A Bit Of Daydreaming...

...Doesn't go amiss, sometimes, when the colours outside my windows are nowhere near as idyllic as they appear in this somewhat 'doctored' shade of blue sea and sky.

Yes, I know I went OTT with photoshop, but just get a whiff of that weed in the foreground. Mmmmm!

Almost central on the skyline is the dark grey hump of Langstone Mill, and the part of the harbour wall you can see, forms the boundary of a pub garden -  complete with gaudy sunshades which bloom out of the middle of each sun bleached, wooden table.

It's a popular haunt for tourists on a nice day, and I decided to let a touch of nostalgia for the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, flow onto my blogpage for all of you to share.

And don't forget the sun screen lotion and your dark glasses if you go searching for the real thing!

And now a Funny Footnote, to finish with...

"When the weed in Langstone Harbour
gives off its pungent smell,
I know God's in his Heaven
and all the world is well!"

Telephone Torture?

Having been a loyal customer of BT since the days when I had a phone exactly like this picture, I've since developed a love/hate relationship with them, as their services blossomed to embrace modern technology which now includes Broadband and Online Billing.

The downside of the widening horizons of telecommunications, has been the Marketing Menace of  increasing numbers of unsolicited calls at all hours of the day - and occasionally, night - well, late evening, anyway.

Since January this year I've been running a one woman campaign (almost!) to stop such intrusions. The
TPS (tephone treference tervice), the barring of 'withheld numbers' and the 'choose to refuse' option are all services which BT offers - but at a price, in the case of the last two.

On studying today's Online Bill, I was reminded that 'barring' costs me £4.75 a month, and 'refusing', £3.90. I now know that the first only bars 'no number' calls made in the UK, and the second only allows me ten 'spaces' for detailing numbers I wish to refuse.

Within a month from the date I opted for three pounds ninety's worth of refusing, my ten spaces were filled - the first with a number which registered as 0000 000 000. Where in the universe is a 'phone allocated with THAT number, pray tell me?

And as most nuisance marketing calls stem from call centres abroad, what is the use of BT limiting their barring to the UK only?

It's about time the making-millions-of-profit BT started being honest in the way they deal with Telephone Tortures which continue to plague poor OAP's like me.

P.S. Sorry I was A.W.O.L yesterday - I  was out and about, and the day ran away with me! LOL. :-)

If Only

If only Blogger would re-instate the little banner across the top of it's pages which used to give us a quick link for a new post. Now, we have to go hunting for the option by first visiting the Dashboard. Has no body else seen fit to mourn the passing of the earlier layout?

For some reason it still appears if I use Google Chrome to open my blog, but I prefer Mozilla Firefox. No accounting for taste, I suppose. I wonder if others amongst you have wished the 'new post' option was left in the 'old' layout?

But apart from that, the morning has escaped me as I've been flitting around blogland drinking in creative juices from the prolific writers whose names catch my attention as I wander its highways and byways. I've missed days doing just that, following my nose and absorbing thoughts which leap from the screen's words and pictures that others have posted.

I think I have become too punch drunk on their creativity to let my own take flight today, but who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Boring

Saturday things took charge of my thinking processes, and Blogland went out of the window. You see, I'd obviously got into the  lazy habit of recent months, where there was no nagging voice inside my head chanting"Now, how to amuse them today?" as the redoubtable Christopher Robin was heard to say in the wonderful poem called Sneezles, which you can read for yourselves if you click on the link.
I hope none of you are similarly afflicted this weekend.*smiles* I'll see you anon...

Rain Stopped Play

How often has that phrase came over the airwaves of the BBC, to dash the hopes of sports fans? Cricket and tennis have certainly lost out to the wet stuff more than once, but I'm not sure about football. I think those games are allowed to turn into impromptu Mud Baths - aren't they?

Luckily, when the rain woke me at seven this morning with a musical drumming on the flat roof, I had no play time planned - other than a morning workout for my fingers on this keyboard.

Yesterday, I had planned to get ahead of myself, and schedule a post for today.  Camera in hand, I took a couple of shots of rain splattered bluebells, thinking" Those'll be a good place to start!"
Oh, foolish me.
The plan failed dismally, as for reasons best known to Computer Imps or Google Gremlins, the smooth running sequence I was expecting when I tried to download them, never materialised.

It took late evening ministrations from No. 1 son before the photos were safe in a folder where I stood a chance of finding them again! Hehehe!

So here, better late than never, lets 'ring those bells!'

Come into my garden...

...But only if you bring your secateurs and several sacks to collect the ensuing debris!
This was more or less my plea to the wonderful lady gardener a friend introduced me to last year. Considering most of the space outside my patio door is covered in hideous concrete slabs, Nature has managed to produce an overabundance of green stuff in the few remaining patches of earth, with only a minimal input from me.

A couple of weekends ago, the hard working, Green Fingered Goddess came to my rescue again, and order has been restored.

You can see, almost dead centre, a solar powered 'dragonfly- on-a-stick' who is somewhat lacklustre, by daylight. But come the dusk, his ever-changing colours glitter with glee, and he becomes a thing of beauty - until his solar energy runs out.

And it made me think; all living creatures need to recharge their batteries in some way or another - either in sleep, or by slowing their metabolism down during certain periods of their lives. And in order to do this, sustenance is a pre- requisite.

So artists, writers and poets need to feed on 'experiences' and undergo 'hibernation' of a sort, before they can utilise their creative 'light' to brighten corners of our world. Long may they shine.

The Wonder of Wednesday...

...is that it's neither here not there. It's past the insistence of Monday which drives people back to work, and it's still too far away from the weekend for them to heave a sigh of relief. Which means it's in a kind of never land, which suits me fine, as I have a penchant for imaginary things, even in dreams.

Just before I woke up, Dreamland had me primping, as I tried to get ready to sing in concert in the Dreamtown hall. Not difficult to see how my Barbershopping days floated to the surface here.

But then pure fantasy took over. 'I'd like to buy you a present' said a friend, as they steered me into a gift shop.'Choose anything you like'.
'Do you have any ornate, brass trays?' I found myself asking an assistant.

My morning self thinks 'Why on earth would I want one of those, having been happy to give away the beautifully inscribed one of Indian origin which had belonged to my parents?'

I can see shelves and cabinets full of curios all about me, in this bijou shop with the air of a museum, but no trays. Thank goodness.  Then, high up on one stand, a hand materializes, and passes me a brass object which I can only describe as a flattened, Russian-doll-aping chalice, filigree and emblazoned with a cross, within whose elliptical innards nestled many miniature versions of itself.

I think Easter and Lolamouse's challenge had overtaken my subconscious for the night! LOL. Pity me.

But on the subject of filigree, I think my latest crochet bedspread oeuvre is a contender...

I've started so I'll carry on...

...Maybe because last Saturday, I time warped back to when I first started this blog, and was overwhelmed by seeing again the delightful people who'd faithfully popped by, day after day, to make encouraging noises to me, a hesitant beginner.

There were no Happy Snappy photos of mine, or anybody else's, and those who visited were content with word pictures I managed to paint in their heads.
Posts  became more like conversations starting up, as those who commented often returned more than once to 'talk' to each other via my comment box - if you see what I mean?

I guess nostalgia got to me, and I've decided to see whether some of that magic can still be tapped into, after the inroads on Bloggy communication made by Twitter and Facebook, which appear to me closer to the world of advertising hype, than writerly whimsy.
The proof of this pudding will be in the daily eating thereof. On my own head be it. Which tempts me to leave you a link back to yesterday, in case you missed that post...

Hang Out The Flags!

The proverbial Bad Penny is out of hibernation. The long silence since December, was simply due to the Jinksy grasshopper mind choosing to follow other than Blogland paths for a spell. It can't resist a challenge.

For instance, I needed to create a Treacle Pudding Beanie when a certain person floated the idea in my direction, and I couldn't rest until I'd made one. The whole thing evolved as I worked, patterns  for same being unavailable.

You wouldn't believe how hard the exercise proved to be, for no self respecting pudding would be symmetrical in its syrupy dribbles, and it was down to luck rather than design as to how the final colours spread themselves around the rim.

 And of course, taking a photo of any hat becomes difficult when there is no head to model it. I tried a pudding basin, but discovered the old idea of a pudding basin hair cut was no help in this somewhat different situation, and the Pyrex bowl was banished back to the kitchen. So these two shots leave the beanie looking a little flabby, though they do show how the golden sponge, the oozing syrup and the caramelized top each played their part in this trompe l'oeil experiment.

I believe the recipient has had the grace to wear it in public at least once, though his daughter was scandalized at the thought of her father making so bold...