Bobby in Dark and LIght

It doesn't matter what the lighting is like, Bobby always looks stunning.

So does his neck. And back. And tongue...

Magic Hands

Vincent's time as a street magician certainly paid off when they needed him to shown a bit of manual dexterity in Cuba Libre.

To be honest, the magic of his hands works for me every time.

Thief!

I have bird feeders hanging from my washing line which are routinely raided by a couple of squirrels. Today I caught one of them in the act. It was too dark to catch the pair of them playing later in my apple tree, firstly ringing the windchimes, then chasing around. Finally one got on the ground to look for interesting snacks, not noticing that my large tortoiseshell cat, Twiglet, was about to pounce on him. Luckily for him, she's not a talented hunter, and he was back up the tree long before she reached him.














A little while later, having sneaked under a bush, Twiglet tried to catch a bathing sparrow on the birdbath by jumping up on it. All she got was wet feet.

By the way, anyone wondering about the knot in the washing line - that's the squirrels' way of getting to ALL the food at once by making it fall on the ground.

Missing

The album containing the photo of the most famous person I ever took a picture of is nowhere to be found.

This is that person. Just as an experiment, I thought I'd see how famous he is now, 14 years after his untimely death.

My fellow oldiers (older but not yet oldies) and indeed any oldies visiting will probably know him at once. Can any of the younger visitors identify him?

A thing of beauty...

...is a joy forever.

And what could be more beautiful than a long streak of D'Onofrio?

My Good (but rather long-winded) Name

Yesterday it took me no time at all (well, comparatively) to upload pictures to Photobucket via their bulk uploader thingy. Today - over 2 hours. And then only 87 of the 100 I tried loaded. They are out of sequence 'cos it's done that "10 comes after 1 and 100 comes after 19" thing. Yesterday it let me correct that, but not today.

Anyway, here they are, in all their glory, worth the wait I hope. (Come on, they're Vincent, of COURSE they were worth the wait!)

It's All In A Name

While I was walking around the City of London last week, I was reminded how many of the streets retain names they received in the dim, distant past, often related to what went on in them. Of course, Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started in 1666, has gone down in history. It's sobering to find that Watling Street has a stretch remaining in the City. It is part of one of the original Roman roads and bits of it occur by name up and down the country to this day. There's also a street called London Wall. That's it. No street, road or lane on the end. Same with Bevis Marks (no idea), Poultry, Cornhill, Old Jewry, Houndsditch, New Change and Crutched Friars. We also have Milk Street, Oat Lane, Garlick Hill, Bread Street, Sugar Quay, Camomile Street, Whalebone Court, Ironmonger Lane and Threadneedle Street (also famous for being the site of the Bank of England). Frying Pan Alley sounds like a woman hiding behind the door to bang her errant husband on the head. There's a Whittington Avenue - Dick Whittington really was Lord Mayor of London - and I'm sure David Hasselhoff would be delighted to learn that there's a Knightrider Street.

South of the river, going from Waterloo Bridge east towards The Globe Theatre, the interest continues, with Upper Ground and Lower Marsh (the latter appearing in my family tree as where my grandmother married from in 1897), Clink Street (home of one of the original gaols and giving rise to the saying of being "in the clink" for "in prison"), Bear Gardens (where the bear pits and bear baiting were) and Paris Garden - a pleasure garden, no doubt frequented by ladies of ill repute. The south bank, after all, was where the brothels were located when the City authorities decreed they should be outside the City walls.

Nearer to home, in my childhood home of Deptford, the maritime history of the area is obvious from such names as Bowditch, Foreshore, Leeway, Longshore, Stowage and Ropemaker Road. Evelyn Street commemorates the fact that the diarist John Evelyn had a manor house nearby, which was called Sayes Court. The name of the house persists, and Sayes Court Street is probably the same street my maternal grandparents raised their family (it was then called Sayes Street). Czar Peter The Great of Russia resided in the house when he came to England at the end of the 17th century to learn the art of shipbuilding. Evelyn complained in his diaries about Peter playing games by being wheeled round in a wheelbarrow through the diarist's hedges, destroying his pride and joy. (Peter was a VERY big man, about 6'7" I believe).Sadly, the playwright Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare's who was murdered in a pub in what is now Evelyn Street, is not commemorated by name anywhere in the area. Even the Globe Inn where he died is now a Chinese takeaway.

More Meanings

I've applied two new words from my book of weird words to our lovely man.

The esculent Vincent D'Onofrio is well-known as being eudemonic.

Of course, before coming across them in the book, I knew exactly what they meant...

Esculent = edible.
Eudemonic = producing or conducive to happiness and wellbeing.

Amazing that on the same page two words so applicable to Mr Gorgeous were placed together quite by chance.

Lost and Found

Or maybe Found and Lost. I found Vincent and lost my heart (not to mention my sanity and all sense of proportion).

Ain't life grand?

Taste

I am sitting here chewing chocolate-smothered toffee pieces that I was unable to resist buying today in Thorntons Chocolatiers.

Meanwhile, outside on my doorstep, the fox is eating cat food, turkey slices and a mouse one of my cats caught this morning. The cat ran off when I came downstairs, so I put the mouse away in a cupboard to wait for fox feeding time. It's the second one this week. He must love my cats.

Time for a change

Not because I wanted one. I've tried to republish the blog to display the pictures in their entirety, but the tabs needed according to the Help topics doesn't appear on my page. So I've tried out all the page templates, and this is the only one that has the pictures in full. So here we are, 1000 posts successfully done with a striking black background. Then this. Thanks Blogger.

So that's where it went!

I've been wondering where my folder of Third Horseman pictures was. Not only have I found it on my new computer - which was a surprise, I usually do only Season 4 on here - but I also found I could upload it reasonably quickly using Photobucket Beta.

I LOVE the tush shot at the end. I just hope the wretched things display whole today.