The weather continues to be disappointing. This morning we had high winds and persistent rain. The last thing we expected was the sight of these most colourful little birds! Apparently, they don't venture this far north and our friend Keith said he saw them in Italy and south of France, but never in the Correze.
There were three of them. It seems they put on a performance just for us, sitting on the electric cables, on the trees, flying around very gracefully and for a grand finale, one of them caught some large insect in mid-flight, sat on the cable just outside our window to show off its prize, then they all simply disappeared.
I had to do a lot of googling, which was very hit-and-miss, but I was rewarded with some comprehensive information in the end. They're European Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster). Lovely things, they made our day!
These are googled pictures:
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Friday, 17 May 2013
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Where there's a will...
Peter has a pair of cherished glasses. He calls them his "all-purpose glasses" because he can use the computer, watch TV and even see things on my computer from his own seat. They were his second pair of reading glasses, prescribed around 15 years ago. Now he has new glasses for reading small print and for driving, but won't give up the old ones.
The problem started when he sat on them and broke one of the arm pieces. We couldn't really mend it, as it's a rimless frame:
We managed to attach the arm in a very precarious way and it was getting on my nerves, but Peter wouldn't stop wearing them. Yesterday I had enough and rummaged through all the drawers until I found a very old pair of sunglasses roughly the same size as the cherished ones. Peter found these sunglasses on the ground near his car many years ago. We proceeded to dismantle the old frame (the bits that held the lenses together, to be exact). The lenses were slightly larger than the ones in the sunglasses, so Peter went to his tool cupboard and came back with a rasp. I carefully trimmed the lenses (without any measuring or anything) and they finally fitted!
Here are the remains of the old frame and the sunglasses lenses:
And here is a happy bunny, wearing his "brand new" cherished, all-purpose glasses:
It's true: "Where there's a will, there's a way!"
The problem started when he sat on them and broke one of the arm pieces. We couldn't really mend it, as it's a rimless frame:
We managed to attach the arm in a very precarious way and it was getting on my nerves, but Peter wouldn't stop wearing them. Yesterday I had enough and rummaged through all the drawers until I found a very old pair of sunglasses roughly the same size as the cherished ones. Peter found these sunglasses on the ground near his car many years ago. We proceeded to dismantle the old frame (the bits that held the lenses together, to be exact). The lenses were slightly larger than the ones in the sunglasses, so Peter went to his tool cupboard and came back with a rasp. I carefully trimmed the lenses (without any measuring or anything) and they finally fitted!
Here are the remains of the old frame and the sunglasses lenses:
And here is a happy bunny, wearing his "brand new" cherished, all-purpose glasses:
It's true: "Where there's a will, there's a way!"
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Will the rain ever stop?
The weather has been very disappointing around here, so I decided to post some pictures of flowers to cheer myself up. I hope they'll cheer you up as well!
Labels:
flowers
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
People connecting with people
There's a movie I like very much: "84 Charing Cross Road."
In 1949 Helene Hanff, in search of obscure classics and British literature titles she has been unable to find in New York City, notices an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature placed by antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co located at the titular address in London. She contacts the shop and chief buyer and manager Frank Doel fulfills her requests. A long distance friendship evolves over time, not only between the two but between Hanff and other staff members as well, including birthday gifts, holiday packages, and food parcels to compensate for post-World War II food shortages in England. Their correspondence includes discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the coronation of Elizabeth II.
I was thinking about it the other day and it reminded me of the friendships that start on a blog, such as this one. We also discuss a variety of topics and many people go on to meet in person, becoming more than virtual friends. The need to connect is part of human nature and people always sought to communicate with each other by whatever means available at the time. Snail mail has been replaced by e-mail, chat rooms, comments sections on blogs and although many people dismiss virtual friendships as not "real," they are as real as those real life connections Helene made with people from across the ocean, even though she never met any of them. Their friendship lasted for nearly two decades, what's not "real" about it?
This movie is also dear to me because the two main characters encapsulate my father. He was bi-polar; sometimes he was as exuberant as Helene, sometimes as reticent and reserved as Frank. The day of his funeral, which I couldn't attend, I went to Blockbusters, rented the video, and watched it at the time of the funeral back in Brazil. It helped me feel part of it, connected to the rest of my family and friends. Needless to say, this movie was also one of my father's favourites.
I'm very grateful to Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the worldwide web and gave his invention to the world free of charge. "Berners-Lee made his idea available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The World Wide Web Consortium decided that its standards should be based on royalty-free technology, so that they could easily be adopted by anyone."
Writing about a good movie which deals with long distance friendships and a good man who made these friendships easier makes me feel very warm inside, very close to all of you, my virtual and very real friends...
In 1949 Helene Hanff, in search of obscure classics and British literature titles she has been unable to find in New York City, notices an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature placed by antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co located at the titular address in London. She contacts the shop and chief buyer and manager Frank Doel fulfills her requests. A long distance friendship evolves over time, not only between the two but between Hanff and other staff members as well, including birthday gifts, holiday packages, and food parcels to compensate for post-World War II food shortages in England. Their correspondence includes discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the coronation of Elizabeth II.
I was thinking about it the other day and it reminded me of the friendships that start on a blog, such as this one. We also discuss a variety of topics and many people go on to meet in person, becoming more than virtual friends. The need to connect is part of human nature and people always sought to communicate with each other by whatever means available at the time. Snail mail has been replaced by e-mail, chat rooms, comments sections on blogs and although many people dismiss virtual friendships as not "real," they are as real as those real life connections Helene made with people from across the ocean, even though she never met any of them. Their friendship lasted for nearly two decades, what's not "real" about it?
This movie is also dear to me because the two main characters encapsulate my father. He was bi-polar; sometimes he was as exuberant as Helene, sometimes as reticent and reserved as Frank. The day of his funeral, which I couldn't attend, I went to Blockbusters, rented the video, and watched it at the time of the funeral back in Brazil. It helped me feel part of it, connected to the rest of my family and friends. Needless to say, this movie was also one of my father's favourites.
I'm very grateful to Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the worldwide web and gave his invention to the world free of charge. "Berners-Lee made his idea available freely, with no patent and no royalties due. The World Wide Web Consortium decided that its standards should be based on royalty-free technology, so that they could easily be adopted by anyone."
Writing about a good movie which deals with long distance friendships and a good man who made these friendships easier makes me feel very warm inside, very close to all of you, my virtual and very real friends...
Labels:
friends,
heartwarming
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)










