Personal Blogs

You said I had no soul.

But I do.

Just differently.

Because I have ankle arthritis “I have of late, forgone all custom of exercises”, as Hamlet says. But this is a bad habit and I realised my circulation was suffering.

So I searched online for exercises that could be done sitting or with the support of a chair back. There are a lot of good videos and for about three weeks now I’ve been doing some of the exercises.

And it’s had an effect! I can now stand on tiptoe, without the support of a chair back. Not very high or for very long, but I can do it. I couldn’t before. One tall step.

My friend Michèle (photographer of the bee-flies) is helping me with my garden. Here is the result of today's work on one small area.

Please don’t show me

Anything nasty

It might make me squeam.

Presenter: Your chosen subject?

Contestant: Physical geography.

Presenter: Time starts now. What name is given to a route over or through a mountainous region?

Contestant: Pass.

This plot in the national Botanical Gardens of Wales is set aside for flowers that will encourage pollinating insects. Photographed in September 2018.

Unusual. Ouzo is traditionally mixed with water. But the soda was amazing, it made the drink longer but more ouzo-y, it really brought out the aniseed flavour and didn’t drown the drink at all.

I believe that once Greek country folk used to make Ouzo at home and as well as aniseed would add Wormwood, the plant Artemisia, named for the goddess Artemis. From her name came also Absinthe, a famous green coloured drink, very popular into the early 20th century, but then illegalised in France and subsequently elsewhere, on the premise that it was mad, bad, and dangerous to drink, addictive and psychoactive, because of the wormwood. However absinthe had a lot of adherents in the creative world, see 

Following more recent recent research Absinthe is legal again. I bought some but I wasn’t sure it was my favourite. I’m good with Ouzo and Soda.

Στην υγειά σας!

PS the name Wormwood is from the same origin as Vermouth.

My cousin took this picture of a young male Great Bustard.

These birds are amongst the heaviest flying birds, possibly the heaviest. An adult male may be a metre tall, have a wing span of 2+ metres, and weigh in at up to about 20 kg.

The bird is classified as vulnerable; although it is widespread only about 40,000 survive. It lives on open grasslands and once had a British population, but was hunted to extinction in this country by the middle of the 19th century.

However the bird has been successfully reintroduced, from 2007 I believe, and there is now a breeding population of about 40. My cousin has been watching one of them and was able to get this shot, I presume of its offspring.

You can read more about the reintroduction programme here and here is an image from the same site.

In ground-breaking research announced earlier today, scientists think they have detected video signals from an alien star system.

The signals, though faint, appear to be a drama set in some sort of domestic situation. A member of the team told our reporter, “This proves that where there’s life there’s soap”.