Tying Up Loose Ends

 It's taken me a week to get over the Ten Day Blogging Challenge thingy but before I move on to business as usual, I have a couple of things to say and a couple of loose ends to tie up.

 Firstly, the 10DBC has given me new found respect for the likes of Jon (who was the unwitting inspiration behind the challenge), Mistress Maddie, and Mr Tonking who can often be found teetering at the top of my Sideboard thanks to their daily blog posts.  Their commitment to blogging and, therefore, entertaining us each day, cannot be underestimated - they are an inspiration!

 Secondly, big thanks to Ms Scarlet who was the instigator of the 10DBC - taking up the mantle of the Daily Blogger when Jon departed for sunnier climes - and to Savvy who took over when Ms Scarlet's ten days were up.  Your efforts were the motivation I needed to see this through myselves.  Thank you.

 Now, on to those loose ends:

  1. I do NOT work in Warhammer.  Although, I think The Very Mistress might have posed for one or two of these little sculptures unless I'm very much mistaken?

 

Apologies for the poor image clarity.  I couldn't get any photos without loads of reflections and this is the clearest I could make them after messing around with the contrast and shadows etc.

'Tis Done

Who doesn't enjoy a battered old groyne surrounded with spume to start their evening?

 Well, 'tis done.  My Ten Day Blogging Challenge that I didn't advertise or commit to or even admit to doing ends with this post.

 What?  Your ten day challenge?  I did most of the posts!

 Pish posh.  It's done now.  No one will care who did what.  Although, they might care to know that it was I who took control of your button pushing finger while you were swinging Camera around and snapped the photo on the right.  I had to time it just right to get the horizon and sea wall to line up with the railings.  Pretty good, eh?

 Bah!

Yeah, bah!

 Oh, don't you start.

 I'm off to bed.

Skulking With Scissors

 I'm not normally one for days of sunshine and the warm-to-hot temperatures they bring, but after what feels like months of dreary rain, I'm glad Summer has finally arrived.  Not least because the slugs and snails have been thriving and have decimated pretty much any plants that I really like which haven't already been smashed to smithereens by Bitey careening around the garden like a mad thing!  So I'm hoping that a warm, dry summer will keep their numbers down as I don't want to become accustomed to what I'm having to do to get rid of them.

 

* * W A R N I N G * *

Not for the squeamish

Midsummer Mix

A bit of exotica for this, the longest - and possibly sunniest & warmest (so far) - day this year: The Mother's bottlebrush plant (Callistemon somethingorother)

 

. : .

 

 Yesterday's Sounds of Summer should also have featured this track which I first featured back in 2015:

"Love Like Mine" - Miami Horror feat Cleopold 

(I'm still none the wiser about Cleopold's identity and I just don't have it in me to google them.)

 

 . : .

Sounds of Summer

 Just not this summer...

And some of them aren't even from summer!

 Oh, hush, you.

"Cake by the Ocean" - DNCE (September 2015)

"At the River" - Groove Armada (July 1999)

Can It Be?

 

Well, this is now the second day of sunshine with another due tomorrow, so maybe?

 

On my way to work I saw...

 ... Crown shyness

 I saw some other things too:

St. Clement the Martyr's church with the crown shy tree on the right

Of Forthcoming Fruit and Fugitive Familiars

 I took Bitey up to the allotment earlier for some exercise and so I could see if the seemingly neverending rain had turned the ripening soft fruit to mush.  It hadn't, surprisingly - as can be seen in these photographs.

 

 And both Bitey and me got more exercise than I'd planned for!  (A brief synopsis of events can be found at Ms Scarlet's.)

I think we're going to be all right for loganberries this year...

The Predatory Foxgloves of Smallhopes Hill

I peer through the honeysuckle and bracken at a gruesome sight...

 

Killer Foxgloves have felled a tree and are devouring it messily!

Uh, oh.  Two of their sentinels have seen me and alert the others...

5 out of 10 households prefer Godzilla Lois

 Having been threatened with the 10 Day Blogging Challenge thingummydoodah, I did briefly think about it but quickly realised that I'd never keep it up, so to speak, and you'd all be (un)lucky if I managed even half that.  Which sparked something in my brain to remember the last half of 5 out of 10 households prefer Kormorant & Tetris.  Which led me to look at the most recent ten videos in my YouTube history.  Which led to this post.  Enjoy!  Or not.

 

 Godzilla Lois

 I love Malcolm in the Middle - it's so clever and has great characters - and this clip is one of my favourites.  I use Dewey's "Seize him!" frequently to this day (mainly when encouraging Bitey to see which of the nieces or nephew have invited themselves in). 

Thoughts for the Day

 Spotted in the same charity shop as last month's Invisible Dick.  What do you think?  Pornography or art?  (Not Chester Brown's take on Mary's foot fetish...)

Get up off your quince!

 I'm pretty sure that I don't need to post a reminder that the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event will be taking place in a scant few months - November, to be precise - because I just know that you've all got it marked on your calendars and have been snapping away at your various flora since Spring. 

 

 You have, haven't you?

 Well, just in case it's slipped someone's mind, or someone's been putting it off because they can't be bothered to get up off their quince* and get out in the garden, or someone's already taken some photos of their roses and thinks "That'll do - I've got this in the bag!", let this be your wake-up call: Get the GPE on your mind!  Get up off your quince!  Get out with your camera because you can never have too many photos!**

 

the House of

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event 2024

 

waits for no one!***

 If you really have no idea what I'm going on about, just click on my Garden Photos Event page at the top of this blog for some background and links to previous GPEs.  But if clicking a link is too much like hard work, basically, the GPE is an opportunity to share photos of your greenspaces and then snout around other peoples' to see what they're growing, ask questions, and get some ideas & inspiration for your own plot.

 You don't need to be particularly greenfingered/thumbed or even have a garden to take part, just a plant or plants that you're nurturing/keeping alive at your allotment, on your balcony, in your windowbox, or on your kitchen windowsill.

 

It's up to you whether you send in photos of your entire garden...

Falling

Not only was it grey and overcast when I took Bitey down to the beach this morning, but after days of high winds and rough seas, everything was coated in a film of dried spume scum!

The End-of-the-Line has never looked so dingy.

 

Uh, oh...  What's this?

'Tis Foxglove Season

Last Thursday I walked Bitey into Cromer so he could go to the vet's and have a finger stuck up his bum.  He was not amused.  Anyway, to make up for it, I took him on the scenic route back: off the lead through Happy Valley and up to the lighthouse...

... then down Dick's Close Hill through the bracken and foxgloves.