battersea dogs and cats

having slept through the alarm, whilst dreaming about long journeys, i happened to pass this wall just as the sun was playing tricks with my eyes ...

 

the real slim shady, here's one i doodled about twelve years ago ...

... its been gathering dust ever since !

 

a stripey corner at the new residence

 

on being reasonable ... one from the archives

upon re-reading a letter written at the time, I recall that on Christmas morning 2004, our first conversation was on the subject of territorial rights.

In answer to a complaint, & with only one eye open, I declared that because I am one & a half times bigger than The Loved One, then I am logically entitled to occupy three-fifths of the bed.

Furthering this watertight argument, I made the point that the golden rule of etiquette in unequal relationships is never to disagree with anyone who imagines they are being logical.

With your own innate clarity of reason, I feel confident that you will agree with everything that I have said & that I can count upon your support, should it become necessary for you to take sides !

the emotional blackmailer's cognitive behavioural therapy

stand before a mirror, preferably a full length one elaborately framed in gilded carvings, as you might find in any rococco palace

contort your face in to a grotesque expression of wounded petulance, with body-language to match

pitch the voice in a throaty kind of self-pitying whinge that fills the world with your disappointment & rattles the window panes

and say loudly after me ...

"i've got NOTHING to complain about !"

fire insurance plaque in rottingdean high street

 

purple stuff below rodean

 

orgasms in the mouth part viii

the genius lyn in railton road created a sorbet using freshly picked raspberries, topped with more freshly picked raspberries ... now that's what i call extreme unction

iconography quiz ... your starter for 99 points ... why does death have a laurel tucked behind his ear ?

 

heavenly exemplar in brightling church

 

jack fuller's pyramid at mid-summer

 

jack fuller's pyramid colonised by daisies

 

ockenden manor

 

two brighton & hove re-cyclers having a larf in lansdowne place

 

nice lettering at st john's hill

nice lettering outside clapham junction station

 

uncannily perfect timing

cycle over from putney to lavender hill to paint the front of a friend's house whilst the loved one heads for brixton by bus to meet people

about four or five hours into the job, as i arrive hot & tired at the top of a fully extended ladder with a brush and some masonry paint, the top of the ladder begins a very slow slide down the wall and i say to myself quietly but audibly, "something's wrong !"

gathering my wits after that awful second in which time slows to 10% of its normal speed, i begin to climb back down the steps of the moving ladder & to think about how to land, especially if it twists and throws me sideways

but then it stops sliding and as i climb down, the loved one's cheerful voice says "saved you" and she's standing with her foot against the bottom rung and her shopping bags in her hands, having just turned the corner in time to witness my predicament

designed by katrina ...., there's posh !

 

between waking and sleeping

the hyperactive talkaholic loved one arrives in the bed just after i've reached the point of deepest sleep

through my cerebral fog she's talking about the wedding we'll be attending in a couple of months

she says, with all the incandescent brightness of hope, "i'll need a new dress ... and a hat"

i mumble, whilst struggling back to semi-consciousness, "would you like to borrow my crash helmet?"

arrested development ... yer actual throwback, almost as far as ...

 

... chardin

 

clock made in pontllanfraith c.1820

 

swindon's neglected heritage

 

where i park my bike

 

grinding stone

found near cirencester by sheila evans in 1983

 

cherhill in wiltshire

greening up after a rainy night

 

sheila evans of bancffosfelen

attending to details of her lilac travel ensemble

 

mavis ferguson-butler of pontllanfraith

92 years old, stepping out at cefn onnau above crickhowell & leading this blogger a merry dance

here's one i forgot to post earlier ... lancing college chapel in sussex

whoa there ! isn't that another of plutarch's ponies ?

 

driver's boots take a quick lunch-break

the driver himself is away to the left, swimming in his underwear ...

 

we've been off the air whilst moving ....

... and whilst we were packing, i found the prototype model of my sister V's medal ... she'd first moulded it with chocolate instead of bronze, to see if the cast worked

... and then she'd given me the chocolate, wrapped in gold paper

... it suddenly seemed like a good time to "invoke the spirits" of the ancestors, not that they have ever seemed far away, and so after having owned it for fifteen months, i unwrapped it

... my mother had once told me how, when i was born in August 1949, my father had arrived at the hospital with a box of chocolates, a rarity for most people in the years of post-war rationing

... it was only a few days later, when she brought me home, that he confessed to having used up her own entire chocolate ration for the coming year