A walk in the park

Boy do we have one excited granddaughter. 

She’s been on a student exchange in Toulouse for several mots and her time there is coming to an end. OK, she is excited about getting back to NZ to be with her Mum and Dad, big brother and younger sisters. But before she gets on the plane back home she’s making a detour to spend time with us here in London. The man and I will have our first trip on the Eurostar to get to Paris, which is where we are all meeting up. The three of us will do some of the touristy things there for a couple of days before coming back in Eurostar and then…well you’ll have to wait until next week to find out what we will be up to.

Did I tell you that we have bought a new camera, well we have. Person in the store asked SLR? My reply do I need one. Well she said if you’ve never used one and you do buy one you really should take lessons or at least have someone who has one show you how to use it.

Well I replied all I want to be able to do is pint and shoot.

In that case, this is on of the best for the job. It’s got all the bells and whistles, great for close us, does movies too and not only the special deal means that you get an extra battery thrown in for the same price.

So that’s the one we bought.

The Man had tried taking pictures of the moon with our other camera and was disappointed with the result. Not so with the new one, it will take a bit of practice with the settings, but already he is more than happy with the result.

We had a day in yesterday doing the domestic stuff and pottering on the computer not so today. Him and me went for a walk in Crystal palace Park this afternoon, yes it was cold, but it was too nice a day to just sit around the flat not doing much. It was a great day to take pictures too.

Read this in the freebee paper this week.  The headline reads ‘Father of 22 is spared jail to care for youngest child’ Well that’s not as nice as you might think. This chappie is described as ‘A drug dealing father of 22 children to 11 different women –He’s a 58 year old who has not worked for 10 years because of a bad back. He said ‘I just love kids’

The article goes on to quote him as claiming that he has ‘never had to chase after women…I’m easy going…they’re always chasing after me… I don’t know what it is about me but I’m never short of offers…It’s just my luck that every time I have a one night stand the girl ends up getting pregnant’  

That’s’ almost as stupid as the next snippet from the same paper.

 A girl returned from nursery with a self-appraisal form to fill in…despite being 11 months old. Her father filled it in on her behalf noting that her interests were ‘gripping dogs hair’ and exploring parents noses with fingers’

First of my weekly posts

 And a happy new year to you.

I have to admit that it has been a bit of a relief not to have the compulsion to write a post for the blog every single day.

It was a bit odd just going back to work for Tuesday, having Wednesday off and then going back in for two days. Had me thinking Thursday was  Monday.

So what have we been doing this week?

Well work obviously, and despite the fact that is has been a bit chilly there is still no sign of any snow here at Crystal Palace.

Yesterday, Saturday we donned our wet weather gear, hopped on a bus and went to help a friend load up their van because they are moving house. Seeing The Man stowing things in the van took me right back to when him and me were market traders back home in New Zealand. We had a high top Nissan Safari and it would be crammed to the roof with our wares,  sales tables and couple of gazebos. The Man would load up the truck on a Friday night in anticipation of an early start to drive from Fielding where we were living at the time to Wanganui.

 http://therivertraders.co.nz/

We had lots of fun and made a little ready cash into the bargain. One we were set up I’d leave The Man in charge and go have e a bit of a wander around the other stalls, sometimes even buying things to resell. We stocked all sorts of ‘junk’ and shells, hundred and hundreds of shells. It was good time and we often muse about doing it again when we get back home.

This morning I got up just in time to see a beautiful sunrise, a good opportunity to try out the new camera.

Here comes the sun

What do you think of the pic

I’ve spent the afternoon working on the family story concentrating on my paternal grandparents. Trouble is it is so easy for me to get side tracked by an interesting snippet or fact and then go off on a tangent researching and spending even more time on obscure and not directly related facts.

Lady.....

You’ll never guess what we have trying to hibernate in the cavity of our window frame.

Go on…guess, I’ll bet you won’t be anywhere close.

Oh alright….I’ll tell you…no actually I’ll show you

Yes it is a bit blurry, but you get the idea

Yes that’s right lots of ladybirds

The Ladybird Survey aims to facilitate the recording of all the UK's ladybirds.
On this website you will find lots of information to help you find and identify species, and online forms so that you can record your observations.
Ladybirds belong to the scientific family Coccinellidae. In Britain, some 46 species belong to this family, although only 26 of these are recognisably ladybirds.
The invasion of the harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) threatens our native populations. If you want to know more about this species in particular, or want to record sightings, please have a look at the Harlequin Ladybird Survey website.

What is a ladybird?

Ladybirds are beetles (Order: Coleoptera) and so possess two characteristics that distinguish them from insects of other orders:

1. hard forewings (elytra) that cover the abdomen and meet centrally;
2. biting mouthparts.

The ladybird family within the beetle group is called the Coccinellidae. Coccinellids can be recognised by a number of general features:

• Small to medium sized beetles (1-10 mm or 1/16 - 3/4 inch long)
• Usually round or oval
• Elytra are often brightly coloured and patterned
• Short, clubbed antennae
• Pronotum (structure between the head and the elytra) is broader than long; extends forward at the margins and is often patterned
• Short legs that are retractable under the body
• Feet ( tarsi ) that have four segments but the third is so small that only three are easily visible

Gonna be a cold night...

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr we might well be in for the first frost tonight if things stay like this.

Clear sky and next to no wind, it’s already down to 6 degrees. And it’s not even five pm yet.  If it wasn’t for the crisscross that look like white chalk lines in the sky you wouldn’t know that there were so many planes coming and going. The sun has gone and the once white lines have turned a dirty grey.

After the wet day yesterday we were all set to see clouds and rain this morning when we got up, and did we? Nope, it has been a clear blue sky day but boy the wind is chilly. We only set foot out of doors today to pop around the corner to a nice little Italian café for lunch…delicious mushroom fettuccini followed by warm apple tart with ice-cream Very yummy. Then a quick trip to the supermarket to replenish the cupboards before hurrying back to the warmth of our little flat.

I left The Man to his own devices yesterday for day two of a genealogy writing course. That’s when I came across those floats for the parade. We had planned that he would come in and meet me afterwards and us two would then meet up with a couple of cousins to watch the end of show fireworks. By lunch time we knew that wasn’t going to happen because of the rain. Probably just as well to because as my writing day finished I could hear the boom of large fireworks, and before I go to the station we were going to meet up at it was all over.

Talking…that is…writing about fireworks, this weekend we’ve seen quite a few pretty displays looking like glittering blooms against the dark of the sky, reds and greens and golds. There is a really pretty one that goes all twinkly and sparkly for quite a long time before it fades out

I wonder if there will be any more tonight.

Whizz bang....

Guy Fawkes night again…seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was writing about it .

Back at home in New Zealand the public display would have been deferred until the following weekend…and here in England?

Why we’ve always had it on the day so of course we will do it on the day.  Our first year living where we do we were nicely entertained by all the fireworks going off for as far as we could see. The man and I live on the fifth floor and our view is pretty extensive. Last year it was a bit less and this year the amount is considerably less again. 

Obviously a reflection of a reduction in peoples disposable income.

Yesterday when I got to work it was to the news that our vaccine fridge had gone haywire and was doing the opposite thing to what it should have been. Not good that as vaccines have to be stored in temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees. And ours was reading 24!! As we didn’t know how long it had been malfunctioning we had to throw out a lot of vaccines. 

There’s a nationwide shortage of yellow fever and typhoid vaccines and I might not be able to order any more.

But let’s not think about tit too much when there re fireworks  happening at he park and we can see them from our lounge window.

From the children's display