Brenda Photo Challenge - Orange

Here's my entry for this week's Brenda Photo Challenge, which is Orange.



An orange flame....

Orange hair on the toy clown's head.......

and a random selection of orange objects around the house.

This week's challenge is being hosted by Just Joni at Morning Coffee . If you'd like to join in, just go to her blog and let her know that you've posted your pictures.

My new toy

My kids gave me a new toy. It's a Flip digital video camera and it's tiny, as you can see from these pictures. It's called Flip because when you want to download the video you just flip out a usb key which goes directly into your computer.

The software is stored inside the camera and when you connect it to your computer you get this screen.
It's so small it's the same size as my mouse!
and the best thing of all is that it's idiot proof. There are only five buttons, and one of those is the flip button. The other four are:
On/off
Record
Play
Trash

What more does a person need?

Oh, and it's ready to go in less than two seconds. Using precise and accurate timings, I switched it on and counted "One, one thousand, two one thous...." and it was ready.

Come on in the water's lovely

Fruit feast

I've spent a good part of today working on the vegetable patch. I'm happy to say that the strawberries have started to ripen.

I picked my first batch yesterday, and they were absolutely delicious.

The raspberries are just thinking about turning red, and I don't have a net over them, something I need to do in the next day or so, or the birds will get to feast on the fruit before I do.
Just a bit ahead of the raspberries, but not quite ready yet, the blackcurrents are starting to darken. This particular bunch should be ready to eat in a few days.
It's so exciting going out there each morning, to see what's ready and what's developing. It's so rewarding.

Topical Quiz

Since it's Midsummer's Day, there's a quiz on MSN about Stonehenge. I scored 6, which wasn't bad since most of my answers were guesswork. If you need to polish up your knowledge, they've supplied some informative articles here .

By the way, it's raining here today, so I don't know how much sun was visible at sunrise.

I'm sharing

A friend emailed me this link and it was too funny to keep to myself.

Then I thought I'd Google the animator, Walt Handelsman and see what else he's done, and I found this.

I hope you enjoy both of these as much as I did.

Campbell Park in Milton Keynes

I took a walk in Campbell Park in Milton Keynes a few days ago. This is a big park with some really nice features. I think my favourite is this sundial which is set in the middle of a labyrinth.

Sundial

The Labyrinth

There's a circle at a high point called Belvedere. Belvedere is at the start of a path which leads in a straight line to a bridge that joins up with Midsummer Boulevard. Midsummer Boulevard then runs in a straight line (except for a shopping precinct in the middle of its path) right down to the train station. Apparently it's supposed to be lined up so that the sun rises behind Belvedere point on June 21, and follows Midsummer Boulevard until it reflects in an explosion of light off the glass front of the railway station.

I stood on Belvedere point and did a 360 degree photo rotation. Here's the result. It's a bit patchy, but it gives you an idea of what the view is like. The line of trees at the end of the path is just about where the bridge meets the beginning of Midsummer Boulevard. The station is quite a long way from there.

360 degree view from Belvedere

When Grandma goes to court

A friend sent this to me in an email. I don't know if it's a real newspaper cutting or if it's a made up on, but I laughed so hard I thought it was worth sharing.

Click on the article to enlarge it:

Going up - the cost of filling up the car

I took this picture to show how much it cost to fill up my car yesterday. I used an online currency converter to calculate the $ equivalent - and the result was $105 exactly. I don't drive a huge car, it's a Ford Focus.

Wall to wall sunshine, hooray!

Since I had a moan about the rain, thought I'd better have a cheer about the sunshine which is just pouring down on us, and the forecast is the same for the next couple of days, hooray!

Hooli's leaving tomorrow

All good things must come to an end. My daughter is arriving tonight and will take Hooli back to London with her tomorrow morning. He's been here for two weeks, and he's all better from the dose of Kennel Cough he had when he arrived. We've had some fun, and I've had loads of exercise taking him on walks. I think I might even miss him a bit when he's gone.

He's going to move into a new house and make friends with a new canine housemate called Pepper.

Keys Photo Challenge

The Brenda Photo Challenge is being hosted by Nita today, and the theme is keys:

An old iron key in an old door.

Part of the wall of a key cutting shop.

Piano keys.

The list of participants can be found in Nita's blog, if you'd like to visit and see what everyone else has posted.

Rain

Today it's rained and rained and rained and rained and rained.

And then it rained some more.

It's a good day for ducks.

The grass is as high as an elephant's eye...

......well, maybe a baby elephant... or the tips of Hooli's ears.

Hooli and I went for a walk across the fields and into the woods today. We did that yesterday too, but I didn't have my camera with me then. After coming off a narrow footpath, we walked across three fields this big:

Then down another footpath and into the wood: Across a stream where Hooli found a dam:
The undergrowth consisted of mostly waist high stinging nettles (ouch):
And then out of the wood and a field to cross (with grass as high as an elephant's eye):

And Hooli found something: