Pills, Potions and Photos

Poor old Alice has been horribly ill since the beginning of July. We won't go into all the ghastly details, but it included a nasty, persistent spasm of pain in her right shoulder and arm which related to her tendons and a presumed trapped nerve.

After the pills and potions to take, an X-ray, and Physiotherapy exercises to do, she also suffered a period of dizziness (still with her, but calming down somewhat now) when she had to be extra careful not to fall over. When will it all end?

Now don't forget you can click any image to see it at a larger size.
We keep telling you each time, but we're not sure if you actually do it . . . .

Very recently poor Alice actually emerged a bit from the worst, and although there's been no TV or videos for ages, she started to entertain herself (much too obsessively, we think) with Solitaire on her mobile.

But a while ago she actually began to read a bit and went back to Philip Pullman's great novels.

A dear friend from the depths of England, had sent her this nice Get Well card. And finally, yesterday, after a most desultory, depressed and frustrating morning in bed, she put on a load of washing (well overdue) perked up and took some photos of us to fill in the gap on this blog.  -HURRAH!!- This morning was similar, but now she's wrestling with the Blogger interface to set this post up for you.

We really should be getting back to the routine of pills, potions and things to eat etc, but we felt like it was time for a break.
  
So that's us for now, folks. Byee!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnote
NEW TO THIS BLOG? Want to start at the beginning? Go to the "BLOG ARCHIVE" column (top-ish right) and select 2012 - May, Here we go! At the very bottom of each online page you can select "Newer Post". And so on.  
If you're just confused about the Alice / Vera shenanigans, select 2012, July - Alice and Vera. Or go straight there with this link (opens in a separate page or tab).

Mostly Elderflowers
[ ADDITIONAL PHOTO ADDED LATER! ]

We've been behind again with letting our fans know (we do have some, don't we?) what we've been up to. So here's a very short update.

Making the most of a sunny evening, we went for a walk along the canal again, and we were attracted to the amazingly sweet-smelling Elderflowers now in bloom. Ba is gazing at some larger bunches, much higher up - too high for Alice to lift us up to sit beside.

What's this? Someone is trying to pick them right in front of our very eyes! You can see why perhaps at this recipe page by Countryfile.

This tall dark stranger can certainly reach high enough to pick the most choice blooms, too.

Or is he such a stranger after all? He looks suspiciously familiar to us.

And he says he's going to make Elderflower Cordial with them.

Alice wondered if he'd use that recipe by one of the UK's best known shefs, Jamie Oliver, no less.

Anyway, a considerably large quantity got picked, so we could then have a rest beside the canal. [Click on any photos to see them at a larger size.]

Which do you like best, the previous one above with the canal as an interesting background, or this one with a good close-up of the two of us? 

This photo is just to let you know we do still have some flowers doing well inside the house. These geraniums in the kitchen keep on blooming, as long as we don't forget to water them, of course, and don't do so when the sun is beaming fiercely through the window.

The last one, below, shows how we somehow or other manage to aquire a few blossoms, like this wonderfully sweet-smelling Honeysuckle, and bring them into the house to enjoy.

Is that all? you may well ask. 

Well, we did warn you this would be a very short post. Bye for now!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnote
NEW TO THIS BLOG? Want to start at the beginning? Go to the "BLOG ARCHIVE" column (top-ish right) and select 2012 - May, Here we go! At the very bottom of each online page you can select "Newer Post". And so on.  
If you're just confused about the Alice / Vera shenanigans, select 2012, July - Alice and Vera. Or go straight there with this link (opens in a separate page or tab).

SPRING WATCH (or, Yet More Flowers . . .)
[UPDATED THURSDAY 7th JUNE]

We've not posted anything here for a while, though we have been out and about, and Alice has taken a number of photographs of us we are impatient for you to see.

But she's still not feeling 100%, with the Post Viral Fatigue and such like. If you want to know a bit more about that, she managed to find a fairly good article by a fellow sufferer. Alice doesn't have everything mentioned there (thank goodness) but she does have the general weariness and occasional bouts of feeling dizzy. She's fairly sure she doesn't have Depression as such either, and is off to an excellent alternative therapist for some relevant help. And she's certainly still got all her marbles, as she just complained I've dictated too many underlinings.

Then Ba insisted we pose with our "real" marbles, in front of the fireplace. Sigh. . . . They are rather pretty, though, aren't they?

As a compromise to not writing a post at all, Alice has agreed to put up the photos, but not get tied up in knots trying to make the text fit elegantly around it. I hope she can manage to do that, or we'll be in for the usual marathon of attempts at precision and occasional frustration, plus swearing.

On May7th, we were back in Harrison Park, where the cherry blossom was in full splendour.

[You can click on any photo to see it at a larger size.]

The photo above and on the right here are both of our "favourite tree" in the Park. The second one is taken looking straight up at the mass of beautiful flowers. Alice managed to bang her head on a branch as she stood up - but the bruise is going down gradually.

And even though it was late in the afternoon, the sunshine was still warm.

Ba said we should also admire the so-called "ordinary" dandelions and daisies. So we did.

May 12th
Well, our windowboxed bulbs are well and truely Past It now, as you can see.

But we'll wait until they've died right down, so the goodness is all stored in them, before we lift them and plant something else.

Meanwhile, there's a spot of brightness on the kitchen indoor windowsill, where the geraniums have begun to bloom.

I was most impressed by this bright pink flower-head.

Ba is looking up at a tender bud, wondering how long it will take to come out.

We've been encouraging Alice, who has just joined the ranks of those who colour.

It's supposed to help calm her if she's stressed. This isn't too bad for a first go, don't you think? [Do click on it.]

No prizes for recognising the book it's based on: a favourite, of course . . .

May 13th
A close-up of the beautifully coloured leaves on our favourite tree in the park, which by now bears some red seed-pods - if that is what they are.

A bit of Googling (actually rather a lot) makes us think it's most probably a Copper Cherry. But we're still just a bit confused.
 
May 14th
We admired the next piece of work on the title page. A colouring friend suggested it's not essential to complete a whole page at once, but rather work on small parts as they appeal.

The lettering was difficult to get to our satisfaction, let alone Alice's. Once a felt-tip line is drawn, it can't be undone! The pencil shading was a little easier.

May 18th
A good friend took us all down to South Queensferry, where we enjoyed some late afternoon sun and admired the three Forth Bridges, road and rail. Alice and her pal had a long conversation about matters personal and philosophical, as I've found humans tend to do.

Notice how there's a slightly different light in the bottom frame of the composite, for which Alice chose a slightly different exposure etc.

We were actually on that bridge in September 2017. See the photos and other information on our blog post of  August 2017. And the later one in October 2017.

May 23rd
Now for the glorious finale to this catching-up blog:
All the pink cherry blossoms were now over, but it was time to admire the brilliant white of the Hawthorn. The dark green of the holly also added to the contrast.

There's a lovely video by the Woodland Trust of A Year in the Life of a Hawthorn Tree. Keep watching until the end: there are different sections.
And here we are, close up with the blossoms on the right. There's some general information about Hawthorn by Wildscreen Arkive on their website, and interesting stuff about the plant's mythology and folklore by Trees for Life on theirs.

So it's cheerio from us for now. It's well gone lunch time here, but at least Alice restricted (well, a bit) her usual urge to keep fiddling with the layout. It looks fine, doesn't it?

P.S. [7th June]  Here's two more photos which really belong with this post (even though we are not in them!) but Alice took a while getting them edited to her satisfaction...

The Hawthorn flowers on this tree in the Park had turned just slightly pink. Apparently this isn't unusual.

While the lilac tree in our neighbour's front garden was blooming beautifully - and smelled heavenly!

Recent  events

Update  Just to let you know first of all, that the "mystery" which Alice had attributed to her lymph nodes in our previous post, was duly explored by palpation (prodding) ultrasound (a sort of x-ray with sound waves) and endoscopy (see below) a couple of days ago by a most kindly consultant and his able team. Our financially struggling NHS still has wonderful staff.

[ We couldn't find a really good photo for the procedure, so this will have to do. And I had to reassure Ba that no, the inside of Alice's head is not blue. It's just a diagram! ] 

The final verdict was that everything was perfectly normal - at least medically speaking. Even after she'd bravely endured the dreaded endoscope up the nose and down her throat! He thought the neck soreness was in her muscles, and probably caused by stress and anxiety.

Solutions to that and the so-called Post Viral Fatigue still need to be found, but at least there's no sign of any ghastly condition - not to be named here (like a certain fictional character?)

Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition

After that experience, and lunch, we went to the National Museum of Scotland, to see the wonderful Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, before it finished here on 29th April, and goes off on tour.

The display was very well designed and exciting. It was in a darkened gallery, with each blown up copy projected from behind onto a screen.

See also the Natural History Museum, where it has  been on since 20th October 2017, and is continuing until 1st July 2018. Their website also gives more information about the individual images, photographers, and stories related to the exhibits. Follow the links in the titles below to find these.

Here is a selection of our favourite ones. [Don't forget to click and see a larger size.]

Children of the rainforest by Charlie Hamilton James, UK. Finalist 2017, The Wildlife Photojournalist Award, Single Image. This girl took her tamarin swimming in the river: he clung to her head, hating the water.

Realm of the Condor by Klaus Tamm, Germany. Finalist 2017, Animals in their Environment.

Glimpse of a Lynx by Laura Albiac Vilas, Spain. Finalist 2017, 11–14 Years Old.

Anticipation by Marco Urso, Italy. Finalist 2017, Behaviour, Mammals.

Layers of Autumn by Uge Fuertes Sanz, Spain. Finalist 2017, Plants and Fungi. Isn't it lovley!

Wolf Watch by Lasse Kurkela, Finland. Finalist 2017, 11–14 Years Old.

Of course this last one was Alice's favourite, with her special love for wolves - including the now famous Direwolves from Game of Thrones. If, by the way, you are also impatient for Season Eight, have a look at her favourite theorist's YouTube channel: Talking Thrones. 

The visit itself was an excellent antidote to the anxieties of the morning.

Here we are back home, with our mementos of the exhibition. Yes, only one picture of ourselves this time round. Our photographer was rather niggly because the lighting wasn't the best possible, as we had to avoid flash, which bounces off the postcards with a glare.

Although Alice did have a bit of an emotional wobble today about all the foregoing health stuff, writing the blog has been therapeutic, as ever.

Not just flowers?

A gap. I'm sorry there's been a gap in our blogging again. I'm afraid Alice came down with a bit of a mystery complaint.

As soon as I dictated this, Ba got quite agitated, Where did she come down from? And, Who's been complaining?

Oh dear, she's not very good with these figures of speech, so I had to explain it was nothing like Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments on the Tablets of Stone.

Even then, Ba was wondering if Alice would need to swallow pills of stone (tablets). We looked for a good link, but they were all rather religiously complicated, so it's Wikipedia again.

The complaint - I should have chosen a different word from the many available - was a persistent "sore throat", which turned out, eventually, not actually to be in Alice's throat as such, but generated by her lymph nodes, which her GP found were sore and tender. They are due to be examined by experts fairly soon, and the mystery hopefully solved.

We've kept this image small, in case you're squeamish about anatomy etc. The Lymphatic System is shown in green, though it's not really. Click and it comes up bigger. Bigger still in this long explanatory article - you have been warned!

Back to the flowers
Alice put these four photos together, as they all show more or less the same flowers, and it saves us composing lots of different captions to fill up the spaces!   [Click to see larger.]

Top left: March 24th, and really Spring at last! A couple of the daffodils came out and it was a lot warmer. Bottom left: a better view of the daffodils, but not us. Top right: A few days later the second bud has opened and a hyacinth is looking more lively, but it's turned cold again. 
AND Bottom right: How it usually appears, without any cheating. The flowers are facing the sun, not you; there are distracting cars behind, nasty double yellow lines and signs on the road, plus a dangling cable. You can see why Alice likes to avoid or edit out the rubbish.

Here are two of the best photos of all that you're going to see of our windowboxes this year. Because afterwards some of the daffodils started to droop and get wizened, so we had to deadhead them.

Nothing to do with the rock group, called the Grateful Dead, in case you're confused by the term. It means to prune away the dying bits to help the rest, including the buried bulbs, fare better.

Although there's a bare patch where Ba is sitting, there were ten bright daffodils in this one.

Off to the Park
We're lucky enough to live very close to Harrison Park, (see here too) a lovely open space in the city. Here we're perched in a decorative guard for a young sapling.

It keeps the dogs, kids and footballs off, I assume.What a wonderful spread of daffodils in the background!

Taken later, with the sinking sun behind, this gives a better picture of how decorative it is. [Do click!]

There's even a Community Garden space near the entrance. In the background you can see our favourite tree - more of which later.


Here's a closer view of some of the planting boxes, at a sensible height to avoid back-breaking bending down. You can just glimpse the play area behind, which is well used by the local parents with young children.

Here we are, perched up on the trunk of our Favourite Tree! Notice the healthy green moss - or is it lichen? There's a good view of the leaves at this angle, but it's hard get the full lovliness of the wonderful pink flowers.

Alice's composite below is the best for colour, especially against the early evening's deep blue sky. In the distance, beyond the Church, you can just glimpse the nearby Pentland Hills.

But we'll end with flowers again. I found some just-going-over tulips, with a surprise in them.

Ba was at first busy snuffling to see if they had any perfume. No, they didn't.

In the end, with a little help from Alice, she managed to see what I'd found. It stayed perfectly still, maybe having a snooze? Make this photo and the specimen the last one to click on and see in its full detail! We do hope you've all enjoyed our Spring medley and found it interesting.

Snow, Spring? Snow and ? - plus a surprise.
[UPDATED TUESDAY 20th MARCH]

Most of this post is about the recent Beast from the East and how it has been affecting British weather, ourselves in particular. But fear not, there's a suprise to reward your patience at the end.

Ba had assumed this recently oft referred to creature was some kind of giant polar bear, falling upon us with ravenous intent to eat up as many of the unsuspecting citizens as possible. Perhaps she thought it would be like the fighting ones in Philip Pullman's wonderful trilogy His Dark Materials. Alice loved these books, by the way, and has almost finished the exciting first installment of the sequel, The Book of Dust.

In fact the Beast from the East is a much more mundane expression for a cold air system, the rather boring explanation for which is found on this Met Office site.

This diagram is supposed to help you understand what it's all about. There's now a slightly different, maybe better (?) explantion by BBC News.

Still none the wiser? Never mind, our photos will give you a proper taste, instead, without any academic links. And if windowboxes and weather aren't your thing, then just whizz down to the surprise at the end of this blog post - though you'll miss a few G-o-T references. . .

February 28th. Why have we got hat or scarf on, and what is it that Ba can't quite see?

When we perched on something else (it's actually an incense stick burner box) the first thing we saw was two sets of big eyes staring back! [Click to see for yourselves.]

OK, enough being silly. It was snowing heavily that day, and Ba got us to put on our extra winter wear and take a look at how the bulbs were doing in the window box. I said we should just look and not venture outside, or let the cold air in! But the photo didn't come out very well as the white snow was so bright.

You can see better in this one on the left, looking out of a different window, definitely kept closed.

March 1st. After even more snow overnight, the green shoots from our bulbs are buried even deeper. Compare these two photos carefully, and you'll see by just how much.

Ba was worried they wouldn't survive.

Our near neighbour, Targ, ventured outside very cautiously. It all looked and felt rather different. OK, he'll risk the crossing. [Photo by SJ.]

He's called Targ, short for Targaryen, as his owner is a great Game of Thrones fan, and her favourite character is Daenerys. Alice prefers Tyrion, as he's so smart and witty, and Peter Dinklage is the outstanding actor in the role.

March 2nd. We gave Alice our moral support when she went to scrape the snow and ice off the step outside the front door, so the trip across the road to the communal rubbish bin could be undertaken without too much danger of slipping or falling.

That isn't a proper shovel - it's one left over from the very long ago days of a coal fire. You never know when something in the depths of a cupboard might come in useful, do you? That's her excuse for not clearing them out, anyway, and she's just been proved right.

March 3rd. Why are we having our photo taken looking out of the window yet again today?

Isn't everything the same?

Look more closely: there's a bud showing in the top left corner.

I think it's a miniature daffodil, or a crocus, but we'll just have hope it survives the cold and wait to see.

March 10th. A bit of a time gap here: it snowed on and off, but today there was rain and even some hail. The buds are doing well, however, as you can see.

Then . . .
March 11th. This afternoon it was actually sunny and warmer, so we wandered along the canal and enjoyed the daffodils which are coming out right now! It's Spring at last, surely!!

You can just make out the footpath and the canal itself behind these splendid blooms. We simply had to lie down and revel in the glory of it all.

March 18th. Then today, after that lovely sunny spell last week, there were great flurries of snow - again!

When we first looked out, a few of the shoots had been flattened.

Some of it had melted by the time we'd got ready for the photo session, and (luckily) the flattened shoots had perked up again. Phew.

We'll finish this section on Snow, Spring (was it?) and Snow again, with a composite image where you can compare three versions, from March 3rd (far right) to March 10th (centre) and the 18th (on the left). The gallant plants have weathered several changes!
Now for the Surprise!

On March 14th we learned of the death of the amazing and brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking. You can find obituaries and articles in many places, such as the BBC News channel, and the scientific journal Nature.

He was famous for his own huge theories about Life, the Universe and Everything.  But rather than agree that the answer was 42, he discussed his views with other famous thinkers, such as Carl Sagan and Arthur C Clarke.

Despite all this, however, our favourite memory of the man is this sketch he made with Little Britian for Red Nose Day in 2015. He may have been a scientific genius, but he also had a wonderful sense of humour!

The skit, which also makes some telling points about disability prejudice, is available to watch in full on this YouTube link, while some of the others are only partial.