Summer’s coming

The ex-pond, with a stone fish in a stone river:

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Charlie, Rosabelle and Mamichou:

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An isolated fingerpost:

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Picking wild garlic:

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Apple blossom:

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Lettuce salad:

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Rickety swing:

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Dandelion:

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Gone to seed:

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  1. nice photos dod. i guess I haven’t seen rosabelle for a while – she’s grown loads!

    the ex-pond is looking very “zen”;-)

  2. pinkie

    Lovely photos, but what happened to the goldfish?

  3. I would like to say we ate them, lightly battered; but the truth is, they were liberated, along with a bucket of tadpoles, in Binstead Pond.

  4. carotte

    That dandelion clock would appear to be superior to yours Liv!!! Good photo’s. I give the river a good five minutes in current state when the hoolies arrive!!! What about an ornamental bridge over it? I liked the bridge.

  5. carotte

    are those anti cat toilet sticks I see???

  6. The sticks show where we planted our miniscule geraniums …

Apparently this Gordon Brown chappie is …

Apparently this Gordon Brown chappie is labour???? for some reason I had him in my mind as conservative!!! even though I know that the weasley faced guy is the Tory 😐 My political knowledge never fails to astound me.

  1. That is pretty astounding.

  2. Though actually, on reflection, perfectly understandable, given the only real difference in their policies concerns fox hunting.

    1. Here’s one new Conservative MP you should have no difficulty remembering!
      www.louisebagshawe.net/home

      1. carotte

        Yay for foxhunting I say!

Election fever – the bottom line

What a ghastly choice: Lord Snooty, with 17 old Etonians in his Cabinet; the discredited Supreme Leader, with the Miliband puppets jerking convulsively in the background; or the party of, as AA Gill put it, ‘comfortably vast bottoms’.

Clearly, my civic duty is to spoil my ballet paper.

Japan

A fairly delayed blog post re Japan.

Had a great time seeing Jul and Mayumi, and seeing the temples, shrines, parks, towers, etc. Plenty to see in Tokyo and plenty of tasty food.

day 1: a vist to a noodle restuarant followed by a trip to see the blossom. then home to bed as we’d been up for 30 hrs or so.

day 2: the temple and market at Asakusa. it’d rained all day and unfortunately the temple was covered for to repairs

day 3: tokyo tower and nearby temple. lovely day and there seemed to be an event of sorts going on. met up with jul in the afternoon in a park near the fish market. tried traditional green tea – no so tasty. walked back via Ginza.

day 4: early start to get the the fish market for the best action. arrived to find it deserted. apparently drunken tourists had trashed the place and it was closed for a month. went to the folk museum instead. then to yoyogi park to the main buddhist temple and then to Hirajuku for people watching.

day 5: yokohama. pleasant walk along the harbour. got burnt.

day 6: a bento lunch with jul in the national gardens and a spot of reading

day 7: beer museum and park near the imperial palace. trip to bic camera – impressive

day 8: made gyoza under the instruction of Mayumi. Epic taste. Visit to Ghibli museum which was good fun.

day 9: a bit ill. stayed in.

day 10: Kamakura. very nice small village by the sea. loads of surfers.

day 11: bit more ill. visit to docs, followed by stroll round the east imperial palace gardens.

day 12: back to kamakura to see bamboo grove and giant buddha

day 13: hmm, not sure

day 14: chillout day, walked around gotanda area

day 14 + 1: flight cancelled. ate roast chicken in yet another park. taste! afternoon reading on jul’s roof

day 14 + 2: still no flights. visited the national building. good views and guided tour.

day 14 + 3: still no flights. small aquarium near gotanda. good dophin show, but tanks seemed a bit small:-(

day 15 + 4: early phone call from Virgin. panic! rush to airport and flight miraculously took off!

I’ve also uploaded more photos to picasaweb.google.com/decoyotis/Japan

  1. Great medley of photos. I particularly like the municipal workers kitted out to go base jumping. Somehow, I find it hard to believe the same healthy and and taste conscious people eating those enormous bamboo shoots would also be queing up for raw horse meat or, perish the thought, raw tripe, even if it was, as promised, ‘freshly sliced’!