If it's Saturday it must be Sepia

The day crept up on me, so here, late, is one of my oldest photographs. My paternal grandfather,whom I never met, is on the right.                                                                                         

No wise cracks about the horse, please!

Down On The Farm

This was the cheeky chappie that kept me busy yesterday, so apologies to Bloglanders for being so remiss in visiting your humble (or not!) abodes. Sammy Sheep is a one off - no chance of my creating a flock, should you be wondering.
If he passes his vet's inspection, he will be going to the lady who commissioned him; if he doesn't, at least there will be no danger of him ending up as a lamb chop.

P.S. A last minute addition:-

Sheepish Poem

Are you feeling sheepish,
blushing to your nose?
Perhaps the pink tinge travels
as far down as your toes?

This poor wee lamb is suffering
from exactly that affliction
his sheepish genes have made him
a blushing freak attraction!

Learn About Something New

And now the sound that should have gone with my post about Morning! If you've never listened to Indian music before, give this a whirl, people, especially if you are feeling in need of a little peace and calm. Enjoy.
Thinks:- you never know what you may find next on Jinksy's blog...

Stuck With Morning

So the subject is almost the same today as yesterday - but earlier, if you get my drift? In other words, at 3am my eyes opened their shutters, even with my eyelids closed, and for the next hour and a half I battled to stay in dreamland. I lost. Morning won.

The battlefied is now covered, not with blood, but words - those of yet another etheree, which I have coupled with a doodle inspired by birds. By the time you've read to the end, you should get the connection.

Sleep
departs
for the night;
early morning
has now captured me
in wakeful stranglehold.
Determined to quash my dreams,
the dawn light and birdsong chorus
together announce approach of day,
transposing reveries into stark facts.

For a slightly different take on the etheree go here, and be sure to read the comments!

Morning Has Broken

As it tends to do following a sunset. But this one has turned about face, and made me want to continue with the evening theme, thanks to a post by Delwyn I've just read here, which explains the poetic form called an Etheree. 


This is poem of 55 syllables, which has 10 lines, beginning with one syllable and building with the addition of one syllable each line to a total of 10.

So here is my first attempt at an Etheree, inspired by A Hazy Moon... and my previous post.

Night

draws in;

red sun sinks

in slow splendour

below horizon,

blanketing countryside,

flooding sky with molten gold

to forge its shimmering image

into a memory we carry

within our heart, a treasure beyond price.

This Evening

The merest sprinkling of rain brought the smell of the nearby sea with it, fresh and welcoming after a very humid day.
I spent much of Monday wandering Blogland, paying return calls, or visiting old friends. But now I feel the need to add a blogpost, and what better subject than evening, as I watch the dusky stillness herald in the night.
The rain was, once again, something and nothing; a tantalising glimpse, no more.

So my mind wandered in completely the opposite direction, and sent me searching for a suitable illustration of a different kind of evening. After much clicking on wrong files I managed to unearth a doodling sunset I did a few weeks back, and as Tessa was extolling the virtues of doodling in her latest post, it seemed apt to use this now.

 I've never seen anything like this myself. It is pure imagination, so forgive me, all you photographic gurus who produce examples of  the real thing. I can't compete with them. All I offer is a mirage... Or part of it:-

Getting Ahead Of Myself

As I've had my version of a Poetry Bus parked in my brain's garage nearly all week, I though I'd let it trundle forth - mostly because then I won't have to use my thinking cap too much for the rest of the day - I can leave everything to the Driver of the proper Poetry Bus to pick up all waiting passengers.

Confused? Let me help you!

It doesn't take much to make confusion reign,
for my brain has a habit of leaping
much faster to an end result
than the brain of the one who is speaking.

Now, sometimes that's me- more often another-
as an answer does tend to evolve
in less than a twinkling, as often as not,
to any old question we're trying to solve.

Then I see by the mystified look on their face
that my pal's in the dark, not the dawn,
whilst I have already completed the race
and am standing about with a yawn

till they reach a conclusion that's similar to mine,
though I've already got there in half of the time!

Total Confession Time

After reading Woman in a Window's comment yesterday, I thought I'd reinforce her observation by letting everyone see the jinksy character was there from birth! Feast your eyes on this - though I have already let a privileged few see it before  via email, now I boldly share it further.

 

I always could see the joke... So what's new?!
The original snapshot was crumpled in the extreme, as it was one my Dad carried in his wallet for years. It had a tracery of white lines all over as a result, but thanks to computer wizardry I've managed to improve the image - but not the subject! That remains daft as a brush, believe me.

So daft, in fact, that I wrote yet another Flash 55 offering for today, whilst bearing in mind that Monday's Poetry Bus Driver, Niamh ,  has given the word 'Confusion' as a departure point for the week. I thought my snapshot, that subject and these fifty five words went together rather well...

Once, I was not.
Then there was Me,
and I was I.
Next came We -
until I became Us.
Now I am once again I,
but also Nobody and Everybody.

But does this make me Somebody
or even Anybody?

Perhaps by being Nothing,
this One may become the Many
until eventually, part of Everything, Everywhere.

P.S.  Blogger is currently causing me grief, so I shall be back later to include links to the various blogs I mentioned in this post.  

P.P.S. Hopefully, all is now as it should be, with links in place...

Proof

I was once young and foolish.
This faded, serious photo
is of Jinksy, aged about four.

Look closely at the picture -
who in their right mind
would willingly wear
jodhpurs for leggings?

Now I am considerably older,
but not as foolish, I hope.

And I can prove it to you,
right now, before your very eyes!
And how am I going to do that,
I hear you ask? Well, I've cracked the Link-in-the-comments-puzzle, thanks to Dr FTSE, who wrote out an idiots guide for me.


Here it is, for anyone to share who has not yet been initiated into the mystery.


Principle - you are inserting bits of html code, (called "tags") before and after the word or words that you want the reader to CLICK on.  Your PC will process these bits of code accordingly, and will take the reader to the chosen URL, in a new window.  html = hypertext markup language

1.  Copy the full URL of the site/blog/individual post that you want to link to.

     e.g  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syrC4EVkVas&feature=fvw     

     I do this by going to the site etc and dragging and copying from the URL address bar.

2.  Return to the post where you want to leave a comment, and write your comment in the "comment" pane.

3.  Decide which word or words in your comment you want to show up as the LINK to be clicked on.

4. Click the cursor in your comment in front of your chosen link words

WARNING!!!!  IN what follows, you must use ANGLE BRACKETS < or >, where I use round brackets, e.g. ( and )
If I use < >'s in this message, my eMailer will try to interpret 5, 6 and 7 as html code, and something will screw up.

5. Type  (a href="URL to be linked to")   NOTE THE QUOTE MARKS!  FORGETTING THESE IS THE COMMONEST MISTAKE.  You can insert the URL by pasting, if you have copied it as in 1) above

6. Immediately after the link words, type (/a)

7. So the whole thing, before you preview your comment, will look like :-
   Blah blah (a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syrC4EVkVas&feature=fvw") LINK WORDS (/a) blah.

8.  You will see the code in your typed comment, but not in the preview and the published post, which will show the LINK WORDS in colour.

Forgetting the quote marks and the ) AFTER the URL are the most usual mistakes.  Mistakes will generate a red warning when you preview, saying something like  "HTML not accepted. Tag not closed"

Happy linking!  DON'T BE SCARED OF IT!  


Now, if that's not enough proof for you that I have learned a modicom of sense along the way, I don't know what is, for in the comments to my previous post I have actually applied Doc's instructions, and you can see for yourself they worked! 

While I'm at it, here is another handy tip, from another of my Blogpals.


Very helpful advice, ( to any / every  Blogee ), that Braja kindly put in one of her blogcomments:-

"noreply-comment@blogger.com is the address that your comments are sent from. You haven't designated an email address so that anyone can reply. It blocks communication.
Go to your profile. Click on Edit profile, and then choose the third box down, Show My Email. Simple." 


Happy Blogging, Folks! Long may we be around to savour to its joys!

Bye Bye Bus

Okay, so Monday's dead and gone
but happy bloggers carry on
and need some mid-week stimulation.
So here just for the Blogland nation
I'll try to dig up from my mind
another dose ('cause I'm so kind!)
of lunacy or or even mayhem
designed to simply entertain 'em.

Hmm... I can hear my conscience telling me 'Never make promises you can't keep.' Perhaps it's the early hour (just after seven) that prompted me to be so rash. Serves me right for switching on the computer instead of the washing machine.
Now here I am, exposed as a fraud. No entertaining ditty sprang to my mind, and I shall now retire to the servants quarters, banished from the parlour for for not delivering the goods.
Maybe after I've been forced to attend to all the chores, the head parlour maid will let me back above stairs to open the front door to more Blogland visitors.

Much later the same day...

Well, my carpets are less bitty
and clean washing looks quite pretty
but I have no funny ditty
to add. Oh, what a pity!

Sorry if you wandered by
hoping I'd give it a try -
I'm usually so do-or-die -
but my rhyming well is dry!

Along with the washing...
Who mentioned that disgusting word ironing? Go wash your mouth out...

I'm Waiting At The Bus Stop This Week...

...As my last week's marathon sprint after the Poetry Bus took me too long to recover from! Today, I'm camping out at the stop, with my overnight bag and Tardis Tent at the ready, so's to be right on time for Monday, when the Driver will be Argent.
Here is my ticket, paid in full.

Just Google!

If you need an armadillo, or some stuffing for a pillow,
and you're not sure where to find some of the same,
you don't need to be a genius, for surely... what I mean is...
nowadays... just Google! What a game!

Find out facts on Wikipedia, which often can mislead ya:
watch Video's galore of YouTube fame.
The web is full of wonder- find a po or a guzunder-
(a chamber pot, to give its proper name!)
Nowadays... just Google! What a game!

If you want to stock your larder, buy a bed that's soft (or harder)
you needn't window shop, or rack your brain.
A search engine lets you travel,
while your shattered nerves unravel
nowadays... just Google! That's the game!

If you wonder what on earth I'm talking about, go visit TFE, and it shouldn't take you too long to decipher what's going on! He will also provide you with a list of dates and drivers, so you can be sure of joining the passengers too, if you like Monday Mystery tours.

For The Curious Amongst You

These are a couple of the little time wasters that have been keeping me busy, just so's you know they were not a figment of my imagination, used to excuse my absence from Blogland.

If you take a good look at the surface on which the Duckies are standing, you will perhaps realise it is part of my one time Eucalyptus tree, that grew too big for its boots (or roots!) and met its demise in the early part of last year. I did blog about the whole episode, but despite my trolling through old posts, I can't for the life of me find the relevant one. For those newcomers to napple notes who missed it, I kept a couple of large chunks of the bole to use as garden seats. They have weathered as you can see, with large sheets of curved bark now detached to show an interesting striation on the uncovered trunk. How could I not share such a snippet of useless information with my Blogland buddies? Just the ticket for a woeful Wednesday, after my earlier ticket tale...

P.S. I just found the tree felling post here, if any newcomers want a gander (to keep with the birdy theme!)

Rush, Rush, Rush

Crumbs! Is it Monday?
I'm running to catch the bus
but have no ticket.

Having spent the weekend with fingers roped to knitting needles and wool, the Monday Poetry Bus is about to disappear into the distance, as I pant breathlessly towards its disappearing back end...
However, while pausing long enough to recover my composure, I have composed (!) a haiku in its honour, with apologies to this week's Driver, Dominic Rivron, who asked us to write a poem ON something...

Here I need you to use your imagination and picture me writing the above on a calendar or time table, perhaps? Sorry, Driver and Fellow Passengers, for being a wimp. Will try harder in future to be on time.

Whew!

Thank goodness Wimbledon is done and dusted, and I can turn my attention to a long neglected Blogland.

However, the time wasn't wasted, for while my eyes boggled, and I Oo-ed and Aah-ed with the centre court crowd, my fingers kept busy.






Small Great Nephew (L7) had long been wanting a tiny doggie-chum for his all-time favourite toy - a blue dog. OK, so making a toy for a toy is a little surreal, but nothing if not a challenge.

Eventually, after much contemplation, I managed to produce one small, blue dog complete with basket, bone and ball. Please note his name tag which you can just see hanging from his collar. As yet this is blank, waiting for an official naming ceremony in due course. L7 is a little boy who takes life seriously, and needs to think before making such an important decision. I can see I may eventually need to add an initial to the tag...

Obviously my next task was to create a little something for L7's younger sister, P4. I chose to make these two finger puppet butterflies, one for each hand, as I'm told she's a butterfly kind of girl.





Best of all about having made these tiny offerings, is the knowledge that both L7 and P4 will be able to collect them in person. Their family is coming all the way from New Zealand, at the end of this month, and I shall get to say hello to the kiddywinks in the flesh for the very first time. Aren't I the lucky one?!