This little stone person was on the pier where our ship docked when we visited Willemstad, Curacao in the Caribbean.




The locals built quite a few of them from the stones that formed the dock area.

Larger photo

I wonder why this tree looks so grumpy. I'm sure it's going to open its mouth sooner or later and say something:

My sister and I were in the local consignment shop today, and found a perfect Hallowe'en decoration for me - a wooden black cat, with glass eyes, supposedly dating from the 1920s. The price was right, so I brought "Blackie" home and set him down just inside the door whilst I put groceries away. This is what I saw when I came back into the room!




Here's the whole sequence.

That tree surely looks mad, TW!

I love Katt's picture, Liz And the slideshow was great as well!

So many great photos--the Vicksburg wall paintings; the fox; the orchids; the stairway; the bridge at the mill--loved them all!

Today I'm going to break from the reenactment photos in honor of my first bee sting! Well, I don't know that it's my first ever, but since I can't remember any others it's as good as brand new to me. I wasn't wearing a veil as I was only doing some work at a nearby empty hive. It was when I inadvertently walked into the flight path of an outgoing bee from the closest hive that I got nailed just to the side of my eye (which I understand to be one of the most painful places to get stung).

The husband also got stung today, but he was working with the bees as we're treating them with a Tea Tree oil concoction that is supposed to kill mites. The mites are particularly fond of sucking the blood from the brood, but they attack adult bees as well. The capped cells below resembling Corn Pops are the brood cells.


Larger View

Perhaps I should explain--lest anyone think I'm mad--why I'm a bit excited over a bee sting as it surely isn't because half my face is now swelling to the point where I could easily be mistaken for something out of a B-horror flick. It's a case of being more relived than anything. You see, my husband has been stung 6 times so far since we began keeping (and yes, I'm keeping a tally! ), and each time I would hear tales of how dreadfully painful bee stings were (especially around the eyes). I think he also expected, from past experience teaching others to keep bees, that I would have got myself stung by this time. So I was starting to get kind of worried. I mean, what if I was holding a full comb of honey (which is quite weighty, by the way) and got stung--would I panic and drop the whole top bar? Would the pain be so terrible that I'd declare my beekeeping days ended? Well, now I know what it feels like so I don't have to worry about it anymore! Besides, I tend to have an optimistic outlook on life so I just considered my dose of venom this afternoon as an early anti-arthritis treatment.

TW, your tree looks like it could be straight out of the Wizard of OZ! Liz, your cat slide show is hilarious! How dare you bring another cat home without permission. And Au_Naturel, congratulations are in order, I guess . I honestly don't think that I've ever been stung by a bee.

I spent last Sunday looking at these :





We went to the '142nd Annual Scottish Highland Games' presented by the Caledonian Club of San Francisco. It's the longest running games in the US.
This is a shot of one of the bands passing by at the closing ceremonies featuring the massed bands, more than 800 musicians. Since I couldn't get into the grandstand for the panoramic shots, I thought I'd try to get a couple 'artsy' shots.(Eh, not great, there appears to be a smudge on the camera lens. )

Here are a couple more shots:

More kilts

Byebye, bands!

I also posted links to some videos of music in this thread in the music section:
Scots, Marines and Tinkers

Hibiscus growing inside the Glasshouse at the Wisley RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) garden.

Yesterday at just after 7.30pm some neighbours collected me to take me out and as we were driving along the road the setting sun was a vibrant red, most spectacular so I started to get my camera out of my handbag to take a photo through the window. My neighbour suggested it might be nicer down at Corbiere so we took a detour.

It looked fabulous so I hopped out of the car and walked a few yards to get clear of crash barriers and the like. I peered at the LCD screen and much to my amazement there was no sun! Moved my head, beautiful red sun, looked through camera, no sun! Gordon came to look and he couldn't see the sun either - most bizarre. We could see it through the normal viewfinder, just not on the LCD. I could see everything else, just no sun.

Anyway I took some photos, some just normal and some on a reduced light setting. None particularly good and no red sun.



This one is exactly the same view taken with normal automatic setting.

Sue, there was a gorgeous red sun here last night, too and when I tried to take a pic of it I got very similar results to yours. Most disappointing.

Here's a sight known to all British motorists - the hated Gatso speed camera!
Invented by Maus Gatsonides to measure and improve his driving speed, speed cameras are a common sight on British roads, and have largely taken over from proper and efficient policing of traffic violations.

Another photo from our trip to Curacao. This is the view of the harbour of Willemstad. The story goes that the houses used to be all white. But the Dutch Governor suffered from Migraines and the harsh white paint made them worse. So he had them paint the homes soft pastel colors.




Larger shot

Thanks for some more great pics of Katt, Liz.

Nowadays we Brits usually get the raw material for our endless cups of tea from India, but two or three hundred years ago most of it came from China. So the tea merchants Twinings, founded in the eighteenth century, have these rather stereotypical Chinese figures over their door.

TW, the last time I went to Wisley (we have family membership) the glasshouse was due to open the following day. But isn't it impressive! Now I've finally covered most of the gardens I'll have somewhere new to go the next time.
On the garden theme, this is a Robinia tree in my mum's next door garden.



The light was perfect just around sunset.

Gosh TT, I lived in London for years and years, but never noticed some of things you show us. That Twinings one is so lovely!
Here is a papaya tree I pass on the way to the village bus stop. Nearly ripe and everyone will take one till they are gone. The farmer never seems to mind!

We've been away for a couple of days for the sports day for the boy's school. The first day the kids are at the school for 'practice day' and then the next day is the actual sports day. We all meet up at the school and most of the cars are decorated in your sports house colour and then the police lead a procession through the town to the oval. Lots of cheering, people dressed up, races, novelty events. They involve the parents as well in races and it's just a good fun day. Conor was the fastest five year old boy (there was only three of them LOL), came first in the egg and spoon race, third in the three legged race and third in the relay (that's the photo here). Was most proud of himself.



Sometimes I don't give him enough credit to my own shame. I had visions of him chucking tantrums if he didn't win every race and had numerous chats to him about it being all joining in and having a good time ect but he couldn't have cared less where he came, just had a good fun day.

Copago what a great shot of Conor, he looks like he is having so much fun. Ah to be young and able to just run with abandon without a care in the world other than to just have fun.

Great shot, Copago! He looks like he's just having so much fun

This is what my attempt to photograph the red sun last night turned out like. The red seems to have migrated from the sun and turned the sky pink (which it wasn't to the naked eye). Odd.

From Satguru.

Quote:

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TW, the last time I went to Wisley (we have family membership) the glasshouse was due to open the following day.

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Here is the Glasshouse. It's well laid out inside. There is an upper level to explore and all sorts of exotic plants are on show. I photographed some.



Link a to larger photo.

This is an old German lookout post left from the Occupation during WWII. It is now a marine radio station.

I've never aspired to buy my clothes in Jermyn Street, so I didn't know until I walked along there last weekend that this statue of Beau Brummell had been erected there a few years ago. I don't share the man's interest in clothes, but any guy who insults a Prince of Wales can't be all bad.