Bits and pieces

This is the place for posts which don’t fit into other categories… unless they were a category all to themselves!

Bird of Paradise

I love these flowers, strelitzia reginae, so exotic so extraordinary! They come originally from South Africa but they grow all over the world now. The name comes from Queen Charlotte, who was married to George III; she was Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and it’s from this these wonderful flowers got their name. Charlotte and George had a […]

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Watery gifts

In most shopping malls, garden centres, parks etc where there are ponds or running water it often seems people are encouraged to throw a coin in which will be collected later for charity. I’ve noticed all sorts of other watery places, out in the middle of nowhere sometimes, where people do the same thing… this must […]

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Wavefront direction change

Apparently, reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated… I didn’t know that, and I’m not sure I understand it now that I do know it!! Maybe if I hadn’t given up science in the […]

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Mondrian does the washing up

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter who was born in 1872 in Amersfoort in the Netherlands. He started his working life teaching in a primary school although all the while he was painting and drawing. he became famous for his very recognizable style which is imitated and to be found in the most unlikely places… […]

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Something about hydrangeas

Gurt lush is a Bristolian expression, and I think it sums up the beauty of hydrangeas completely. I’d often seen the shrubs with their enormous flower heads but didn’t really know what they were called until a German friend told me they were Hortensies… now I always have to struggle to remember they are hydrangeas in […]

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Awwww, cute!

No, it’s not cute, it’s a fire hydrant!! Why do we always want to anthropomorphise inanimate objects? Why does my daughter’s car have a name by which we always address and refer to him – ‘him’, there you go! He is an it – I mean it is an it! Yesterday we went to Taunton, […]

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Knots…

I think I might start a new hobby… tying knots! I was  brownie, and one of the things we had to do was to learn to tie knots, but of course we only tied easy and useful knots, sheep shank, round turn and two half hitches, reef knot and a clove hitch… I can’t say […]

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