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.