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Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge
The lovely Hope* The Happy Hugger has started a new challenge – Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge!
This is quite the challenge for me as I don’t have any pets. However, not wishing to exclude the sadly petless, she has indicated that any pictures of animals will be okay, so here are a couple of pictures of some horsies. I’m sorry that the horsies are so far away, but I was worried that they might come a-chargin’ at me. I don’t know if horsies are the type of animal that go a-chargin’ at people but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Horsies
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea
Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea – share a photo which means SEA to you.
The sea – wild, vast, untameable.
Perranporth, Cornwall, UK
Extending along the cliffs and to the horizon.
Weekly Photo Challenge – The Golden Hour
This was taken while at my company’s summer party in Falmouth, Cornwall (UK). The sun has gone down behind the hotel leaving the grounds in darkness but it is still illuminating the headland, upon which you can see Pendennis Castle, which was built in 1539 by Henry VIII (though I doubt he actually did any of the heavy lifting himself!).
I didn’t have my camera with me so I took this with my phone, and then zoomed and cropped it a bit when I got home.
This is my contribution to The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge – The Golden Hour.
Nature, No Question
Daily Prompt: The Natural World – Describe your first memorable experience exploring and spending time in nature. Were you in awe? Or were you not impressed? Would you rather spend time in the forest or the city?
Photographers, artists, and poets: show us NATURE.
I’m the type of chap who prefers being at least reasonably close to nature. That’s fairly easy since I live in Cornwall, in the far South West of England.
Perranporth, Cornwall
I often visit Godrevy when I fancy a nice quiet walk – beaches, cliffs and moorland. It’s only a few miles from my house.
Godrevy, Cornwall
I spent many, many holidays in the North of Scotland.
Somewhere in the North of Scotland
I lived in Cork, Ireland for four years.
This little lake is either in County Cork or County Kerry – I was never sure where the border was
I’ve lived in Cork city, Guildford and Stuttgart – all cities, but I prefer nature, and it was never too far away!
I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.
Rain On Me
Daily Prompt: Turn, Turn, Turn – For many of us, winter is blooming into spring, or fall hardening into winter. Which season do you most look forward to?
Well, this is a tricky one. Once upon a long ago, when I was but a wee lad, we had seasons. We had a fresh spring, a hot summer (in Cornwall that’s anything above 23 degrees), a blustery autumn and a cold crisp winter.
We now have a mish-mash of seasons throughout the year. Sure, it’s generally warmest around July/August and coldest around December/January, but if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s the rain. Okay, so the last couple of weeks have been quite pleasant with lots of sun, but two degrees in April isn’t my idea of “spring”, sun or no sun. And now it’s raining again so we’re back to “the new normal”.
What happened? Why did the seasons all roll into one? I don’t know. Something to do with jet streams or El Nino or whatnot I expect.
So here’s a breakdown of seasons, along with some badly written poetry!
Spring – cool to warm, raining
Ah, spring, when all the little buds appear on the trees, grass is green, new life appears and it’s raining. I’m not a huge fan of spring. It’s neither one thing nor the other.
New life awakens
The last frost dies
Gentle promise
Of new possibilities
The world glitters
With fresh morning dew
A new beginning.
Summer – warm, occasionally approaching “hot”, raining
I had a rubbish summer holiday last year. I didn’t go anywhere. I left my flat three times in two weeks. I’ve never seen rain like it. It rained so hard my car filled with water. I’m talking an actual puddle. I had to bail it out. Rubbish.
Burning sun assaults the road
Burning off the winter’s cold
Children laughing in the street
Tarmac melts beneath their feet
People smiling everywhere
No-one seems to have a care
Then it starts raining again and it all turns to shit.
Rubbish.
Autumn – getting cooler, windy, raining
This is the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” according to Mr Keats. I have to say, this is the one season which reminds me of my childhood. Collecting leaves to bring into school to stick into my exercise book. Conker fights. The Harvest Festival. Could this be my favourite season? I don’t think so, just a season which reminds me of good times long since gone.
Trees a sea of red and gold
Gentle breeze caresses
Life slipping
Towards sleep.
Winter – cold, occasional snow, frost, raining (which subsequently freezes before raining again)
Winter’s not so bad, really. The only reason I don’t like snow is because I have to drive to work. I love the dark evenings where I can go home to a lovely warm home, close the curtains and snuggle up. And of course, winter has Christmas in it!
Flakes of perfect symmetry
Drifting, swirling
Nature’s dance.
Blanketed in white
The world sleeps
Awaiting a new day.
And there you have it. It rains a lot.
Which season do I most look forward to? I really don’t know. They all have something beautiful about them.
Now it’s time to enjoy the season of spring! Take walks, enjoy the daffodils and watch the trees burst to life. And maybe take some poetry lessons.
Oh deer
“Oh deer” – no, not an embarrassing typo. We’re talking Bambi’s here (I understand that “Bambi” is a name and has no plural, and neither “Bambis” nor “Bambies” look right, so I hope you’ll excuse the use of the apostrophe in the plural).
From personal observation there has been a recent spate of attempted animal suicides in my area. Over the last couple of months every kind of furry mammal has flung itself at my car in an apparent attempt to end it all.
A Bambi, much like the suicide Bambi recently spotted on a main road in Cornwall.
Here’s a list of the most recent attempts:
2 cats (Truro and Redruth)
1 fox (A30 dual carriageway)
1 squirrel (Falmouth)
1 deer (A30 dual carriageway)
1 drunken youth (Truro)
All of these incidents took place after 10pm except for the squirrel – he only required a quick braking manoeuvre. The others elicited a last minute swerve.
Now, the fox and the squirrel I can understand – they’ve never traditionally balked at running into the road.
I always thought cats had more sense.
I’ve included “drunken youth” in the list because he was behaving like an animal. He jumped out into he road and stuck his finger up at me. Maybe he was trying to thumb a lift but mistakenly used “the finger” instead. As I passed him I saw him in the rear view mirror move further out into the road, finger still held high as I drove away. I was quite annoyed at such a random incident and briefly considered slamming the car into reverse and backing over him. Of course that would have been “wrong”, although, to be honest, prison food could only improve my diet.
That brings me to the Bambi. A deer in Cornwall? What? I saw it in the headlights at the last second as it calmly made its way down the verge and straight out into the slow lane. I performed a rather impressive 70mph swerve and saw it in the rear view mirror stare at me for a second before, again very calmly, it made its way back up the verge.
My Dad later told me that apparently there’s a “deer farm” in the vicinity (deer don’t generally roam free in Cornwall which is why I was so surprised to see one at all, let alone on the main road).
I’m not sure why one would “farm deer”, but I guess it must have been “deer harvest” time and one of them made a break for freedom.
Apparently hitting a deer at 70mph does serious damage to a car (and it probably doesn’t do the deer much good either) so it’s lucky I had an empty lane to swerve into.
Are these incidents all part of the rich tapestry of nature, or is there a multi-species suicide pact going on? Hopefully the former, otherwise it’s all just a bit depressing.
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