It Was Diana's Day Off,

but I had to stay in,

unfortunately everyone in the flats where we live could only make today for all of our front doors to be measured, new fire regulations had been announced, meaning that all of the fire doors to our homes that were fire certificated, no longer were, so at about £3,500 plus 20% VAT each, every door has to be replaced, the problem being there are so many companies that make fire doors, that is not the problem, the problem being each door has to be certificated by the fire door supplier that the insurance company will accept for a multi family dwelling, and as far as we could see, there only 2 companies that are able to supply doors are approved by the insurance companies, and of course both quotes were just so similar, it is almost like they talked to each other! as if, so the girls had a day out to Ravenscourt Park, I stayed at home and played with a few more photographs and also popped into town for some shopping, 

luckily the cherry blossom was out in the park, 

from left to right, Kai, her friend Joy and Diana,

and a close up of Kai and Diana,

Kai taking a pose, 

the blossoms just starting to shed some petals, another week and it could have been too late, 

snack time,

croissants and coffee around, next window shopping, what else?

in the late afternoon/early evening the girls felt a bit peckish, so off to The Great Thai Kitchen, where they meet up with a couple of Kai's friends, 

lots of Thai street food, 

was the order of the day, the girls had a great time, in the evening before Diana returned and after my evening meal I decided on,

 Seven Worlds, One Planet, I watched the one that featured South America, one of the many places I would like to visit, after which Diana returned home, so it was a coffee and a chat as well as we watched a very entertaining,

Call My Bluff, a great quiz show, basically two teams of three alternate between giving and guessing the meanings of obscure English words, all of which are found in the OED. (Oxford English Dictionary), for a little more detail of the game, the game comprised two teams of three (a captain and two guests) who would compete to earn points by identifying the correct definitions of obscure words. 

The teams take turns to give three definitions, one true and two bluffs, while the other team attempted to determine which was correct, examples of words used in the show, taken from a 1972 book published in connection with it, include queach, strongle, ablewhacket, hickboo, jargoon, zurf, morepork, and jirble. 

The word queach was defined by the contestants as "a malicious caricature", "a cross between a quince and a peach" and "a mini-jungle of mixed vegetation" (with the last definition being the true one), it was great fun and amazingly Diana did in fact choose the correct definition more often than I did, the program was broadcast between 17 October 1965 to 22 December 1988, I have to admit I enjoyed it at the time and so did many others as can be seen from the number of shows that were broadcast, there were 12 series shown on BBC1 and 25 series on BBC2, BBC1 showing 469 episodes and 542 episodes in BBC2, just over 1,000 episodes, amazing! we then spent the rest of the evening with Poirot, after which Diana was off to bed, a 05.00AM start for her tomorrow, for myself a Bangers & Cash before I too was off to bed.

The Second Post Of Sunday

this is where we went, 

Cliffe Pools, 

next to the car park a handy place if you want to hire/buy a cherry picker,

 

I had a slight problem, the longest lens I had was a 100 - 200mm zoom, above fully zoomed in, out of the camera,

I cropped the image, 

and then a tad more, which made a nice print, but any more cropping and the sharpness was starting fail,

the same here, 

it is as if the birds know that they have to be as far away as possible!

a reminder to use the brakes, 

a few birds on the waters edge, 

again cropped to see more of the birds, 

a walk along the River Thames, revelled long abandon jetty's and liquid fuel unloading stations,

a bit of a plumbing nightmare, 

we were lucky, 

a few butterfly's, out and about, 

Diana getting used to her binoculars, I took over 180 photographs, all similar to the ones here, so many birds all so far away, we must save for a longer lens, and it is a long way to Christmas, 276 days as it happens! Still looking on the bright side it is my birthday in April, you never know!

I Am Splitting Today's Post,

into 2 parts, 

the first all from Diana's telephone, the second post from my camera, as my camera takes an age to download and edit, so for today we were off early,

driving for about an hour or so, 

to Cliffe Pools a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds wild life preserve, we were meeting up with the Bromley RSPB, I would have put a link to the RSPB, but for some reason I am not allowed to see it, every time I try to look at it I receive the message "Service Unavailable" back to Cliffe it is a reserve of over 1,700 acres, there is a lot to walk around!

we all meet in the car park, 

I was soon snapping away, 

I had bought Diana a pair of binoculars, 

some of the members had also brought spotting scopes around for us all to look through, which was kind and very thoughtful, to see the birds that were mere spicks though my camera lens in such detail and close up through one of these scopes was amazing,

all set for the off, 

I forgot my hat, so a hood it was, at first it was more than a tad chilly, 

but with these almost clear blue skies, 

it soon warmed up as we made our way to the estuary of the River Thames, 

in the distance a long disused coaling dock,

one thing was soon apparent as with my visit to the Sevenoaks Nature reserve, 

my 100 - 200mm zoom lens even with a 1.4 converter was not up to the job, looking around and chatting to other photographers in the group a 400mm lens was a minimum, with a number of the people there having 500 or 600mm lenses plus a convertor, 

at lunch time there was a break, we had not brought a packed lunch with us so we started our walk back to the car park, as we left the group we learnt that we had walked 3.5 miles and we had another 1.5 miles to walk back to the car park,

at this point only a mile to go! we arrived home famished, 

so a read and a sherry, 

for our starters a huge crisply vegetarian spring roll, 

which was delicious, 

for our main course a roast chicken, with gravy for Diana sans gravy for myself, 

'Cheers!', after our meal it was feet up for some television, in the evening as there was nothing we particularly liked we decided to spend our evening with Poirot, after which Diana was off to bed, for myself a Shed & Buried before I too was off to bed.

I Had Another Unsuccessful Day,

trying to upload ICC printer profiles,

to my printer in the afternoon, I wish I knew what I was doing incorrectly, I gave up and watched some television, 2 Deadly 60 programmes about Costa Rica, and enjoyable they were too, 

watching Steve Backshall getting to grips with nature,

it was then time for my evening meal, just one glass of wine this evening to accompany my read and meal,

as we will be out first thing for a drive tomorrow, 'Cheers!', then my first film of the evening, 

Passengers, one passenger wakes up early, there is 90 years to go before the spaceship reaches its destination, he can not return to cybersleep, should he wake someone else for company, or die alone? I followed that with a old favorite, 

Sleepy Hollow, I had watched it before with Diana, this is what I wrote then, 'Constable Ichabod Crane, (what a great name, Ichabod), has to find the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow, who cuts off heads, in case you are wondering the village of Sleepy Hollow is a real place, a book entitled Sleepy Hollow is a personal reminiscence, written by Washington Irving under the pen name, Geoffrey Crayon, this article (not to be confused with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow [1819]) also written by Irving, first appeared in The Knickerbocker Magazine, in May of 1839, given that the film is set in the US, I was amazed at how much of it was filmed in the UK', as it finished Diana returned home so feet up for a coffee and a chat as we watched the antics of crazy drivers on the worlds roads, before we were both off to bed.