Tree-huggers do exist!

I have heard of tree-huggers but always assumed them to be more-than-usually avid nature lovers - until yesterday afternoon. I was walking quietly through the woods with the dog happily snuffling through the fallen leaves when I met a couple coming towards me. As is the custom, I greeted them with a nod and a 'good afternoon' and they responded quite normally. Then the lady cried out, 'Oh, what a lovely old tree! I must give it a hug.' And she did! I went on my way, musing on what her definition of a lovely tree might be and whether there is such a thing as an ugly one, if and why she only hugged old trees, and was this ageism in action? I was so deep on thought that it took a while for me to realise that somebody was calling my name. I looked round to discover that she was calling her dog, not me. To add insult to injury, the dog in question was a miniature French bulldog and not really a proper dog at all!

An indulgence

For the last four years I have had a calendar produced using my own pictures. This really is something of an extravagance since we could get a calendar with better pictures at about a third of the price just by popping into W H Smith or Clinton Cards. But the layout of the one I have printed suits us very well as it allows for various reminders to be written against each day, unpleasant things like appointments with the dentist or more enjoyable engagements like having lunch with friends. And by using pictures that I have taken during the year before, we have a reminder of pleasant times hanging on the kitchen wall. I have to have a different picture for each month, and it can become quite difficult to find suitable pictures to use for some of the months - especially December, when Mrs S likes to see something to do with Christmas. And of course January should have a snow scene but rarely does. Anyway, today I must sort out a few of this year's photos for Mrs S to choose from. In this activity, I act as the nominator while Mrs S actually awards the Oscars!

Stanmer 365

I have, for a couple of weeks or more, been intrigued by the concept of the 'city daily photo' blogs, links to some of which are on the left. I find it fascinating to see what people spot in their home towns, things which I would probably never find if I were to visit. My excursions into the centre of town are few and far between, and a daily picture of the suburbs would bore me, let alone anyone else, even if my photography was any good. OK, I'm occasionally lucky and take a semi-decent picture, but not that often. So I decided to put my tongue in my cheek and start a fresh blog. I thought it would be even more t.i.c. to have the dog doing the blogging. Hence Stanmer 365.

Nobel Peace Prize

So President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. There have been several different reactions to this. As he is the third Democrat President to receive the prize in the fairly recent past, some Republicans have questioned the political impartiality of the award committee. Other people have pointed out that although he has said a fair amount and tried to get things started on the peace front, Obama has not actually achieved anything very much as yet: maybe awarding him the prize this year is a little premature. Others say that he has put in a lot of effort and deserves the prize for that alone.

I have no idea who else was nominated for the prize, but looking around I see few signs of anyone else even faintly deserving of it. Blair's efforts in the Middle East have been, so far as one can tell, spectacularly unsuccessful. Brown, Sarkozy, Merkel, Berlusconi - nothing. The puppet President of Russia? The Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian or Pakistani leaders? Again - nothing. Canada, Australia, New Zealand? They may have played their part in providing troops for Afghanistan, but is that deserving of the Peace Prize? And nobody comes to mind from Africa or South America. It's almost as though the committee selected the least worst, although I don't think that is what they did at all.

There is, of course, a monetary award with the prize - ten million Swedish kroner. I wonder if he will have to pay tax on it?

A little vanity

It will be interesting to see if any flags other than the UK and USA are ever shown in the box to the left. I suspect not.

And the name of the game is...

...FRUSTRATION!!!

What's my problem this time, you ask, groaning?

I came across a picture of the carnival queen at Brighton Lions' very first carnival in 1964. Unfortunately, it was printed on fairly flimsy paper and stuck on the front page of a copy of Jungle Jottings which had then been folded in four. I scanned the picture into the computer, and then spent hours, literally hours, with Photoshop Elements removing the fold marks (and other blemishes), but when I came to insert the picture in a word-processed document, it just resembled a page of black and white dots! I had hoped to include the picture in Diamond Geezers but that won't now happen.

While I had the Photoshop program open, I played around a bit with a picture I took the other day. I was trying for a moody picture of the low cloud in the woods:


Then I found that Photoshop could remove the cloud and show the true colours, albeit almost like an impressionist painting.

But I'm still frustrated.

A time waster or not?

I could be accused of spending too much time looking at various blogs: some would call it wasting time. But every now and then one can find a gem. Take this one, for instance. I found it on a French web site and had Google translate it, after which I rewrote it slightly, so the wording may not be the best.

One day a farmer's donkey fell into a well. The animal groaned piteously for hours and the farmer wondered what to do. Finally, he decided that as the animal was old and there was no profit in retrieving the donkey, the well should be filled in. He called all his neighbours to come and help. They each grabbed a shovel and started to fill in the well.

As soon as the donkey realized what was happening he began screaming terribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he became silent. Some shovelfuls later, the farmer finally looked in the bottom of the well and was astonished at what he saw. As each shovelful of earth fell upon him, the donkey was doing something amazing: he shook himself to remove the earth from his back and climbed onto it. Soon, the donkey came out of the well and began to trot around!

Life will try to get us to swallow all sorts of garbage. The trick is to get out of the hole by climbing over it. Each of our troubles is a stone that allows us to move forward.