The Celestial Temple cries golden tears

  As I don't have anything else prepared - well, certainly nothing that's actually finished - you're going to have to put up with some Star Trek stuff.

  And I'm not sorry.

  But don't worry, it's just a couple of VERY quick sketches and a physical cut-n-paste job for the other social media site that I frequent. Remember? I told you about it here. And here.
Anyway, February's Art Challenge is "Pilot", and here is the challenge:  

With the pilot episode of Star Trek Discovery coming (eventually) I thought it might be cool to look back at the first episodes of the Star Trek shows and pick something from your favourite that clearly represents that episode.

Maybe you like the "man-skirts" of Encounter at Farpoint or Number One from The Cage, Jake fishing in the holodeck from The Emissary or Harry being abducted and experimented on in Caretaker... actually that might have been any episode . 

  Ideally, neither of these will be my final entry, but as there're only two more days left in this month, the likelyhood is that I won't get anything else done*.
  Just in case my creations are so appalling that those of you who may be fans of Deep Space Nine can't recognise them, I went with DS9's "Emissary" and the scene where Jadzia Dax as a Tear of the Prophets is ejected from the Celestial Temple/wormhole:

* I think we all know The Host isn't even going to try.

Blue and Green...

 Well. What a selection of guesses as to the previous post's Item of Interest! My fancy hasn't been tickled like that in quite some time, let me tell you.
 One of you managed to correctly identify the item in question, but before I reveal who it was, I'd like to share my favourite fancy ticklers. So, in no particular order, the preposterous runners up are:

 Mr Peenee with "I keep thinking it has something to do with the Statue of Liberty, probably because of the color, but it seems unlikely the S of L has taken up refuge in the Castelette. Although in a world where Donald Trump runs the American government, sort of, I guess "unlikely" is a shaky concept."
 Shaky, indeed, Peenee. Especially as I discovered Lady Liberty trying to get in the catflap the other day when I got home from work. Needless to say, she was a little on the large side to squeeze through, so I shooed her out to the pond where she stands in place of one of the solar-powered garden lights (that don't work because of the lack of sunlight Britain enjoys). Turns out she just wanted a little holiday from all the "goings on" across the Pond...
 She won't keep still, though, and all her tramping around has turned the garden into a mud bath! On the plus side, she does stand in for Cromer lighthouse when the bulb needs changing.

 Jon, with: "You've managed to get a courgette? During this crisis?"
 Yuck! No! Although I did buy an iceberg lettuce for the outrageous price of £1.40 the other day!

 Hound, with: "A corner of a cover you have made for one of the alien plants in the greenhouse?"
 I'm disappointed in you, Hound, as it was you (or your comment here) that inspired this thing! But you have reminded me that I need to feed those voracious plants...

::holds nose and heaves bucket of fermenting mince out of the airing cupboard::

 So. Without further ado - or maybe a little ado as this teaser photo attests:

Items of Interest: ...Should Never Be Seen

 Yes, it's back. After a little over a year since the last one, Items of Interest returns!

 What - you may be asking - has prompted this comeback? Well, just something I overheard from one of you. Oh, and that this is quick and easy as I have had (and will have) very little time to myselves what with getting The Parents' moved into their new abode, and dealing with The Royal Visit, aka the arrival for the weekend of Indescribable, The Little Witch, and Babyzooky.

 So. On with the show: For those of you who are new to this, or have forgotten what to do since the last Items of Interest post (and the one before that brought us the infamous "nylon netting shower pom pom on a string thingamie"), the rules are as follows:
 Just guess what these particular photos are of and, if you're very lucky, win a prize (yet to be determined)*. And I don't mean the photo up there as that's the logo image (from The Towering Disco Inferno). No. The photo's below (after the jump).

Moving for the sake of a toilet roll holder

 I haven't been around as much as I'd've liked this past week or two, but I do have a reason: The Parents are on the verge of moving house - the big day being this Monday. 
 Obviously, this means that their selfless, abled-bodied, only son - i.e. me - has been kept busy with various heavy lifting, packing, cleaning, and storage tasks. In fact, I've just returned from The Parents' having loaded Car full of boxes of things that The Mother doesn't want the removal men to lose or break. 
 As I drifted in and out of The Mother's stream of wittering, I caught this little nugget of information: "This will be the first house I've lived in with a [built in] toilet roll holder!" 
I couldn't bear to ask if that was the reason for moving...

§

 In other news, a couple of days ago, my viewing of Harry Hill's You've Been Framed was rudely interrupted by the phone ringing. After much exasperated sighing, I heaved myself off the sofa and answered the phone to a really-quite-convincing and very youthful Lancashire-accented: "Have you seen my friend? Kimberley?"

Two sides to every story...

 ... and two sides to my book case.

 I have vague recollections of threatening to show you my bookcase towards the end of last year. I don't know whose blog this threat was left at, but I don't think it was mine?
 Anyway, as a warm-up to another year of reading-
  And because we've got shit-all else to blog about!
 Well. Yes. Um... Here is our bookcase. The upstairs one, not the downstairs one which is a bit higgledy-piggledy, and stuffed with gardening and recipe books.
  Not to mention Inexcuseable's cat books, Elvis collection, and Twilight novels, and her husband's fishing and DIY books.

Embigulatory probing can be effected by clicking...

... and I only had to do a modicum of "weeding"

 As I've shown you mine, will you show us yours?

 Snippets of Mago's have already been released, and Hound's bathroom bookshelf has been seen out and about in public, but there's always room for more!


 UPDATE 12.02.2017 : LẌ's industrial-strength shelves are on display here, and MrPeenee is on a promise...

 UPDATE 23.02.2017 : In fact, just pop to The Very Mistress's for a handy list of all who have taken part (so far)... 

Not A Real Book On Not A Real Chair

 Mwah hah hah hah haaa! 

 Just when you thought the Book On A Chair meme couldn't be flogged anymore, may I present my latest diabolical twist on Ms Scarlet's original masterpiece:

A Kindle eBook on a chair made of real books

 If you have poor eyesight, or couldn't be bothered to click the pic to embigulate it, the books that make up the chair (plus the eBook) are those that I have read so far this year:

1. The Face of the Unknown (Star Trek: The Original Series), by Christopher L. Bennett (2016)

2. Grinny, by Nicholas Fisk (1973 [this edition 1987])

3. The City and the Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke (1956 [this edition 1978])

4. Not the Royal Wedding, written & edited by Sean Hardie and John Lloyd (1981)

5. The Carpet People, by Terry Pratchett, aged 17 (1971) and 43 (1992)

 That's it for now. We'll be back soon with cake (not CAKE!), Redshirts, and - possibly - Mrs Snatchpenny and her Hindu robot.

  

RNLB Lester

 So. Here it is. The third and final set of photos from Sunday's daydrift along the coast from Cromer to West Runton. The subject is the RNLI Cromer Lifeboat RNLB Lester (RNLI 16-07).

This was taken from East Runton. I turned around to look back at Cromer and saw a boat near the pier

I didn't realise until later that it was the Cromer Lifeboat Lester

After I'd taken all those photos of the stripey cliffs at West Runton, I turned back for home and noticed the Lester offshore

Contorted Drifts, Chalk Rafts, and Pro-Glacial Zones*

* No, I don't know what we're talking about either. We're a witch, not a geologist!
We appropriated those sciencey terms here.

 As promised threatened in the last post, may I present the batch of photographs from Sunday 22nd cataloguing some of the geological features of the Cromer-East Runton cliffs. I'm not going to say much about them as I know next to bog-all about such things, I just think they're unusual. And some of them are quite pretty. 

No, it wasn't cold enough for blocks of ice to wash up - those are chalk boulders

This is the stretch of cliff that I found most fascinating. Get ready for the close-ups!

Blue Skies and Beaches

 The sun is out. The sun is out!

 Ten o'clock this morning I left Castlette DeVice is a blaze of winter sunshine. Unlike most daydrifts I undertake, I had already decided where I was going to walk before I left the house castlette: along the beach to West Runton (last walked here - for the first time).
 Now, you might find some of these photos somewhat repetitive in nature, but my incredible indecisiveness kicked in with a vengeance making choosing between them more difficult than a life or death decision.

Leaving Cromer Pier behind me

Landscapes in the black mirror are closer than they appear...

A bijou beach residence for when you want to get away from it all!

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO GET AWAY FROM IT ALL!

Dear "friend" of

Fed up with your government/communist dictator/family/weather/life?

Sick to death of being associated with the useless population of your crummy country?

Being hounded by the masses for voting "incorrectly" in the latest farcical presidential election/EU referendum/parish council by-election/X Factor semi-final/W.I. Chutneys and Pickles Campaign?

  Well:

Slow you down

Photographs from a trio of daydrifts.

02.01.2017

Cromer beach. More than a bit blustery and nippy

The beginnings of a rainbow

Friday The 13th

  Hat's proximity alarm bell started to ring.
  Bloody people! You pick a nice cold, dark, blustery evening to go out - in conditions that once seen out of their window, any normal person would have shaken their head at, ignored the dog's plaintive whine for a walk, and sat down with a nice cup of tea in front of a repeat of Downton Abbey - and people turn up to ruin it.
  I looked along the promenade, but couldn't see anyone anywhere. In fact, the prom appeared strangely spacious and desolate, as if there was something missing. Something I couldn't quite put my long, bendy finger on.
  I pursed my lips as Hat clung even more tightly to my head in the rising wind, its proximity bell ringing manically. I resolved myself to either getting Hat's instruction manual out when I got home, or smashing that bell to bits with a lump hamme-

* C R A S H *

"Yaaarrgh!"  I almost jumped out of my skin as an explosion of wood, glass and ghastly Laura Ashley curtains suddenly went off not two feet from my nose (from which I removed a large, blue-painted splinter). Someone tried to drop a house on me! (Again. And again.)

* blingle glingle glingle *

  That bloody bell again!

* S M A S H *

  Another explosion. From a few feet behind me. This time, as well as the wood and glass, I was peppered with cheap plastic cutlery and a damp box of firelighters*.
  Bugger this for a lark, I thought, and ran off down the promenade, clutching Hat to my head, dodging falling beach huts.

::