But then they bring me nice little presents like dead mice and frogs, in a futile attempt to win my approval - which it DOESN'T. As soon as I leave the conservatory door open in the summer they make themselves nice and comfy on my favourite chair, and have the affrontary to purr at me if I try to evict them. Then when I settle down for a nice read of my book they jump up on my lap and keep trying to push it out of my hands, or wave their tail in my face, or knead my thighs and other such irritating stuff. How on earth do I make them understand that they live next door. They are not MY pets. I do not keep the bird-bath full for them to drink when they get thirsty. Their antics do NOT make me laugh. And neither do the antics of their friends and accomplices on this video!
All right....ALL RIGHT.....I do love them really, but for heavens sake don't let THEM know!
And then he and Mrs. Froggy laid their spawn all over the pond
The little tadpoles developed inside the eggs
And then they wriggled free and faced the big wide water around!
Before very long they'll turn into little frogs, and leave the pond, and hop around in the garden eating all the insects they can find, and getting nice and fat before winter comes again. Then they'll find somewhere nice and damp where they will go into hibernation till next spring.
This is the print left on my kitchen window by a collared dove. It was being chased by a sparrowhawk and as it dived to try to escape, it flew straight towards the window, crashed into it and fell to the ground. The sparrowhawk grabbed it and started to pluck it, but then it spotted me and flew away with the dove in it's talons.
Some of you may already know that hubby was suffering from a severe bout of having itchy feet and wanting to move yet again, and that I really didn't want to, but had resigned myself to upping sticks to keep him happy, even though I think our current house is nice enough.......
Well since then we've been to see a fair number of houses, but haven't found anything in our price range that satisfied all the requirements hubby had set out in his head. Every one we could afford had something about it that he didn't like....no garage, or too remote, or too near a busy road, or sloping bedroom walls, etc etc. Anyway, the upshot is that he's now decided that we are not going to move. To quote "There's no point if we can't find something better than here"
Not only that, but he has decided to spend the money that would have been used on moving expenses on a nice new kitchen. So not only do I get to stay here (I never told him how much I hated the prospect of moving again), but I'm going to get a brand spanking new kitchen of my choice on top!
Yesterday I went to see Tina Turner at the O2 Arena. We left home at about 3 o'clock, though the show wasn't due to start till 8pm, as we thought it would be nice to have a meal and a pleasant stroll around London before the show. We took the train to Blackfriars and from there strolled up to the Strand along the Embankment taking in the sights along the South Bank - The Inner Temple (an impressive Georgian piece of architecture where there are some Barristers Chambers), the London Eye, Somerset House, Big Ben and HMS President (an old steamer).
On reaching the Strand we strolled around a bit, and there was a demo passing by of about 100 demonstrators with placards saying "No to Sharia Law" accompanied by umpteen police on foot, and three police motorcyclists and a large white police van with some more police on board bringing up the rear. Totally overpoliced for such a small group of demonstrators in my opinion, but then I'm not an authority on the subject. There was another smaller gathering of demonstrators outside the Zimbabwe tourist office, with placards saying "Freedom for Zimbabwe" They were dancing and playing some cheerful African music. We watched for a while, then went into the nearby Pizza Hut, and stuffed ourselves on starters of Bruschetta with red onion and tomato topping, and Cheesy Garlic Bread, followed by pizzas (I had Pepperoni, and hubby had Pizza Supreme). We followed this up with profiteroles for two with ice cream.
Stuffed to bursting we continued our stroll in the direction of Trafalgar Square, by which time, as we reached Nelson's column I noticed it was silhouetted against some really beautiful cloud formations, all pink and golden, and I fished out my camera for the first picture of the day. The battery was dead
Stupid woman that I am, I hadn't thought to check before I left home, so no piccys of mine I'm afraid (but I've stolen a few off utube for you instead)
So, on we strolled to Westminster Station, past Downing street, intending to get on the Jubilee Line tube. When we got there it was shut, and there was a notice saying "Closed for Maintenance". Fortunately we had a map of the London underground with us, and with the aid of this we decided that our best bet was to walk to St. James's Park, and take the District Line to Victoria to pick up the Jubilee Line. By now my legs were pretty tired, but I managed to limp my way there......only to find that St. James's Park station was also closed!
We managed to make it to a nearby bus stop, and travelled to Victoria, where we boarded a Victoria Line train meaning to change at Green Park to get onto the Jubilee Line. While we were en-route an announcement informed us that the Jubilee Line was closed between Neasden and London Bridge, and a hasty consultation of our tube map confirmed our suspicions - our plans needed to be changed once again! So.....we continued on the same train to Oxford Circus, changed there onto the Central Line to Bank and changed again to the DLR to Canary Wharf, where we FINALLY managed to get on the Jubilee Line to arrive at our destination North Greenwich!!
Now it may not seem very far from there to the O2 Arena for you younger fitter bloggies, but believe me, if you had my legs you'd be amazed I was still standing, let alone still managing to advance slowly (with lots of support and encouragement from hubby) towards our ultimate goal. But make it we did, and I collapsed into my seat, and during the wait for the start I had recovered enough to thoroughly enjoy the show.
Tina is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING She is seventy on 26th November.....but on-stage in her make-up and costumes you would never guess she was anywhere near that. She still exudes enourmous sex appeal, with no visible wrinkles, gorgeous legs, and the power of her personality just draws you in like a magnet, making you feel as though she's your personal friend, even though you are just one of 20 thousand people.
The show started with Tina on top of a 6 metre high steel pillar where she belted out Steamy Windows
This was followed by Typical Male, and
River Deep Mountain High
Then we had
What You Get Is What You See, Better Be Good To Me, Acid Queen, What's Love Got To Do With It?, Private Dancer, and We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)
Next we had Help, Undercover Agent For the Blues, Let's Stay Together, I Can't Stand The Rain,Rolling Stones Medley: Jumping Jack Flash and
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Then we had GoldenEye, Addicted To Love, and Simply The Best
And finally we had Proud Mary, Nutbush City Limits, and Be Tender With Me Baby.
I thought she did extremely well, especially as she had hardly performed since the year 2000, apart from this tour which started in October 2008.
This morning I spilt some coffee on the kitchen floor, so naturally I grabbed a cloth and started mopping it up. As I was doing so I noticed some drops on the cupboard door, so I gave that a wash too. That made the door next to it look a bit dirty by comparison, so I cleaned that...and all the other cupboard doors. Looked round when I'd done, to admire my efforts, and they looked so nice that the slightly grubby wall tiles spoiled the effect, so I cleaned them too. Nice! but the windows could do with a clean....sigh....Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Cleaned the windows, then changed the curtains, then noticed all the drips on the floor from my mammoth cleaning spree, so I washed the floor.... AGAIN....and now I'm SHATTERED...and I've still got to wash and iron the curtains and put them back up.
All this because I spilled some coffee!!!
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the bees are buzzing, so I'm opening my garden to the public (blog public that is.) I'll take you all on a little guided tour around, and show you the highlights as they were a couple of weeks back and as they are now.
CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE
First we have the crocuses taken on 13th Feb,
Then as they were a few days later
Next some snowdrops taken on 16th,
and again on 27th Feb
Now the bottom left half of the garden.................. and the bottom right half
This is a view of the right hand border..................and this is a little raised border on the patio
A close up of mixed bulbs in the patio border.... and the busy bees collecting nectar and pollen
Some mini daffs just showing their colour,..... and lastly a pair of amorous frogs, soon there'll be frog spawn.
...............................................................(Sorry about the netting, but we have a heron problem, so I daren't take it off!)
I hope you've all enjoyed your trip round my garden. I'll give you another tour when the next lot of flowers come into bloom.
.....I do love them really, but for heavens sake don't let THEM know! 
Stupid woman that I am, I hadn't thought to check before I left home, so no piccys of mine I'm afraid 
