Home again! And flowers
We have been back for some while, in fact, but as usual Alice has been "awfully busy" so she's ony just beginning to catch up. "And
that's just with you two," she grumped.
Once home again, Ba was delighted to find this remaining crocus still blooming on the interior window ledge in the kitchen. She was quite upset we missed seeing the other ones in flower. Having an evening photoshoot, however, cheered her up, especially when she saw that taking pictures at night with flash can produce quite a dramatic look. [ Don't forget to click on images to enlarge them. ]
Later, one of the little Iris came out. It lives in the kitchen internal window ledge as well, but we brought it out to view. On the right, it's being inspected by both of us from a different angle.
In daylight, we looked at the outside window boxes, but
from inside, where it was warm. But Ba insisted we had to be "in Nature" to give the bulbs encouragement. So it was hat and scarf for the chilly night air.
Noses
Meanwhile, we were waiting for
Red Nose Day. Here are the different Noses from this year. You could buy them in some of the supermarkets, each sold separately in a sealed package - so you didn't know which you would get until you'd paid.
These are the two Alice picked from the sort-of-Lucky-Dip box. I'm holding
Sniffer a clever hound, and Ba's one, wrapped up in bandages is
Snootankhamun. Alice says they're not bandages as such, but his mummification wrappings, like the famous
Tutankhamun.You can learn all about how to make a mummy at
National Geographic Kids.
Alice first had to take a separate photo of the two noses against a black background, in order to put them (digitally) right
on our faces! Our real "noses" just weren't the right shape to do it any other way. Quite a fiddle that was, and accompanied by some swearing, I'm sad to report. The BBC
Comic Relief event was highly successful raising money for the cause, too.
Eddie and a Birthday Party
During one of our visits to the grandchildren's place, and just before Angelina's Birthday Party, we met with Eddie the Elephant, who was all dressed up for the event.
He got photographed in a bit of a hurry, head-on, so his trunk unfortunately doesn't appear at its magnificent best. But his hat and bow-tie had just been created by the birthday girl herself, and we wanted to show off her creative skills.
Angelina was having a sleep-over party with her best friends, so she and her mother made this sleeping-bag cake. It's really good, isn't it?
Here she is blowing out the candles.
On a later visit, we caught Eddie all ready for bed, so Alice took another up-to-date photo.
She made sure this time that his lovely trunk was clearly visible against the darker background of Monkey's fur, so you can admire it properly.
Click on it to see it in its full glory.
Flowers again
We were sorry that the solitary tulip had died before the daffodils and hyacyinths came out, as it would have made a much better show.
Alice decided she was fed up with the street in the background of our window-box photos, so she draped the muslim outside the window.
Well, it's really nylon, but has the same effect - just much more tasteful.
We've put this one in here out of order, as it was actually taken ten days later, but we thought it would be good to be able to compare the progress of the hyacinths with the photo before this. Just to confuse you, however, I should point out that the box was turned around by 180°!
[
Don't click or tap the
picture below this if you have a phobia about arachnids: it
will get bigger, bigger even than life-size. You have been warned. ]
Horace
Here is a rare photo of our only pet, as such: Horace
the spider, who lives in a corner of the bathroom. He's hanging upside-down (resting?) in his web, and the film of dust is actually stuck to its relatively extensive reach. If he's disturbed by vibrations, Horace scuttles back inside the tiny hole you can see behind him. See, he's more scared of
you than you can possibly be of
him.
Alice used to be afraid of spiders, but last year made friends with another one who lived in the same space (Horace's mother?) and found it helped her anxiety if she talked to it, so now she has discovered this one's name and does the same again.
What's up?
What is Monkey doing perched high up in the ivy plant in the kitchen?
He's taking a good look at the fly-paper we had to put up after being plagued by a swarm of nasty little black flies. We think they're attracted by the food waste recycling bin, even though the lid is kept closed.
Lots and lots of flies have met
a sticky end! We were lucky to find a good old-fashioned hardware shop that sells the special paper.
Click the double-image below for the gorey details . . .
A trip to Ocean Terminal
We were in Edinburgh's
Ocean Terminal complex recently, where there's a super view of the harbour and the distant Fife coast.
The ship whose prow you can see to the right, is the famous
Royal Yacht Brittania, which is very expensive to look around, so we haven't been, as Alice is being careful with her pennies right now.
In fact we went there after a Sunday morning dancing
Five Rhythms, in order to go to the
Vue cinema, which has good facilities for our wheel-chair dancing friend. We decided to have a spot of escapism watching the new Disney version of
Beauty and the Beast.
It was absolutely lovely! It was so very romantic that Ba was even a little tearful in places. Alice was too, though she won't admit to it. I thought the Beast was
much more handsome before he turned back into a Prince. Alice said she'd felt the same about the beast in Jean Cocteau's wonderful, pioneering
La Belle et la Bête, (1946) - one of her favourite films of all time.
Sunshine along the canal
This post has been pretty long, and our recent celebration of Spring includes quite a lot of photos, so this note is just a trailer for our next posting, which will come along quite soon - honest.
Pausing en route, we saw this lovely brightly-coloured duck. Alice says it's a Mallard. See the RSPB website for more information - and hear how they quack, too. 
We paused here under this old tree for a bit of a breather.
This 90° version was suggested by Alice's grand-daughter Angelina, who recently turned 11 (see the previous post below this one.) Just a little editing has produced a wonderful trompe l'oeil effect.
Under it is the view from the bridge itself, looking back.
We turned off the route well before that as Alice was getting a bit tired, and anyway we had to divert from the towpath to get to our planned destination, traipsing through the uninspiring Meggetland modern estate.
