Saturday 28 June 2014

The New Me Arrives

 Mrs D do finally get back to my re-construction. She do take off the green hands, thank heavens. And do join on some wire ones (without that screw-in wrist thingy) and do give her hands a "skin" of masking tape... frail but replaceable.

So here she is... or I am... depending how you look at it.

Blimey, Mrs D do go overboard on the hair this time but at least the new-me do look like she have shed a few pounds, and......
She can stand on her own two feet.
Which be more than I do.


Tuesday 24 June 2014

Beautiful Day On The Lizard

The other day we surprised ourselves with an impromptu visit to The Lizard ... Well OK ... we got lost.
We parked up in the village itself and took off along a road and footpath into a valley leading to the next little cove, a beautiful nature reserve stuffed full of flowers and the song of whitethroats, Caerthillian.




Monday 23 June 2014

A Child Digs In The Garden...

...what do they find?
As a result of a breakfast talk between me and The Old Man... I do think of all the gardens of me childhood and what I do find buried there.

First garden... well I be too young to have unearthed stuff there... spending most of me time in me pram and toddling about. I may have found worms. I may have tried eating them. This may be family gossip.
Second garden. Newly built house on a resulting field of clay. Absolutely... clay. So I dug up clay and made little pots.
Third garden... a flat near the station... no garden to dig in as such... fascinated by the red-bodied harvestmen (daddy long-legs) that lived under the gate-pillar cap.
Fourth garden... (we traveled about a lot)... bright cut glass "beads" about the size of pound coin... clear and colours ... I remember blue... Someone said there used to be a glass factory on that site... and I guess these were for chandeliers.
Fifth garden. Yes, fifth.... A heart-shaped sea urchin fossil.
Sixth garden.... Too old for digging having transformed into a moody adolescent....

Thursday 19 June 2014

Animated Discussions: "Big Bang Dog" from Parquerama Studios

A wonderful, surreal, anarchic animation from the Argentinean team Parquerama Studios (see some artwork at this link) as seen on Vimeo via Animated Review.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

In The Garden - Havoc Wrought

...Not least on me... I seem to have developed some kinda late-onset hay-fever. My nose runs like a tap and glows like a beacon. My eyes are small, shrunken and peppery. I sneeze and sigh and feel very sorry for myself. Ah well.

But we do eat potatoes from the garden. In fact, I do dig up all the first earlies on account there is no doubt but we have been blighted. First time that it's got to the lovely tatties themselves. Had to wash and sort them, dry the survivors lovingly and put them in a box in the cool garage. Meanwhile The Old Man do cut the foliage from the second earlies what be showing dire signs of same. Hoping to have caught it before it trickles down to the tatties beneath.

This morning I do go to check my poor broad beans what have suffered weevil depredation and snails (snails don't usually bother them but I guess they saw an opportunity...) To my outrage I find the finally healthy tips are weighed down by fat dark greenfly with black legs... each the size of a tank. I have no option but to pick out these healthy tips with their sitting tenants... revealing as I do, the scurrying black ants what be placing the fat, reproducing beasts on my lovely bean plants. Blimey! The veg garden is challenging this year. But... am eating the strawberries... Yum! And eyeing up the peas for a first pick this evening. If something doesn't get there first.

In fact the whole cycle of life is a bit challenging this spring. Birds are fledging and quivering in fat, feathery bundles deposited in shrubs and trees whilst the parents hunt high and low to satisfy their hunger. The other day I skip like a ninny to film a caterpillar spinning its chrysalis on a sedge stem by the side of the drive. Truly, I be borbling on about the miracles of nature and so on. Next day I do find the chrysalis.... gone. Along with several of its brood-mates. I realise now it be likely that the desperate bird parents have taken them off to eaten by their children. One miracle of nature have been devoured by another.

Thursday 12 June 2014

Grey Doll & Criminal Reading: Sweden (Two Soldiers) and Spain (Blood Med)

I been all over the place with me reading.
Firstly I was on a grim Stockholm satellite housing-estate and in a prison - in a story by Swedish crime-writing team Roslund & Hellstrom....called Two Soldiers. Written in part from within the mindset of a gang, its members, and the tribal "one luv" that replaces flesh and blood family - it is a tough and realistic read around prison life, a startlingly organised prison escape, the brutal ambition to become king of gangs and the police's frantic attempts to find a kidnapped prison officer and the gang members themselves. It is also a suitably dark analysis of the roots and perpetuation of gangs within our modern societies. You can read the complete review over at Euro Crime.

Then I also visited Spain and did some criminal reading tinged with political comment over in Valencia with Jason Webster  and the fourth in his Inspector Max Camara series - Blood Med. (This is the second title in this series that I've read and really liked both, so must try to fill the gaps with a retro-read.) In this one Spain is in crisis. The King is ill and everyone is on tenterhooks as to Spain's political future. Increasing unemployment means a homelessness crisis, whilst disillusionment with the rich and politically powerful breeds discontent and protest in the streets of Valencia. Against this backdrop a young American woman is murdered in a particularly brutal manner but Camara is sceptical that "the husband" did it. So who did? Plenty of excitement and chewy social observation.  You can read the complete Euro Crime review here.

Tuesday 10 June 2014

Me And The Slow Worm

I be busy this morning... sanding filler, hoovering and such and do look into the utility porch in passing to find myself staring at the front half of a slow worm  poking in under the back door.
What you doing?... thinks I, You stuck?
I bend over and give it a gentle poke... and it do appear to be alive. But my dilemma is how to open the door fully to let the creature go, if it is stuck that is, or... change its mind about coming indoors if that's what it fancies doin'.

I tell you it was a nerve-racking and tricky manoeuvre to open that door without squishing the animal further. I could feel its body's resistance and was worried I be damaging its skin if nothing else. It tried to turn around the way it came but that didn't seem to work.

Eventually, together, we did manage it, and it did scent around, flicking its forked tongue, and did wiggle off into the undergrowth. It's tail had been in a crack in the concrete next to the door. I bet it be searching out ants and do decide to investigate our utility room for more.. (quite likely to be some)..
Phew.
Bet it thought "Phew" too.

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Thinking Of Animating....

So if that Mrs D cannot get a move on and finish my own "makeover".. I shall just give up and get behind the camera.
I've been thinking about that Car Image... what do stay in my mind....


And...... I do get the Car........  

And I do get the actors... 
Dog and  Bike Girl......
 

 But Bike Girl says ..... No way she will get in that car even if she could.
Already we have temperament.