Up Close and Perfect

Close Encounters of the Bobby kind.

The Lions at Port Lympne

The lions at the zoo are Barbary, or Atlas, Lions. They come from north Africa, and have been extinct in the wild since the 1920s. Those from the King of Morocco's collection have formed the basis for the captive breeding programme since 1972.

Samira was bitten on the leg by her father when she was a few months old. She was left with nerve damage. Hydrotherapy has helped her regain some use of the affected leg.

After all that hard work

I spent all afternoon turning my video from yesterday into bitesized clips and putting them on a DVD. I got them on to my computer, then tried to upload them to Photobucket. Nothing happened. SO I tried to upload them directly on to Blogger. Nothing happened.

To make up for the disappointment for no pretty animal movies, here's some Bobby.

Better News

My car is in the hospital, and they have asked the manufacturer to agree to a new gearbox, rather than a rebuild. On Monday I will be able to get a loan car as it could be some time.

I phoned my utilities company to ask why they thought I owed them over £300 and why they thought it was acceptable to treble my monthly payments. Apparently the gas meter reading for February was higher than those for the following two quarters. Rather than this flagging up a mistaken reading, it was accepted as the correct one. I gave a reading over the phone this morning and guess what? I only owe them £55, and my monthly payment only needs to go up by £4.

It's a good thing their letter didn't go to some frail old person with a heart condition,

A sideways look

He is so delicious in profile.

Of course, this next one isn't quite in profile, but it was too gorgwous to leave out.











Ooh the tongue!

No Going Back(wards)

My dear little car took me on a great trip today, 150 mile round trip to Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent. Trouble is, I had to park in a space where I could go out frontways, 'cos my reverse gear is BUGGERED!

For once I have beaten the laws of Sod - the warranty on the car runs out on Monday. So the manufacturer will have to SUCK IT UP. But I will still have to be without my car just when the new term starts, as the dealer's courtesy cars are all committed to other customers.

I actually took some video footage at the zoo, so as soon as I have done the 3 million things I have to do to get it online (assuming I can actually do them at all) I will share with you the growling gorilla and the limping lioness.

When I got home from my exciting and stressful day, I found that my gas supplier wants to triple my monthly gas payments. Every year we have this performance. Every year I tell them my gas costs have been out of all proportion ever since a new meter was fitted about 3-and-a-half years ago. Every year they find a way to persuade me not to have the meter checked. But now they expect me to fork out about £1500 a year when all I have is a combination boiler. I haven't used it for heating since April, and I probably use less than 50 litres of hot water from it per week, as I have an electric shower and no bath. They are having a laugh, but I'm paying for their amusement.

Hand Fest

See Me was on last night, and it always makes me want to see more of those beautiful hands - the real ones, not the stunt ones.

Hallmark's run of season 1-4 has finished with 4 episodes of Season 4 missing. WHen I saw that it was going to be on on Sundays at 9pm, I thought,"Great, it's after the watershed, we can see the ones they missed out." Wrong! They are starting from Season 1 Episode 1 again. At this rate we'll get to Season 5 in two years' time!

Kinky Valentino

I only have this on video, so I haven't been able to cap it yet. Many thanks to Eliza for always having a beautiful supply of pictures for us to be creative with.

Bobby and The Beatles Take 2

The Other Vincent D'Onofrio

Did anyone see this VDO in the Google alerts last week. It's the guy on the left, he's Canadian, and he won a gardening award.

I wonder if he's a distant relation?

Back to Emmetts

Once before I did a post about Emmetts Garden in Kent, but I used Google pictures. Today I went back there and took some to share with you the special nature of the place.

The garden is high on a hill - the highest garden in Kent. This is my favourite view. It's to the south. The expanse of water right of centre is Bough Beech Reservoir. It keeps a lot of us in water during dry spells. It was constructed on farmland, and I used to know someone who grew up in one of the farmhouses they demolished to make the reservoir.



I thought the bark on this tree - a Stewartia - was beautiful. It's a bit like a plane tree's bark, but on a much smaller, smoother scale.


The view from the north is very open. They used to hold country fairs on the overgrown field in the foreground. In dry weather they had to be careful people didn't set the place on fire dropping lit cigarettes.

When I got home, Mitzi and Dandy were looking beautiful in the garden, and I couldn't resist snapping them.

Even Suite-r Sorrow

As I was capping the rest of this episode, I couldn't believe how many gorgeous shots of the beautiful Bobby I was getting. How to choose? (No, don't say, publish them all, there are nearly 500!) There may be the occasional groin shot...