It was so cold in England today…
…we had blue tits.
On our fat balls.
I’ve been crumbling up bread ends and meat scraps and leaving them out for weeks now, but for all I know I’ve been fattening rats (last Summer, Uncle B took a picture of an especially fine specimen waddling off with a crust; that’s when he quit leaving food out).
Today, though, bits of Britain were colder than bits of the Antarctic and the boids turned up in hoids.
I totally don’t know from birds. I love watching them, but I’m at a “ZOMG, look at that precious fat one with the beak!” level of expertise. So I got out the binoculars and the Field Guide to British Birds and I counted
■ One thrush
■ One robin
■ Two pairs of moorhens (maybe one pair of moorhens and a pair of coots)
■ A lovely pair of chaffinches
■ Half a dozen blackbirds (a different species than ours; the British kind really do have that sweet, meandering song like in the old Beatles tune)
And that’s before the rooks came home from work and scared everyone off.
Oh, and Uncle B swears he saw blue tits on the seed feeder, but he sees tits everywhere. I’m worried about that boy.
January 6, 2009 — 8:00 pm
Comments: 10
oh. how nice.
Oh shit. My stuff’s here.
Uncle B and I were standing on the shingle watching an indigo snowsquall tear through a red sunset over the English Channel when the movers called.
(NO I didn’t have my goddamn camera. He popped off a couple of shots with a pocket camera; I’ll fish it out of the back of the car tomorrow and see what he got).
The movers want to know what part of it I’d like them to deliver to the house and what part to put into storage right away. Honest to crap, that’s like buying a 30-ton load of horse manure and deciding which shit you’d like now and which shit to save for later.
Oh, and Jill will obviously have to be burned.
January 5, 2009 — 8:54 pm
Comments: 22
I suppose the green ones carry lime disease
Ho ho. Lime joke.
January 3, 2009 — 10:11 am
Comments: 35
Other British brands that will never, ever make it in the States
January 2, 2009 — 7:38 pm
Comments: 8
Pencils!
The Sanford Corporation (a Newell Rubbermaid Company) is the world’s largest manufacturer of writing instruments, mostly by way of corporate om-nom-nomination of familiar brands: uni-ball, Sharpie, PaperMate, Waterman, Parker, Prismacolor, Eberhard faber, Turquoise, Col-erase, Empire-Berol and more…more than you ever dreamed.
Doug of the Pencil Pages toured the Sanford pencil factory in Lewisburg, Tennessee in 2004 — in June, when a young man’s fancy turn to thoughts of pencil — and brought back this excellent photo essay.
Because having nothing to say for myself doesn’t even slow me down.
January 1, 2009 — 7:17 pm
Comments: 12
Swan upping new year
I usually post a picture of the last light of the year on New Year’s Eve, but there wasn’t much of it today. Instead, I offer you these swans, which I photographed as I walked into town to buy a loaf of bread. (Get me! I’m olde worlde!).
The field across the road is sown in rape (it’s a cinch nobody consulted a PR before naming it “rape”, isn’t it?) and for several weeks, the new crop has been home to a flock of swans. Mute swans. Cygnus olor. Dozens and dozens of them. I don’t know why the farmer doesn’t shoo them off; perhaps foraging swans are protected.
Wild, unmarked mute swans have been the property of the crown since the 12th Century, but Her Maj only claims the ones on the Thames these days. She graciously shares ownership with the Companies of Vintners and Dyers. Once a year, the Queen’s Swan Marker and the Swan Uppers of the Vintners and Dyers dress up in little red suits, climb into six little red skiffs and spend five days rowing the Thames upping swans.
How dost up a swan? Carefully, I prithee! Ho ho ho!
Swan upping: the Worshipful Company of etcetera paddle about on the river, shout “all up!” when they spot a brood of baby swans, circle the boats, lift the cygnets out of the water, weigh them, check them, tag them, count them and let them go again. When this gay party passes Windsor Castle, they stand up in the boats, raise oars, and salute Her Majesty, Queen of the Swans.
Weasel doesn’t make this shit up, you know.
As luck would have it, the bottle of shampoo next up in the booze rotation was my favorite. And it’s kosher! Soon, my beauty. Happy New Year, y’all!
December 31, 2008 — 6:21 pm
Comments: 19
Amusing, racially-offensive headline of some kind
We had our first sit-down meal at our favorite Chinese takeaway this evening. It was nice. It was large. It was sweet. I find Chinese sauces here sweeter than I’m used to.
Fortune cookies are unusual here, but we got them. This really was mine. Uncle B’s was something about an angry man closing his eyes and opening his mouth.
We had a walk in the woods (saw a badger sett! And a barn owl!) and came home for a nice, long nap.
A couple more days of enforced idleness like this, and even I might long for a job to do.
Or, you know.
Maybe not.
December 30, 2008 — 7:39 pm
Comments: 16
For you, my friends…
Tesco’s roasted monkey nuts. Roasted monkey nuts. Say it with me: roasted monkey nuts.
Yeah. It’s what they call peanuts.
This isn’t my picture, though. I slung my camera off my shoulder in Tesco’s to snap a stealth photo, and my battery died.
So I nicked a pic off this person’s Flickr stream. I tried to log into Flickr to leave a comment confessing, but I fell into Corporate Consolidation Hell.
Turns out my new ISP — British Telecom — uses Yahoo webmail, Yahoo owns Flickr and I can’t be logged into more than one. Can’t remember my Flickr or Yahoo details, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t tell Yahoo my real birfday or anything, so I’m stuck. Here’s my account for historical purposes, anyhow. Everybody wave to it.
Feh. Roasted monkey nuts.
December 29, 2008 — 8:48 pm
Comments: 32
Tolja
We got invited ’round to the neighbors for Boxing Day afternoon. We got the time wrong and landed in the middle of family celebrations. Awk-warrrrrd.
Still…on the way home, I got Uncle B to take a picture of me next to The Sign.
December 26, 2008 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 45
Loot! Plunder! Swag!
This? A British Airways place setting…from the Concorde. This is just the sort of brilliant, clever gift-giving Uncle B excels at and I…do not. I made him circle shit he wanted in a gardening catalogue. I’m pretty darned sure this is the first time in my life I’ve ever bought anyone vermiculite for Christmas.
We’ve just polished off the champagne…the turkey is in the oven…it has been an good Christmas. Hope yours was, too!
See you on Boxing Day! (Don’t ask).
December 25, 2008 — 9:02 pm
Comments: 36