i’m pleased to see that rope and knots are still in use in modern britain. i thought ropes were only used at the seaside nowadays, with urban man preferring a more secure padlock.
this knot is quite elaborate and one i never learnt when i was in the cubs.
without claudia, alan and the paps, covent garden looked quite empty.
a purple gloves next to the double purple lines on a london street. the purple lines denote that the road is one of London’s red routes.
there’s a period in life when you don’t have to worry about marbles on the floor. for me this was the period between leaving my family home and having children. like all things you forget what the reality of a thing was like until it returns.
marbles are great at just being there when you put your foot down. usually directly underneath your foot.
when i was a kid i used to think that marbles were miniture spy cameras which were put in our house by aliens / the police to spy on me and my family. i was utterly convinced about this and i can remember vividly staring at a marble which had rolled under the sofa in my old old house when i could have been no older than 6 ! i was really spooked back then.
do manx fishes have no tails ? surely that makes them incredibly easy to catch ?
here is something nice for anyone interested in british life. lawnmowing is an essential part of the british psyche. unless you live in the middle of a town.
Visit the British Lawnmower Museum and listen to the music as you peruse the wonderous machines. The photo gallery is a little disapointing.
For real pictures you’ll have to go to the Old Lawn Mowers Club which has a mower of the month feature.
(thanks to John and brother edd for the links)
here is my favourity drinking glass. it’s probably a highly valuable collectors item, but i use it every day and the dishwasher has slowly faded its beautiful design.
in particular, dear dead diana has become transparent in the body. When filled with Ribena she goes all red.
update: a picture in its full configuration is here
i ate something which was not quite a quiche last night. it was in fact made of goats cheese i think. but to me, it looked like an egg pie.
here is a cottage pie. we don’t eat much processed food nowadays. it never ceases to amaze me how space age we’ve become. each pie individually processed and precooked and wrapped in plastic ready to be reheated.
i think i could live with that idea, but somehow the printed writing on the plastic film makes me think the manufacturers consider this a ‘pie unit’ and not someone’s diner.
It says ‘uk Cottage Pie 900G’ and is printed in a nice old courier font. 900G is probably the pressure they put the pie under or something.
there are lots of mysterious door and buildings in london (as any city). here is one with a door which is extremely well secured shut.
a few minutes before seeing this building, in another part of London, i saw a street paving stone has been lifted up and there was a very long and deep staircase down under the road. i was going to take a photo only there were two security chaps inspecting me inspecting their hole.
i find that kind of thing fascinating.
amber. the colour or the person ?
i swapped a photo of some leaves or a photo of some snow drops. i think this picture is superb so was more than happy to let my leaves go !
it’s a lucky bonus leap year day today. i find the whole thing a little puzzling.
one thing that dissappoints me (other than spelling words correctly) is that they chose February as the month to have the extra day.
why didn’t they put it in june/july/august ? that would make the summer last longer and may even coincide with prebooked holidays thus giving an extra day.
at the very least it should be a public ‘bonus day’ holiday.
all it does stuck on the end of february is postpone the summer for an extra day (and lengthens the winter).
who makes up these rules anyway ?
there’s an excellent page on leap days and wonky calendars here
i took the girls to a garden centre this afternoon. we walked past this shed a kezia pointed at it and said “that’s a sad one”. so we decided to go in and cheer it up.
it’s been a family day. here are kezia and esther playing piano (sort of):
then esther ran round with my coat on pretending to be a bat:
my god-daughter made me a lovely card (with integral envelope):
look ! the first found international american found photo of animals.
thanks to cheryl of batanoir for this.
see it on davescollections !
thanks to my pedometer i can now reveal that i am over halfway to Paris from London. here is the graph to prove it. Total so far is 240km and average weekly distance is 60km.
click for detail
can you guess what i’ve given up for lent ? i’ve even surprised myself with the randomness of this plan
UPDATE (also redated to reposition it)
here is the item i have snubbed:
jane (my wife) said “it’s just a stupid idea. there’s no point. why are you doing it”.
i said “it’s good to have a challenge”.
and she said “well, i think it’s just stupid”.
i’ve found a nice pub near St Paul’s cathedral (and therefore near where my next meeting is in half an hour) which has free wifi ! And it’s a really nice pub which was used in some Gwynth Paltrow movie (changing doors or something i think) and the food’s really nice.
lovely.
