even upload my 'U' picture - which, was a definite winner I can assure you LOL! (Something to do with Unicorns and Union Jacks on an upturned Umbrella!!!)

Will try later. (or in 25 weeks! -if I can ever catch that Unicorn!!)

In the meantime visit Mrs Nesbitt's Place for really good ABC Wednesday posts, and wish me a speedy recovery!

Weekend Wandering

Authorblog has set a challenge to answer the following question:

The question is: When did you last complain about the weather?

My answer:

I live in Britain. Complaining about the weather is a compulsory national pastime, enjoyed by all.

I last complained (I'm proud to say) about twenty minutes ago when I opened our front door and was blasted with a wave of heat. Glorious sunshine today and I'm still complaining!!

Visit Authorblog for more weather complainants.

Guisborough Priory

Guisborough and Priory 7th June 2008

Gisborough Priory was founded somewhere between 1119 and 1124 by Robert de Brus of Skelton. It was held by Augustinian Canons, whose role was to go out into the local area and provide Christian teaching and perform religious services. The area around Gisborough Priory had been disrupted by decades of warfare preventing regular teaching of Christianity.
In 1289, the wealth of the house was badly affected by a disastrous fire in the church. In addition, Scottish raids during the 1300s reduced the value of its lands and led it to take in refugees from monastic houses further north, who were more badly affected by raiders.Eventually Gisborough became one of the most popular and wealthy religious houses in Yorkshire and it controlled large amounts of land in the area.The house was dissolved in 1540 as part of Henry VIII’s Reformation of the Monasteries and the buildings became the property of the Chaloner family, who still hold them today.

(Excerpt from Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council Museums Site.)

Saturday 7th June 2008 - took Lesley and Emily and the Mother in Law to Guisborough for some shopping (It was market day.) Decided to pay a visit to a monument I'd not been to since I was a child - namely Guisborough Priory.

Although not much remains of the priory, it is still easy to imagine its scale based on the surrounding land. What a magnificent set of buildings they must have been, and it's still clear to see the workmanship and skill involved in its construction almost nine hundred years ago. Even Emily was impressed!! (Lesley is much harder to inspire when it comes to ancient architecture - but that doesn't stop me trying!)

I have always been fascinated by 'reconstructions' of ancient ruins - imagining how they must have looked when first built - to the right is an artist's impression of how the priory might have looked in the early fourteenth century. The trancept still standing faces the hills on this picture so it's difficult to guage a perspective though you can still see how impressive the building was - it would be nice to find an impression using the remaining ruins as a focal point though.

All in all a nice day - bit of shopping, bit of sightseeing, bit of history, what could be better?

A Horror Story (A Victor Meldrew moment!!)

We live on a fairly rough estate in the North East of England. It wasn't always this way, I grew up here as did my wife, and our reasons for buying a house here ten years ago were so she could be close to her mother, but also because we have happy childhood memories of the area. That was then. What follows is the now:- (I make no apology for the censored version below!)
A conversation overheard outside our house a few days ago:

"What did you do that for you stupid f***ing c**t?"
"I didn't."
"Don't f***ing lie to me or I'll f***ing batter you. You nicked our Kelsey's f***ing lager, didn't you?"
"I f***ing didn't, you stupid old c**t!"

And so it went on, for about ten minutes, right outside our house. What is horrific about this conversational gem is that it took place between a mother and her child, the child was about five or six years old, the mother about twenty, and the conversation took place at around 11:30pm.

What's more, the mother was drunk.

I could lie and say that this sort of occurrence was unusual, but I'm afraid it's not - it is the norm around here. I see it every day (and night) and I see more and more of it. Parents who are still at school, 'caring' for the offspring they got whilst drunk, or in order to get a council property that they could mess up along with the rest of their lives, children who have to grow up so quickly so that they can fend off their parents. It saddens me, and it scares me.

What is worse than all of this is that nobody says anything - no one dares to confront these people for fear of the backlash, not even the police or community wardens who, if we complain to them about antisocial behaviour (and we used to) tell us we have to be tolerant of those in a worse off position than us - I'M the one who's worse off!!! THEY live the life of Riley on MY taxes, and whilst I'm out working all day, they slob around in their filthy hovels (complete with all the latest technical gadgetry that I couldn't possibly afford) only venturing out to sign on, or go shopping with their milk tokens and my money (taxes) buying enormous cheap gold earrings and the latest sports shell suits and Reebok trainers, and then at night, when I want to settle down, out they come with their incomprehensible music(?), cheap lager or cider, foul mouths and even fouler attitudes.

It may sound like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown letting all this stuff get to me (or perhaps I'm turning into a Tory!!) - I assure you I'm not, it's just that at times I have to write down what I see around me and note how it makes me feel - otherwise I probably would 'snap' through the injustice of it all!!

Tolerance, my ar*e!! (Vicky Pollard image courtesy of the BBC)

Sky Watch Friday

If Blogger ever works today - this might just be visible - apologies if not

Here's the link for more sky watchers

They're heading our way for the weekend!!

And then they arrived......

Have a lovely weekend!

ABC Wednesday - 'T' is for...

Tree Monsters and Totem Poles

To see who else has been challenged alphabetically visit Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Stewart Park

Stewart Park, Middlesbrough 31st May 2008.

Captain Cook's Birthplace
A Show.
The Wishing Witch

Totem Poles
..and my best ever shot of a squirrel.