Day 89 Daybreak

Day 88 9am

The hospital out-patients ophthalmology department waiting area; arrived at 8am for an 8.20am appointment. Seen at 8.15 for tests, then asked to wait for the surgeon to talk to us. We were called in to see him at 9.10am with good result; he has decided to try to improve DH's double vision caused by facial paralysis. He will be unable to correct it completely, but hopes to improve it to the point where prisms in his specs will mean he doesn't have double vision when looking straight ahead.

Day 87 Dinner Time

An out of focus chicken on the spit, cooking to perfection in my vintage Moulinex Rotisserie.

Day 85 9pm

Three people, three screens!

Day 83 Clock

The cuckoo clock was a gift from a Dutch friend; as you can probably tell from the length of the chains, it isn't a chain wound one, it has a little key, and I never remember to wind it!

Day 82 Calm

Calm as a mill pond...or a salt pan in this case.

Day 81 an Everyday Sight

The view from my bedroom window.

Day 80 Quiet

Day 79 Playtime

Colouring in!

Day 78 Hobby

One of my many hobbies is crochet. I am making Sunflower Granny squares at the moment. The basket they are in was crocheted from supermarket plastic carrier bags in the days when they were free.

Day 77 Music

Spotify is the way I listen to music most often, although the new rule that stipulates only 5 plays per track is a bit of a bind. My picture is a screen shot of the opening page, showing the new releases. I now make it a rule to always listen to at least 1 new album before going to my playlists. I took a leaf from my friend Robert's book; he is in his 90s, and one day we called on him to find he was listening to some really thumpety thump garage/trance type of noise. I asked why he was listening to it, and his answer was that he didn't knock anything until he had tried it...

Day 76 Bliss

A new book, a mug of tea and a spot in the sun to enjoy them!

Day 75 Wild

This cat is out in the wild; through no fault of his own he is a complete and utter nuisance. He was abandoned by his first owners when they moved out of a nearby rented house and so had to start scavenging for food. He soon learnt how to use a cat flap and there would be battles in my kitchen when he sneaked in at night. This tailed off when I stopped leaving the cat biscuit dish out, but he knew when feeding times were and started waiting on the doorstep to waylay our cats when they tried to come in and I would have to stand guard to keep him out. Then new neighbours moved in and took to feeding the "bad boy". Things improved for a couple of years .... until they moved out and he was left to fend for himself again. My boys are getting on now, they are both 13. Chancey is a timid cat and keeps out of his way as much as possible, but Charlie is having none of it and the fur flies every time they cross paths. Bites turn into abscesses and cat antibiotics have become a standard item on the shopping list. The last battle I witnessed between Charlie and the intruder resulted in Charlie losing a canine tooth; it was left on the path with a large amount of white fur! We now have new neighbours again. They have a Rotty and two Chihuahuas, but  have started feeding him because he was pinching the dogs food from under their noses. He may not be stealing food any more but he still wants to rule the roost in our garden as well as theirs, and our cats have taken to spending the day further afield.

Day 74 Unusual Camera Angle

Does this qualify as an unusual angle? I don't know if it does but it will have to do! Just so that you know what you are looking at, I have added a couple of other shots of the Agave. I only have a couple of these left as they are vicious nasty plants that spike you in the bum when you are least expecting it, and the wounds always fester and leave scars. I attack them in return with my secateurs and remove the end spikes as they are the worst offenders. I keep two just in case we should ever feel the need to knock up a batch of Tequila...

Day 73 Shapes in Nature

I don't know what the correct name for this plant is, but we call it the Sausage Tree. We started with one small plant and now it has become a pest that seeds itself everywhere. Luckily the seedlings are large, easy to distinguish and easy to uproot. This is one that took root in the base of the garden wall. It has lumps knocked off it whenever I park the car in front of it, but it doesn't seem to care! Later in the year it will sprout bunches of leaves at the end of each sausage, followed by nondescript flowers that then produce large seed heads full of parachutes that carry the seeds far and wide.

Day 72 Garden

The most colourful things in my garden at the moment are the freesias. It is mainly the cream and yellow ones that are open at the moment, the pink and blue shades open later.

day 71 Hiding

Tiny cyclamen hiding under the freesia leaves.

Day 70 Plant

One of my favourite Springtime plants; I had this wisteria for 10 years before it flowered, but now it is making up for lost time. The big fat buds are just beginning to open up at first floor level. At ground level, where they are in the shade of trees and bushes, the branches are bare of growth...but their day will come!

Day 69 Fuzzy

This was an easy one; all I need do was to look down at my lap and the knitted blanket that was keeping the chill at bay! This is an ongoing project; the centre was made from odd balls of mohair knitted in a zigzag, but as I find odds and ends, I crochet them around the edge and it is still growing.

Day 68 Bathtime

This was not easy as we usually shower, so I was thinking of the photos I took of birds having a bath, but that was quite a while ago...then I saw this while walking around the local market!

Day 67 Floor

Day 66 Cooking

Day 65 Arranged

As usual on a Monday, nothing complicated from me! A few flowers from the garden

arranged in a bud vase. Three varieties of spurge (weeds to some people) and a few Freesias. The smaller whiter flower head is a naturalised variety with a very strong scent. It grows in great swathes on the hillsides.

Day 64 Chairs

Empty chairs on the shady side of the street. The sun is hot today, but the wind is chilly if not tempered by the heat of the sun. 

Day 63 Flat

Flat? Now there's a tough one; flat tyre, flat battery, flat chest, flat as a pancake...apart from the flat chest, I'm right out of those, so when in doubt, go for a walk around the garden...I thought of taking a photo of the flat leaf parsley that is just starting to grow, but then changed my mind...

...and put the camera flat on the floor...the ground beneath the almond tree is covered in petals, the surface of the pond is covered in petals, even the bushes and geranium plants are sprinkled with white and pink petals...

Day 62 Comfort

Comfort...any time of the day or the night...a pot of tea!

Day 61 Grass

We don't have anything resembling a lawn. For a start we can't afford the constant watering that it would need, and I have no yen for neat green stripes or the work involved in keeping it up to scratch. I wondered around The Bottom, as we call the lower half of our land (much more about the flora and fauna there on another blog; put bottom into the search box) looking for a patch of green that would come under that classification, when it struck me that I was thinking too small....bamboo, the largest grass species grows well, too well, on my patch!