Welcome to July!

I'll get started
SOme wood ducks that have taken up residence on our tank.

A close up of Jess

I can't afford a house in Hampstead Garden Suburb but can make sure I can look at my favourites whenever I want to.

Never mind Dave, just wait till you win the lottery.

Jess is a doll!

Patriotic, red and white, maple leaf candy for Canada Day! I remembered to photograph it, but forgot to either eat it or bring it home from my sister's to eat later. Oh well

Those look nice Liz.

Another cycle ride photo ..so green everywhere at this time of year.

This pillbox, about 100 meters from the sea, has got somewhat buried in the sand dune. A couple of miles east of Lossiemouth.

As I don't do the lottery my fortune will have to follow my fame. The odds are probably similar...

Here's one more from nearby, I go there every spring to take the best gardens

Same road, detail of flowers this time

New fence versus old fence

This spider has been with us for some time. It has a home on our conservatory window where the web catches flying insects. I'm about to clean the windows so I hope it will crawl off somewhere and hide while I do it. It'll have to spin another web but such is the tough life of a spider.

ewww . .I hope it's a lot smaller than it appears on my screen!!

It is smaller. Just zoomed and cropped to show the detail. It's probably a bit over an inch from end to end, including the legs. Pretty though isn't it?

'pretty' isn't the word that immediately came to mind ...

I think he's pretty, TW

I wonder why it likes to be upside down?

Something you don't see every day, but could yesterday in McKinney, TX.

an emu on our brand new fence. They do a lot of damage so it's not such a great thing to see!

I meant to ask yesterday .. what is a pillbox? Something to do with lookouts during the war?

Dug-in guard posts (with loopholes through which to fire weapons) made from concrete are also known as "pillboxes". The originally jocular name arose from their perceived similarity to the cylindrical boxes in which medical pills were once sold. They are in effect a trench firing step hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades and raised to improve the field of fire.

Defences were placed along the coast to hinder a German invasion. Between the defensive "Pillboxes" were places anti-tank concrete blocks, as seen in the photo below. Most of the sea defences in Moray were built by the 1st Polish Army Corp in 1940/41.

The building at the back is the Bin Forrest shooting ground. The mouth of the River Spey is a couple of miles further on from here.

Wow, that's a real Batmobile, not a copy or a new version but the proper 1950s Lincoln. I don't know how many they made but can't be more than a handful.

Another churchyard, this time in Esher

Some ducks flying around.

Precious, lying in the grass, maybe watching those ducks!

Great pictures, everyone

Love the pictures of all those beautiful houses, Satguru. Very cool picture of the Emu, Copago. And Liz, Precious is so cute!!

Thanks minkpenny, if you ever come to London I will be very happy to show you round the houses personally. I have taken Onimisi on the tour so far from here while he was between planes for a day here on his way back home from Europe.

Oh thanks, satguru! That would be lovely. I've always wanted to visit London and if the possibility ever comes up, I'd love to do that.

With trepidation, I submit my first offering.......



These are my two cats, Mishka and Bijou.

Hmmm. Back to the drawing board. I'd appreciate any hints!

When you open the photo in photbucket, Auntie, there is a box on the left that says :share this image: and you can select the one that says "IMG CODE" and simply paste that here.
Or you can take the link from the photo like the one you posted up there and put [IMG] link [*/IMG] (but remove that asterix)

Or you can look at TellieWellie's thread which should answer any question you come up with .. and more!
http://www.funtrivia.com/ubbthreads/show...ge=0#Post841876

Your cats are gorgeous! PLease keep posting - there's lots of cat lovers here

Thanks Jill, I tried my best to resize it, Sue has got the pic in there but it now needs resizing in Photobuck
Keep trying Auntie
you are nearly there.

Thanks for your help ladies. I won't give up!
I first met these "two four-year-old cats, free to good home," a week after my last cat passed. We have been together for the last six years to the satisfaction of all concerned.
I think Bijou looks rather like spanishliz's "Precious."

Welcome, Dawn! Beautiful picture of your cats.

Welcome auntie! Your kitties are gorgeous, and Precious also thinks Bijou looks like family She's been looking over my shoulder.

Thank you Telliewellies for resizing the photo of the cats.

An Austin A30 in very good condition. I am still at a loss to understand why manufacturers don't offer a variety of styles like they do with houses to suit everybody. I much prefer these designs to anything since and many others do as well but they simply don't bother.

Satguru: love all your pics of graveyards and gardens. The Austin is pretty cool too. Hubby's first car was a Mini (please don't ask him how many people can fit in one, he'll be all too happy to tell you and I'm quite tired of the story LOL)

Telly: I don't think you have to worry about disturbing the web by cleaning windows. Looks like an orb weaver to me and if so, they spin a new web almost every day anyway.

Auntie: quite the "Study in Pattern" with your two cats. Very nice first post!

Here are some white pelicans at Islet Lake (approx 1.5 hours drive plus .5 hours kayaking away from where I live)

Remember last month the photo of the water with the road closed sign? here

This is what we came across yesterday. They had to go past three lots of road closed signs to get to here. I asked the first bloke "What did you think was going to happen?". It took them over two days of inching backwards to get out.

I love the pelicans, Jakeroo! I didn't realise that pelicans are different around the world Ours have black wings. I'll post a picture tomorrow

This is my Grandpuss Pickle, a recent addition to my daughter's family.

This is the first major whiskey distillery to be built in Scotland for 30 years. This is at Roseisle about 10 miles from where I live, near Elgin. The last one incidently is about the same distance in the other direction. You might just make out the green structure on the left, that's what houses the 14 stills. It will be the largest whiskey distillery in Scotland, and is the current holder of the Scottish building project of the year award.

Here's one of the pelicans you get around my way.

I love both types of pelican! Pickle is a beautiful Grandpuss, and that Austin is just lovely. You really have to wonder if those guys in the water can't read, or just choose not to believe signs...

Somebody built an inuksuk in the middle of the river!

Some sort of grasshopper (I think) in stealth mode. Hardly noticeable against the background of a tomato plant leaf. It's about three-quarters of an inch long.

That's an immature grasshopper as it hasn't got its wings yet. Here are some modern townhouses in Hendon.

A Shirley poppy taken in the garden this morning...

I think that is a cricket TW

Yes, a green cricket
They are lucky as they symbolise hope. Nice one TW!
Oh and by the way, welcome Sherry!

I've never seen a cricket except in pictures, and didn't even realise they came in green! It does look like a grasshopper though minus the wings.

Here's what I know as the Post Office tower although now the BT tower since it was split up and privatised for the phones. Crystal Palace TV tower is in the middle on the horizon.

A photo from today's bike ride. Shows how dry it's been recently. This section of the canal has nearly dried up:

Hollyhock in the cottage garden

Welcome Sherry .. lovely pic!

We had a quick trip this weekend and here we are .. nearly home ...

This Rainbow Lorikeet made a detour to snack on the seed bell hanging from the Hills Hoist.

Nature seems to have thought of all the best colour schemes before we started.
Office blocks in Sunbury. Unlike most countries these sort of views are pretty much the exception over here so still find them unusual.

Sherry: nice poppies and hollyhocks!

TW: My best guess is that your insect is an Oak Bush-Cricket (Meconema thalassinum). Two things I know for SURE is that:
1) it's immature, as it has no wings, so that means it can't breed yet and
2) it is female - that slightly upraised "tail-like appendage" is an ovipositor (not a male appendage as many people might think lol)

Copago: lovely shot of the Australian pelicans - I especially like how you caught the bird with the light behind it - shows how really pink the beak pouch is. Would make a nice watercolour painting.

Our white pelicans aren't pure white (you can usually only find those around Africa). Ours do have some black on the edges of the wings, but you can't see it unless they are in flight.. as in this pic, when I came a little too close to their breeding roosts. They are such big ungainly birds on land, it makes you wonder how they ever get into the air at all lol

A very new house in Highgate

David, that is one of the very few houses that you have posted that I cannot like
It looks a bit like an electricity sub station. Really boring. I loved all the others though!

Sara, those modernist lines (the design itself is about 100 years old from Germany) really do seem to polarize people. I love them myself and would be only too happy to live in one, but the British councils in the 30s onwards disliked them so much the first large estate was built at Dartington Hall (where I first got to know them in 1968) as it belonged to the trust. There are some scattered around the country but more in Germany and Holland.

I have a collection of Hampstead Garden Suburb gardens today to last me the rest of the week if I took nothing else, but will add them all as I go along.

Hibiscus shrubs are popular locally, but I haven't seen this species (Hibiscus schizopetalus) in any garden but my own.
Is it familiar in other parts of the world?

I've never seen anything like it!

hmmm explosives .. could have been interesting

That is so lovely Auntie. I looked it up and apparently it is
native to tropical eastern Africa in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.We have hibiscus here in abundance, almost a weed, but not that one.

Anyone reading my blog will know my quest for a pre-1963 graphic warning sign like the one just off my road till about 2005 which I forgot to take a photo of. I've been collecting every other example of the old signs for 2 1/2 years and the only red triangle warning signs I'd got were a graphic one missing a corner and a text one until this weekend when I finally found a perfect example using Streetview. The black paint has worn off making the pictures look red while all the red paint has worn off the triangle, but with a coat of paint it would be like new.

Are you ever tempted to take the signs, SatG?? I can just see you with a screwdriver shinnying up the pole ..


Another shot from the road trip

Good day! My first visit over this side of Funtrivia.I like all your pictures. Here is one of mine.
One of this year's hybrid Mallards in our park.

Welcome kidder, good to see a new arrival here. Jill, us purists only really appreciate signs in situ, like my train tickets (I think you remember that!) which only count if you go and get them yourself from the stations rather than somewhere else, which go in a different set. In fact if you ask nicely councils usually give the old signs they remove to the first person who asks them, they have no use for them and was offered one large direction sign recently I had no room for, and only remembered later I knew someone online who did collect them and puts them on his garden wall. I did buy one small one like mine though just for a record and may put it up somewhere outdoors although will probably last a few days round here before it's been liberated.

Here's a very nice new house just gone up in Hampstead- this is really a 1970s design and very unusual to see nowadays

Kidder welcome! That duck photo is just gorgeous!

Love the duck too! Welcome Kidder

I like that house but I do wonder about houses with flat rooves .. where does the rain go .. or snow in London for that matter .. and isn't there some insulation benefits from having a peak?

Rooves .. hmmm. Why does that seem odd when I read it back? Another one like 'gaol'!

Thanks for the pelican post, Jake! Theit bodies almost look in reverse to our .. ours with the black body and white tips on the wings. We have a lake nearby which I'm hoping will have lots on it when other flood waters receed.

This is Diesel, my neice's dog.

If anyone knows the song The old Bull and Bush here it is in Hampstead, taken for an online friend who moved to Australia in 1974 and hasn't seen it since.

Pero's bridge in Bristol. Named after an 18th century slave, the bridge is known locally as the 'horned bridge' because of the two horn-like structures which act as counter-balances when the middle section (right of picture) is raised to allow ships through.

we splashed out ...

The Tata Nano, cheapest car in the world when it was first launched last year.

That looks fun, Copago, and that Tato Nano looks pretty good for a budget car! (I wonder when they'll make them available for Europe???)

I had fun with the boys yesterday trying to make gigantic soap bubbles. It's harder than it looks and capturing one on camera before it burst proved to be beyond me. Here's a shot of a fledgling bubble in the making ...

Mishka enjoys a little light reading.

^^HA!

Cool bubbles!
And how much did the car cost, Zorba? I bet it was less than the jet-ski

I'm running out of generic photos .. must get my camera out again! Another truck.

I don't think the Nano is up to EU safety standards, plus they probably don't want it to undercut all their own models so will make sure it can't be driven here.

These are the North Downs (yes, they go up) in Gomshall in Surrey.

We are proud to announce the adoption of this little Black Ball of Fur.
Her name is Sadie and she is just three months old. We adopted her two weeks ago from a Society that helps distressed and abandoned animals.
She is a whirlwind and it makes me tired just watching her run all over the place.
She is going to grow up to be a huge kitty we think.
She definitely is keeping me on my toes.
Ren picked the name for her and her middle name is Shaunne after our Vet.
I just thought I would share with you all the good news.
Thank you again for all the lovely Sympathy posts.
PF

I love all the animal pictures! Diesel and Mishka are beautiful

And PurpleFan, how nice that there's a new addition to your household! Sadie is adorable, what a cutie

Welcome to Sadie! She's beautiful, PF!

Sadie is absolutely adorable, and Mishka looks totally engrossed!

Here's a shot of the rear of U2's recording studios in Dublin - a very unprepossessing building indeed. When the black door is open everyone knows the lads are in session, when it's closed like in this photo then we know they're not around. They're currently on tour, hence the shut door.

Hello Sadie! And I'm glad they've got the Nano to Europe but as usual we always pay more...

Here's a garden along the pavement in Hampstead

Cake, anyone?

Oooh that looks fab! Did you (or your mum) make it?

My eldest would have loved one of those when he was younger!

A rather imposing office building near me in West Hendon

No, a standard Shop brought cake, but he also had a home-made Victoria Sponge

Here's a typical view I took a few years ago of the cottage side of Hampstead Garden Suburb with one of the numerous paths I grew up walking along. Half the area is cottages and the rest is houses, many extremely impressive.

This chair belonged to my late husband's grandmother Matilda, whom I never knew. It was a total wreck when we got it years ago, but my daughter begged me not to throw it away.
Recently she has discovered that Matilda was born in Tasmania to transported convicts and had a sometimes tragic life.
So I had the chair refurbished as a tangible link to her great-grandmother.

One of my favourite types of houses

Wow - the chair came up great!

This is a legless lizard .. and not to be confused with a snake. They're only about 8 inches long and if you look very closely they actually do have two small useless legs about half way along.

grading a new road

Impressive topiary in the rose garden at Sudeley Castle near Cheltenham, Glos.

Guess who is in town! The circus has set up just around the corner from my work.

Oh Sherry, how lovely to see Sudeley! I don't know how much people know about it, but it was once the home of , among others, Katherine Parr, last wife of Henry the Eighth, and the gardens are unbelievable.
Is there a chance you have more pictures of the Castle and the villages nearby, such as Winchcombe? I would be so thrilled.

Copago, on the basalt plains west of Melbourne we have Delma impar, the striped legless lizard. With clearance of stony farmland to build industrial estates, they are losing habitat rapidly. I don't know what species of Delma yours is.

Meet my two best feathered friends, Henrietta and Princess Layer - real personalities. They cultivate and fertilise my back garden and dispose of kitchen scraps. They have a cosy little shed to roost in, and I get two fresh eggs most days. Win/win!

I have Ren (only live just over the hill from Winchcombe)... will post more of Sudeley through the week. It has such history and when we last went there was hardly anyone there - all rather spooky and you could almost hear the ghosts.

Two sea rescue dogs in Malaga

I was walking on Barnes Common when I found a cemetery right in the middle of it, I've never come across that before.

One of the most visited historical sites, also a site of outstanding natural beauty, is the remains of the 6th Century Monastic City of Glendalough, in the Wicklow mountains south of Dublin. The early christian monastic settlement was founded by St Kevin. As a child I never missed an opportunity to visit the site, and still try to get there at least once during every visit 'home' that I make.

One of the herbaceous borders at Sudeley Castle.

Lovely photos, all of them!

underview of a pelican the other day. The shot is a bit blurry but I just loved the shape of him.

Queensmere Pond on Wimbledon Common. I did look out for Wombles but they don't like to be seen.

oh great, now I'm going to have that song on my brain all day, Sats!

another view of the pelican





overground underground wombling free ...

Not the safest place to be under the flightpath of a pelican...

Oh how great the pics are this month so far. Thanks.
Ohh Sherry I could just move in there.

Our camp from the water.

Underground overground Wombling free... (a little recharge ).
Here's a standard view of my little world, the exit from Neasden eastbound to the North Circular Road. Willy Rushton did a song about it if you look on Youtube.

Just on the right is Neasden's version of Stonehenge, which was also covered in graffiti the last time I went

Wonderful photos, everyone! I visited Sudeley on my very first trip to England, many years ago and just love your photos.

My computer had major surgery recently, and isn't talking to my camera at the moment, my excuse for not posting recently. Just enjoying everybody else's pics for now
Love the sea rescue dogs, and the gulls, too.

The lovely Wye valley at Tintern in Monmouthshire

Such a beautiful scene, Sherry. Looks like a painting!

Quote:

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Underground overground Wombling free... (a little recharge ).

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People have been shot for less, SatG!!!

Sherry these are all my favourite places!
(Gives me an idea for a two week theme...)

Thanks ladies: the Wye valley is, I think, one of the prettiest in England, and the Forest of Dean one of the least explored on the tourist trail: absolutely lovely.

My camera having a spot of bother, I am looking back to the photos I took when last in UK. Here is the Round Church near Magdelene Bridge . Sorry about the car, near unavoidable in July in Cambridge!

I can only say one thing, Remember you're a Womble!

Ealing old and new