The Day Started With The Crow,

eating a few peanuts on the window sill,

 meal finished and he was off,

like us, for another picnic in the park,

 unlike our last visit, today there were 2 ice cream vans,

 and nice they were too,

 what a great way to start the picnic,

we choose our spot,

 Diana in the shade,

 myself in the sun, which I was to regret later!

 unlike the bank holiday, when we were last here,

 there were very few people,

 just a few here and there under the trees, I should have mentioned a police van containing 10 or so policeman inside it cruised around the park, it is strange when police forces claim they do not have enough officers, when so many can be spared for essentially a job that one officer could do in a patrol car, but still it was a Saturday, I guess they needed the overtime!

 out with the sandwiches,

 somewhere under the beers there is a bottle of bubbly,

 first drink of the day!

 'Cheers!', 

 bubbly finished,

 it was time to start on the beers, 

 in this case a Perione, with a slice of lime in the top of the bottle,

 and a few sausage rolls to go with it,

 we kept moving every so often as the shade from the tree moved, as it happened Diana spent some time in the sun, in the shade it was actually a little cold,

 in the distance a party was in progress, 

 it was someone's 30th, the birthday boy/girl was approaching, 

 as everyone turned to sing happy birthday, as the birthday guest arrived,

meanwhile, 

 Diana was taking the rays,

it was a glorious day,

  a strange sight for our troubled times, an aircraft, normally at any one time you can see several as they approach Heathrow, but today just one high flying, leaving a perfectly straight jet trail in the sky, I hate to say it but the black fuzzies are specks of dirt in the camera, it is the small pocket camera that we normally take everywhere, it needs a clean, 

we had a wonderful day in the park, and on the way back,

 we just had to stop for another ice cream,

 it was soon time for my pre meal sherry, 'Cheers!', 

 for tonight we did not have a starter, for our main course Diana cooked a noddle dish for herself,

whilst I had baked salmon, with asparagus, and a delicious mix of fried potatoes, with onion and bacon bits, 

for dessert a creme brulee, we listened to music for most of the rest of the evening, but we did have three hands of cribbage which I some how managed to win 2 - 1,

 before going to bed we watched a couple from Silent Witness, for tonight is was a double helping from season 6, Fall Out, which was very enjoyable, with the end of that we were then off to bed.

I Just Cannot Imagine,

how many painstaking hours,

must have gone into the creation of this or any of these pies, photographs Karin Pfeiff-Boschek/Instagram,

 these are all the work of pastry designer Karin Pfeiff-Boschek,

 who bakes three times a week, 

 and gives most of them to her friends after taking some photographs of them and sharing them with her Instagram fans,

 Karin Pfeiff-Boschek learned to bake from her mother and grandmothers as a girl growing up in central Germany, and settled on pies simply because there were many talented cake decorators in her country, while pie decoration was virtually unheard of. Her passion for pies was only fueled by her husband. Bruce, an Indiana-native who moved to Germany in the 1960’s to study for his PhD. His mother was an award-wining baker, and he used her secrets to wow Karin with the most amazing pies,

"I always liked his apple, rhubarb, pumpkin or blueberry pies," Pfeiff-Boschek told The Washington Post back in 2018. "At some point, I thought the top crust would offer a good canvas for artistic creation."

 “I found that by cooling the dough while creating decorations, using a very thin, sharp knife such as a scalpel and working very precisely it was possible to create ornate decorations that held their shape during baking,” Karin Pfeiff-Boschek said. I make it a priority to also show the baked pie because regardless of how beautiful a pie may look before baking, it never will be served in that state and must look good after it comes out of the oven.”

You can check out more of Karin Pfeiff-Boschek’s amazing pies on her Instagram, where she regularly posts new designs, but if you want something more personal, you can also buy her book, Elegant Pie, which contains 25 stunning pies and step-by-step guides on how to make them yourself, looking at these it almost makes me want to go to the kitchen and give pie baking a try, I did say almost!

Apparently A Large Number Of People,

believe that 5G signals are harmful,

 and even started the corvid pandemic, so fear not any longer, behold the 5GBioShield which “is the result of the most advanced technology currently available for balancing and prevention of the devastating effects caused by non-natural electric waves, particularly (but not limited to) 5G, for all biological life forms.” described as a USB key, the tiny device allegedly “provides protection for your home and family, thanks to the wearable holographic nano-layer catalyser, which can be worn or placed near to a smartphone or any other electrical, radiation or EMF [electromagnetic field] emitting device.” so how does this super-advanced device protect you? Well, you just have to buy it and enjoy it’s protection. “It is always ON and working—that’s why we used quantum nano-layer technology,” the company selling it claims, adding that plugging it into a USB port only expands the field effect from 4m radius to 20m +.” all imagies/photographs BioShield Distribution,

  “The 5GBioShield makes it possible, thanks to a uniquely applied process of quantum nano-layer technology, to balance the imbalanced electric oscillations arising from all electric fog induced by all devices such as: laptops, cordless phones, wlan, tablets,” and also “brings balance into the field at the atomic and cellular level restoring balanced effects to all harmful (ionized and non-ionized) radiation.” this all sounds to good to be true,

Anna Grochowalska, one of the two directors of BioShield Distribution, told the BBC that her company was the sole global distributor of the 5GBioShield, but it it did not own or build the product. Still, she defended the company, saying that the comparison of its $350 device to a $6 USB stick was unjust, as it didn’t take into account the exact production costs and intellectual property rights for the 5GBioShield. She also refused to reveal any technical information revealing the product,

defended the company against what? “We consider it to be a scam,” Stephen Knight, operations director for London Trading Standards told the BBC. “People who are vulnerable need protection from this kind of unscrupulous trading.” experts at Pen Test Partners, a UK company that specializes in taking apart electronic products to spot security vulnerabilities, recently analyzed one of the 5GBioShield sticks sold by BioShield Distribution, and found that apart from a small, round sticker, it virtually identical to a ‘crystal’ USB key available from various suppliers in China for just $6 apiece, as for the inner working of the 5GBioShield, there was no quantum nano-layer technology visible anywhere, just an LED light, like on the regular 128Mb USB sticks from China, I knew it was too good to be true! but here is the good news, You can still buy 5GBioShield on its official website, I wonder how many people will buy one, "just in case?"

Anyone Caught Spying, Is Always Going To Be In Hot Water,

especially at the border of India and Pakistan,

which is why this 'spy pigeon' has been arrested, photographs ANI, last week authorities in India announced the capture of a suspicious pigeon believed to be a spy from neighboring Pakistan. Now the bird’s owner is demanding that his bird be set free, the alleged spy was captured on Sunday by villagers in the disputed region of Kashmir, between India and Pakistan. The pigeon caught the people’s attention right away, because of its unusual pink color and a ring with a strange code around one of its legs. They immediately called the regional police, who detained the bird on charges of spying while they tried to decipher the code on its ring. Now a Pakistani villager has come out to dispute the charges, saying that the pigeon was his and the ring around its leg isn’t an elaborate code, but his phone number, in case something happened to the bird,

after India’s Border Security Force announced the capture of “another Pakistani spy pigeon”, Pakistani newspaper Dawn managed to track down the bird’s alleged owner, a man named Habib Ullah from the village of Bagga-Shakargarh, just 4 kilometres from the border with the disputed Kashmir region. To celebrate Eid, he painted the wings of some of his birds and released them as symbols of peace, love and tolerance. He never imagined that one of them would fly into India and be labeled a spy, meanwhile, Habib Ullah claims that the ring only bears his phone number, and is urging Indian prime-minister Narendra Modi to return the pigeon with “full protocol and due respect”,

photograph E-News Pakistan, He and others in Bagga-Shakargarh have been protesting the pigeon’s arrest over the last few days, showing off his collection of pink-painted pigeons as proof that there was nothing special about the captured one, well at least the 'Spy' is still alive!

 spare a thought to what happen to a spy washed ashore in Hartlepool, in the UK at the tine of the Napoleonic wars, legend has it that during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, a shipwrecked monkey was hanged by the people of Hartlepool, believing him to be a French spy! To this day, people from Hartlepool are affectionately known as ‘monkey hangers’, a French ship was spotted floundering and sinking off the Hartlepool coast. Suspicious of enemy ships and nervous of possible invasion, the good folk of Hartlepool rushed down to the beach, where amongst the wreckage of the ship they found the only survivor, the ship’s monkey which was apparently dressed in a miniature military-style uniform, Hartlepool is a long way from France and most of the populace had never met, or even seen, a Frenchman. Some satirical cartoons of the time pictured the French as monkey-like creatures with tails and claws, so perhaps the locals could be forgiven for deciding that the monkey, in its uniform, must be a Frenchman, and a French spy at that. There was a trial to ascertain whether the monkey was guilty of spying or not; however, not unsurprisingly, the monkey was unable to answer any of the court’s questions and was found guilty. The townsfolk then dragged him into the town square and hanged him, so I guess it was good luck that the pigeon did not fly over Hartlepool!

lucky the people of the area take the story with a pinch of salt as can be seen from the above, Rugby union club Hartlepool Rovers features the monkey on its badge, I hope the people of the area can forgive me!

Out For Our Weekly Shopping,

I parked in the car park,

 Diana joined the queue, whilst I walked to the High Street, queues everywhere, I went to the Quality Houseware shop for some shoe laces, by the time I had queued and shopped, when I walked back to the car Diana was still outside in the queue, it is not so bad now, but in the winter cold and rain, it is going to be miserable, it is a sad fact of life that what once was a quick in and out is now a hour or more by the time you have finished queueing, I should mention we went to Homebase, to buy some gravel to put into our garden umbrella base, but the car park was almost full, something I have never seen before, the queue of about 80 or so people seemed to be going nowhere fast, so we decided not to shop,

next stop, Kingfisheries the tropical and outdoor fish shop in Croydon Road Beckenham, 

 whilst I filled our container with RO water,

 Diana had a look around,

 taking a few photographs,

 of some of the tropical freshwater fish,

 as it happens,

 there were lots to chose from,

 if only we had a larger flat,

 we could have some of these,

 naturally with a marine aquarium, 

 or two,

 Diana was still taking a few photographs,

 so I popped outside,

 to the outdoor section,

 where there were almost countless,

 goldfish on display,

 also a nice selection of water lilies,

 in the outdoor pools,

 and a selection,

of waterside plants,

 shopping and looking at the fish over, we were home for our evening meal, a pre meal sherry,

 for our starter mussels in a garlic sauce,

 followed with a massaman curry,

 with rice,

 for dessert a few chocolate covered profiteroles, 'Cheers!',

the aquarium was getting a few strands of thread algae growing, so Diana got out her twizzle stick out and removed them, we listened to music until late, when it was then time for a New Tricks to see us up to nearly the midnight hour, then for us we were off to bed.