Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt for the week ending - 27/08/2021

 This week the choice of word chosen by Astrid is 'Bucket'.  Not such an easy one for me.  I have had to borrow other pictures from various archives this week.  

 My immediate thought was for the picture I knew we had of our 'bucket and spade' shop in Seahouses, Northumberland.  Every year when we went on holiday there we would go to Seahouses for a fish and chips lunch and part of the tradition was to visit the 'bucket and spade' shop.  It was about three shops joined into one vast, rambling shop filled with, lets be honest, tat. All cheap holiday souvenirs but we would wander through all the same. I found the picture as you will see below but much to my disappointment there are no buckets and spades outside. But I thought I will still use it, the title fits our name for it, then today I enlarged the picture again and poured over it and there, just below the pink spades in the window, behind the pram handle are a couple of blue buckets.  Take my word for it, they are there. Whew, I have some buckets!! 

We have tried most of the different Fish and Chip Restaurants over the years including the one in the picture above but preferred Lewis Fish Restaurant.  The lighting in this picture is bad, either I could read the menu or I could see the buckets.  I naturally have chosen the latter.  They have three little buckets joined together, holding the cutlery, savoury seasonings and sugar sachets. 

The next two pictures were taken at the annual Trawden Garden and Scarecrow Festival in 2011.  That is Mr McGregor of Beatrix Potter fame.  Peter Rabbit always was in trouble for stealing carrots from Mr McGregor's garden.  He is life sized and remade each year.  It is a tiny but perfect garden and normally wins prizes. If you look at the beautiful foxgloves on the right of the photograph then then follow them down to the second photograph you will see they are growing in a bucket.

Not quite buckets, but a sack and watering can but can you see two gorgeous little creatures peeping out.

This picture was taken just around the corner from the first. Note the daisies growing in a bucket. You can see why this garden always won prizes. Well deserved Lynne.  

Just as a footnote to Mr McGregor the scarecrow.  Each year, after the Garden Festival was over he was taken up to Beatrix Potters' Home - Hill Top Farm, in Cumbria which is open to the public.  He replaced the previous year's scarecrow.  He would sit on a bench with a collection bucket and people would donate money to sit on the bench next to him to have their photograph taken. 

This picture I took off Hill Top Farm's web page. It shows Mr M. sitting on a bench outside the farmhouse.  He has raised over £12,000 over the past few years for local charities.

 

I have a file on my computer labelled 'Garden Ideas' and put pictures in it for inspiration.  These are three of those pictures.  Again they are not my pictures, but they are full of buckets and who knows, someone else maybe inspired by the pictures. I love the way these buckets have been fixed over a central pole to look like they are balanced on top of each other. 

 

These garden tools displayed on the old green door together with plants and  old galvanised bucket inspired me to hang my tools on the side of the garden shed. 

Finally a tower of buckets filled with different herbs.

A late PS.   During the night I suddenly remembered that I do have another couple of buckets I can use.  Not my well used garden buckets but miniature brass bucket and coal scuttle (I'm sure it can be classed as a bucket too). I have put a little brass thimble in the group to give an idea of their size..

 

So that's my lot for this week.  Now to go and see how others have interpreted the word.  

Keep well and have a good September.  Can't believe the year is flying by so quickly.

Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt for the week ending - 20/08/2021

 This week Astrid has selected the word 'Dog'.  Here I am spoilt for choice.  Dog's have been in both of our families lives forever.  I have been digging though my archives for an assortment of 'dogs through our lives', some our parents, some our own and  our 'granddogs'.

This first one is of my mother Marjorie and her dog Pluto taken just before the war, about 1936,  before my parents were married.  This crazy black Labrador used to jump on the bus, go down to Eastbourne beachfront, swim straight out to sea much to the consternation of the watching people, then turn around, swim back, get out and catch the correct bus home.  The bus conductors all knew him.  How he knew which bus to catch is amazing.

This is Dachie, my mother-in-law Margaret's dachshund cross spaniel (these days she would have a silly combined name and cost a fortune).  B's family lived on an Agricultural Research Station outside Mazabuka, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and when it was time for Dachie to be spayed the surgery was done by the only vets in the area, large animal vets more used to treating cattle.  Poor little Dachie had such a huge incision that she was very sore afterwards. Margaret worked in the office at the Research station and could not stay at home with her sick, sore dog so she just put her in a pram and took her to work with her!!  She always was one very spoilt little dog! 

This is me with our friend's dog, no idea of any more details. 

After the war we, together with several other families, travelled overland from the UK down through Africa by lorry and settled in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) where we lived for 20 years.  The earliest photograph I have of myself with any dogs is me with Tucker our Rough Collie.  That hacking jacket I am wearing must have been bought for me with the idea I would grow into it!! 

My parents reverted to their favourite breed and from then on had Labradors, never well trained or obedient as my father was too soft with them. 

 Once B and I were married we had a series of dogs throughout out time in Central and South Africa.  The children always had dogs in their lives and still do.

 

Katie with her friend in a wheelbarrow with Scruffy and Barnie 

Here she is with Scruffy again and Heidi 

and  below David trying not to share his icecream with Max

Our lives revolved around dogs and  because of his experience with Police dogs  B had been asked to start a dog training school for the Prison service from scratch.  These were his first his first 'recruits', Roy, Shane and Bruno.

 Roy looking cool!!

This picture was taken on Max's 4th birthday.  The children had this party for him on our lawn. His cake was a tin of dog food inverted out onto a plate with candles on top - which he ate with the meat!!  Katie is holding her cat Sam who is wearing a party hat, he often was pushed around in that dolls pram wearing a yellow jersey! 

 A few years later this was the Prison Dog Section Display Team.  I had been asked to make their coats with extra braid for the Mascot, Skip.

Skip had previously been a guide dog and was wonderful, did anything he was asked to do.

Once we moved to South Africa and people got to hear of B's dog training experience he was asked to start a training club in Hazyview where we lived.  After a while we had enough trained dogs to put on displays at fetes and other dog shows. We had a real assortment of dogs, not like his all German Shepherds as before.  Big dogs, little dogs, they all were trained and loved doing all the shows.  B's dog Ben especially loved jumping and had no fear of jumping through hoops of fire, even Katie's little Henry jumped through the fire hoops.

Ben having fun.  He loved the displays and particularly loved jumping.  He actually disgraced himself at this particular display by doing a second round of the jumps when he had finished and should have returned to B' side.

We lived in a particularly hot part of South Africa and our dogs always found a way to cope with the heat.

Here Misty finds the  best way is to stand in the spray, she particularly liked to stand over it so it sprayed onto her stomach and Minty found that she could drink directly from the smaller mist spray. 

I could go on and on but must jump on to pictures of our 'granddogs'.  Followers of Katie's blogs will know dear Moss who will walk miles and miles and swim at every chance she gets.  I have so many pictures of her it was hard to choose.  She counts as a dog in our life as we no longer have any pets so just enjoy our 'granddogs' instead. 

I have recently used a picture of the late Roxy standing in her floral boots but here she has D's on too.  

Finally here is Jess, our Scottish Granddog.  She has been an only dog since her best friend Roxy was sadly put down as she was very ill.  She had been operated on about 5 years previously to remove a cancerous spleen and had to take tablets every day but lived a very happy life.   Now Jess has a new little friend.  An 12 week old yellow labrador puppy but she is not too sure about this little bundle of activity.

Jess playing in the sea at Lytham, Lancashire.

and here wondering what on earth has happened.  This little upstart has not gone home at the end of the day.  It is still here.   Taken on the first evening of little Lexi's arrival. 

                                                    

I'm sorry, I've seen to gone and on and on.  Dogs have played such a big part in our lives and we have masses of photographs.  I have only used a small number especially of Roxy, Jess and Moss who all of you have seen before.  There is really no room for them all.  We had a Black Irish Setter called Wellington, a young German Shephard, a black poodle called Gigi, (taken in as homeless and turned out she was terrified of men and never settled) and Charlie Brown, so called as he looked like a peanut when he was very tiny!! He survived being flushed down the toilet by our very young and naughty nephew who wanted to see if the tiny puppy could swim!! 

Final mention must go to Heidi, given to us to start our own breeding programme for the Dog Section.  Her first litter was of 14 pups.  She could not cope with them all and I had to help bottle feed them. I would put Johnsons Baby Powder on them to identify those I had fed as they all looked the same.  Brian had the pick of the litter of one to raise as his own to handle and he chose Max. Poor Max was so unsuitable. As his training progressed B found out that Max hated jumping or scrambling up walls, one ear never stood up properly and was so gentle that we just kept him as a family pet and what a wonderful pet he turned out to be as you will have seen in previous photographs.

Now off to see if anyone else has got carried away as I have done!!  

Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt - week ending 13/08/2021

This weeks word set by Astrid is 'Things beginning with S'.  I had no idea how many pictures fell under that heading.  Below are a few I have selected from my vast archives.

This is Casper, young Katie's cat, so named because of his white face.   He just loved lying across the corner of the veranda's walls.  When he did so we would say Casper is being a Suspension Bridge!!.  Apologies for quality of photograph but it one of those old ones that have gone purple and I have had to adjust it considerably.

In 2011 our friends from South Africa came to stay and I was intrigued by Lynette's knitted Slippers.  She told me how to do it, I think it is a rectangle, with the end not cast off but pulled tight, then the edges were turned over, the base joined together and the heel stitched up and finally a plaited cord was added. 

My next S picture is a Silhouette of Katie and eldest grandson  many years ago.  The dog is Cleggy, Moss's predecessor. 

This picture is of the Stocks in Berwick-on-Tweed town centre.   Makes one think, public punishment may have been humiliating, but I would imagine preferable to be locked up in terrible jails of that era. 

This picture brings back memories, wet memories!!  We wanted to walk to Dunstable Castle, Northumberland but should have taken note that all other people were walking away from it.  They had seen the Storm coming, we just strolled gaily on and then the heavens opened and we were a long way from the shelter of the castle and although we had rain coats they were obviously shower proof, not heavy rain proof.   It was a long walk, further than it looks and we were soaked through.  After the rain subsided we made it back to the car, absolutely saturated through.  I took off all my clothes other than my undies and put on another coat B fortunately had in the car. Talk about being wet to the skin....I really was!  B's coat was longer and kept him drier.

PS.  After this we bought proper Pac-a-Mac's to keep in our back packs!! 

Still in Northumberland but this time on Lindesfarne, or Holy Island, one of the Farne Islands.  We were lucky enough to be there while this beautiful carved depiction of the monks lovingly carrying St Cuthbert in his coffin from Lindesfarne to Chester-Le-Street then eventually to what is now Durham Cathedral was displayed in St Mary's Church on Lindesfarne.   This carving was huge, larger than life. 

For more information on why he was declared a Saint follow this link to Durham Catheral/St Cuthbert    It makes very interesting reading. 

S is for Squirrel, two in fact.  The first, peering through our lounge window was of Emma, so named as the first squirrel to come into our garden was blind in one eye so we called him Nelson then when he turned up with his lady friend she just had to be called Emma after Lady Hamilton, Nelson's Mistress.  Emma became very tame, even sitting on B's knee, eating nuts.  But like all our squirrels over the years she moved on when her daughters took over her patch.  Though she did came back to visit occasionally. 

Emma's daughter became known as 'Little Em' and was even more tame than her mother.  She would come right into the passage and inside our flat if she felt we had not fed her.  While Jak our cat tolerated her presence outside  he objected strongly when she came in the house.  We had to keep the door shut to keep her out.   Here she is eating peanuts.

Although we still feed the squirrels with a proper squirrel feeder (keeps them from stealing the bird's nuts)  we do not try and tame them.  It's not fair as many see them as vermin and they may be a bit trusting of humans. 

The next set of photographs were again taken some years ago in Northumberland, this time of our son burying his dog Roxy in the Sand and then executing his nephews!!  

He could do anything with

Roxy, she was so patient.

Off with his head!! 

Eldest grandson is balanced with his head in a hole in the Sand and youngest is completely buried with the exception of his decapitated head!!  Amazing what you can do with Sand. 

Our daughter-in-law is a geologist and always has a lovely collection of Stones.  Going on a walk with her is fascinating as she will tell you all about the stone you have picked up or rock formations.  These are a few of her collection of small stones around a Clematis in a pot in her garden.  

 

This is daughter-in-law with a tiny Starfish found on the beach near Berwick-on-tweed.

This picture is of a Sign in Tembe Elephant Reserve in South Africa.  I just love it.  It is not one of my pictures but one off their web page, I just could not resist it when I saw it. 

Another picture taken using my camera to take pictures off my computer from the web site Africam.com  that we watch so much.  I just love the way the baby blends in with the mother.  As a point of interest no two zebras have the same pattern stripes and those brown Shadow stripes between the black ones are particular to the the zebra in Southern Africa, further north they are just black and white like the ones in the Serengetti which is where most of the game programmes you see on TV are filmed. 

This picture has both S for Spots and S for Stripes on this Civet Cat out hunting at Tembe.  We often see him at night as  he stalks any small mammals he can find. 

A post by me would not be complete without a picture of Jak.  I have avoided using Snow as a topic - I have too many pictures to choose from but this I could not resist when I found it.  Jak just loved the snow and would run around like a crazy kitten playing in it.  Here he has just been let out and found that it has snowed overnight!!.   Its not the best photograph, but when I saw it it just brought back happy memories of a lovely cat.

I must stop now - I have taken up too much of your time looking at some of my pictures beginning with S.   Have a good week.  Thank you Astrid for hosting this weekly fun.  See you next Friday. xx