Kate's End of Year Photo Hunt - My Own Choice

 This is our final photo hunt for 2020 - My Own Choice.  It has been a hard choice as nearly all my pictures this year have been of the various wild animals we see on Africam and the pictures are taken with my phone of the computer screen.    So inevitably my selection of favourites will be from them with one or two others thrown in for good measure.

Like everyone, I will be glad to see the back of this year, in fact as I type this we have just left the EU and it is almost midnight, so this mad, sad year is almost gone.  I have left it very late this time to prepare my post.

This silhouette was taken late one night of a heron reflected in the water at Tau, a game reserve in the far north of South Africa.  I just love the simplicity and stillness of it. 

   

My next choice is almost a biblical scene - as though the animals have just left Noah's Ark.  It is unusual to see such a large and varied group all together but it was at the end of the dry season and the water was very low, and scarce. There is the enormous elephant, as well as Waterbuck, Nyala, Impala and Kudu all drinking at the pan at Tembe Elephant  Sanctuary. 

This next picture is of a family of lions we see often at Tembe.  We have watched the female (standing with a radio collar) raise this family of 4 four youngsters successfully.  We first saw them as gorgeous cubs, playing together.  We watched them grow and saw their play change into more vigorous hunting techniques though we have often felt sorry for the mother as she had this large family to feed, especially as the two males did not seem interested in hunting.  She was also very injured a couple of months ago, not sure if she had been fighting or gored by an animal she had been hunting like a buffalo.  You can still see the scars. 

When I took my final animal picture recently  I immediatly thought of 'Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk......' when I took it.   We often see a large herds come to drink at the pan but only one herd has the habit of hooking their trunks over their tusks.  Not sure why but it always looks as though they are too heavy and are resting the load.  But I think it is just something they have learnt to do from one another as we do not see it in other herds.  I have wanted a picture of an elephant carrying its trunk for ages and this is the first time I have managed to get a decent shot. 

Finally, a completely different photograph.  Since the lockdown in March we have had our medication  from our pharmacy delivered by Barry, their friendly driver.  Just before Christmas, the doorbell rang and I went to open it as we were expecting him and there to my surprise was Father Christmas holding a bag of medication.  I was so astonished.  I called B to come and see him too.  Barry told us he was doing it to give a bit of Christmas cheer to all those he was delivering to, and it certainly did put a big smile on our faces.  I asked if he minded if I took his picture.  He is holding a box of biscuits we had bought for him as a small thank  you. 

Well that's it for this year.  A year we will all be glad to see the back of, and we will all hope that 2021 will be a better, healthier and happier one for us all.   Thank you Kate for organising this photo hunt for us.  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Kate's Friday Photo hunt - December 2020

Well here we are - the last Friday before Christmas.  In spite of this being such a strange, tragic year it seems to have flown by.  Maybe subconsciously we have been trying to get to the end of it in the hope that 2021 will be better.  

I have entered more than one tree - bit of a cheat really but I have connections to both of them.  The first is the tree in All Saints Church at Earby where you may recognise quite a few of my paper angels.   The second is our own little table top tree.  We decided to down size our tree and passed our large 6ft one on to Youngest to use in his digs at Uni.  We now have a neat little one, much easier to decorate and store.  It is all silver this year which has made it hard to photograph, so forgive the rather fuzzy picture.  

We have also made a large star to hang in our window this year.  It shows well from the road so we are pleased with it.  Only problem is the lights show up in triplicate in our double glazed window.  

Couldn't resist taking this picture with the lovely sky behind the star.

 

This year Christmas will be very different.  Instead of all the family coming here for Christmas Dinner we are having dinner for just the two of us whilst Kate and her family will be at  home and our son and his wife will be in Scotland and we will hopefully all be connected by Zoom.  Should be interesting!!   

So here is wishing you all a very Merry and safe (and if like us a Zoomy) Christmas and best wishes for a better 2021. XX

 🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁

Kate's Christmas Friday Photo Hunt.

 

This the second Friday and in each case I have left it so late.  I have been so busy with one thing or another - mainly computer stuff that I have not done any baking this week.  I must admit too that I seldom do any baking - as it is only B and I and we try and avoid  yummy treats.   So I have had a quick look back at some of my previous entries and pinched this from a few years ago.  Sorry, cheating I 'm sure.  

I  have my friend Threads through my life to thank for even remembering to do this entry.  She checks up on me and reminds me all the time.  

With so many recipes to chose from I have selected a traditional South African pudding or teatime treat - Melk Tert, which translates as Milk Tart.  It is quite different to the English custard tart and much easier to make as it does not have to set in the oven, you make it like custard, in a saucepan.  You can be good and make a short pastry pre baked case but I cheat and buy them ready made from the supermarket.  

MELK  TERT   (Makes 2 x 8"  tarts)

4 rounded tablespoons flour                          l cup sugar

4 level tablespoons cornflour                        3 eggs

l litre milk                                                       3 tablespoons butter

Cinnamon sticks (Optional)                           Pinch salt.  

Ground cinnamon                                          2 Baked pastry shells

Sift and mix together dry ingredients. Add eggs, beating well. Add a little milk and mix till smooth. Boil together remaining milk, salt, cinnamon sticks (or pinch of cinnamon) and butter. Add hot milk to flour mixture and return to saucepan and cook slowly till thick. Pour into baked pastry shell and sprinkle with cinnamon. 

December Weekly picture hunt. 2020

 

Kate's idea of a single topic each Friday up till Christmas is a good one - something different for this very different Christmas. 

Decorations

The first is of a group of decorations wired together.  The two white bells are from 1960 but the yellow bell is very much older. It is of brittle plastic and is from 1949. We had more and they were considered very modern -plastic, not glass!!  The three have a tiny bit of tinsel wrapped around, it has tarnished and shrivelled with age but still very special to me

I could not choose which to select so have cheated and entered two. My second is of one of my favourite Christmas tree ornaments.  My parents bought it in 1959, the year we moved to what was Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, from Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, (now Zambia) and we were amazed to see such lovely things in the shops.  Lusaka only had one main street with shops on one side only except for the library and a record shop was newly built on the other side. In this picture our glass snowman is a bit the worse for wear but I have since blackened his hat.  He gets wrapped up very carefully and packed away each year.

 Now to see what everyone else has found for this topic.  See you next week with our pictures of baking.

November 2020 Photo Hunt.

 Another month, another interesting set of words set by Kate.  I found it hard this month as I still have not been able to retrieve my lost photographs.

Houseplant/s

I have a beautiful  Anthurium Andraenum  which I bought as a small pot plant from a car boot sale years ago.  It is now enormous even though I took out a large piece for a friend a few months ago.  It has not stopped flowering since I first got it and it usually has at least ten or more flowers at a time. Before I split it it had as many as twenty two.  I have just had to move it from its usual spot in front of the window as B has been complaining he can't see the TV around it!!   

My second choice is a miniature Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera) though mine never flowers at Christmas, I see this picture was taken in June. 

Rings

I'm sure this bicycle tyre would count as a 'ring'.  This picture is of Ben, B's display dog and a wonderful pet.  I have used a picture of him  jumping through a few rings of fire in an earlier post.

Harbour

We have been to St Abbs many time and the tide is always out.  So all my photographs show the fishing boats down almost on the bottom. 

Window

This last month we have had scaffolding up around the building while new gutters have been fitted to our building.  As it was right outside our windows, front and back, we have had to keep our curtains closed as the workmen were working right outside our windows.  Thankfully it is down at last.  

This is the view from our kitchen window.  You can see our bird feeder suctioned onto the window but we had to take it down.  We use it to feed the tits and the occasional dove who has worked out how to balance on the very narrow windowsill.  But now this same dove brought all his friends and relations to feed from the nut feeder as they could just stand on the scaffolding planks and take all the nuts. 

Sky

We have gorgeous views out of our window; clear skies, mist drifting through the trees, stormy skies, beautiful sunsets, so I was spoilt for choice - well I would have been if I could find my missing photographs.   

Sun setting over Weets hill.

But I prefer the moody cloudy skies. 

My Own Choice 

This month I have been helping make decorations for the church Christmas tree.  I thought I make something new for me and after searching the web I settled on these paper angels.  I made 16 in the end.  Kate helped out by donating some beautiful wooden decorations she had painted.  These pictures were of my trial ones, I forgot to take a picture of the finished angels.

Some of Kate's beautiful wooden painted stars and  hearts.  

That's it for this month.  I would like to wish all bloggers and those reading this post a very Happy, Safe and blessed Christmas and hopefully and much better 2021. 

October Photo Hunt 2020

It's a grey miserable day, rain falling, trees bare and it's getting dark earlier but looking through my old photographs should have cheered me up.  The only trouble is I have lost two thirds of my photographs going back to 2005 when moving them on to my new computer.  Don't know why or how.  I had fortunately previously put them all on a photostick gadget which sucks out every picture from your computer - that sounds fantastic till you realise that they are taken out of their files and put in a completely different order.  So now all my photographs numbered 1,2,3 etc are in that order - all the 1's then all the 2's etc, then any labelled (not many unfortunately) are in alphabetical order and finally all those downloaded from my camera with the cameras numbers  are in numerical order.  So nothing makes sense. I spent the whole afternoon going through them pulling out those I could possibly use here.  I might add that there are thousands of pictures, 1751 of them are duplicates!!!   So that is what I must do this winter, as well as sort out all the actual photographs from albums - got far too many.  So forgive my random selection.  I have not been out this month to take any pictures either. 

Sweet Treat

This is a cake and scones I made for Kate's birthday a couple of summers ago.  It was a lovely summer day and we sat out in the garden.   All that cream and the strawberries must surely qualify as a 'Sweet Treat'.

Starts with a 'W'

I was spoilt for choice here but eventually settled for this lovely one of dear Roxy, who is no longer with us, wearing my daughter-in-law's Wellies.

  

I just have to have one of my favourite wild animals - the comical Wart Hog. They are so ugly with their tusks and warts but somehow they always make me smile.  The family will run in single file following the male or female with their tails straight up in the air.  Like domestic pigs they love rolling in mud and root for their food whilst kneeling on their front legs. 

Reading now

My daily bible reading guide, together with an Alexander McCall Smith book.  I had the complete set - well thought I did, I then found this one I had not read.   The turquoise book underneath is being deliberately concealed as it is a present for daughter-in-law and  it has not  been put away with other Christmas presents as I keep dipping into it. 

Something Purple 

Again I was spoilt for choice.  Looking through my zillions of pictures I was surprised how many purple flowers I had photographed over the years and then I found this picture............. I couldn't not use it!!   He is one of those still life models that you can have your photograph taken with for a donation into his tin.   He did not move in all the time we watched him, just his eyes with an occasional blink.  This was taken in 'The Shambles' near the York Minster. 

This beautiful purple Streptocarpus was given to me by Eldest grandson years ago and each year gets better and better.  

My Own Choice

Some of you may remember Herbert the Hippo that lay in the water at Kwa Maritani Game Lodge.  I photographed him with terrapins on his back in the sun and Egyptian Geese sleeping on his back for safety at night.  Well this entry could well  be called -

An Eulogy to Herbert, the patient Hippo

Every night we would watch out for Herbert as he lay quietly in the water till about ten at night when he would lumber out of the water to go and graze.  (For all their being responsible for the most deaths by a animal of  people in Africa they are only grazers).   Then later he would be there again with his two geese standing in their place on his back.  By day the terrapins would scramble onto his back to sun themselves in safety.  He was a long time resident of that particular pan and just spent his days  quietly in retirement.

Then one morning recently I noticed a lot of comments on what had taken place overnight at Kwa and seemingly another male hippo had come into his territory and there had been a bitter fight to the end and the elderly Herbert was killed.   As the rangers always leave nature to get on naturally they just moved his carcass away from next to the lodges as they knew its remains would be eaten by scavengers and rot in the heat.   We miss seeing him each night just lying quietly in the water. 

Turning pink in the sun.  Hippos excrete a pink waxy substance to protect their skin in the heat. 

Lying in the cool water with his terrapin passengers!

Egyptian Geese keeping safe overnight away from the edge where predators may catch them. .

Now a more cheerful note on which to end up this month. 

This was taken in 2008 outside Abbots Harbour restaurant in East Martin Lancashire where we had stopped for tea with our son and daughter-in-law and their two dogs, Roxy and Jess.  We  had chosen an outside table when a couple came walking along with their dog and tied him up outside whilst they went in to order.  His earnest but resigned little face made us smile at the time but now it is most relevant........wearing a regulatory mask at a restaurant!!   Little did we know then!! 

That's all for this month.  Now off to see what everyone else has done.  Keep safe and well. xx

September 2020 Photo Hunt

I can't believe how time is flying.  Autumn is here, leaves are turning and even falling already.  Hope winter flies past as quickly and we can look forward to spring............


Words for this month are Seasonal, Favourite seat/place to sit, Comforting/cosy, Micro/mini//teeny/tiny/, Delightful/delighted and then My Own Choice.   Here is my selection.

Seasonal

Rain drops on the cotoneaster outside our kitchen window.

Favourite seat

We bought this bench about 18 years ago from a second hand shop.  The  rotten wood needed replacing so we changed it from a 3ft seat to a 6ft one.  The centre 'seat' was commandeered by our black cat Jak. As soon as we sat down on it he would jump between us.  We then started taking a few 'munchies' out with us if we were having a brew.  It soon became the teatime ritual.  Tea for B, coffee for me and munchies for Jak.   It is not a pretty bench in a shady part of the garden but to us it is special.  We still call it Jak's bench even though  he has sadly been long gone.

Comforting/cosy

I knitted a tea cosy for us then decided to make a larger one for the Community Centre large tea pot.  It was completely accidental that it was in Burnley Football Club colours. I never noticed it till someone pointed it out - Burnley is our nearest football team too!! 

I give up......each time I try to insert and centre the second tea cosy into the blog it disappears!  So take my word for it......It was huge!! 

Micro/mini/teeny/tiny

Look hard and you will see there are three elephants in this picture. Perhaps I should name them Mini, Teeny and Tiny.  The largest one is only a youngster  herself - sort of big sister looking after the next two of her mother's offspring.  The water is very low in the waterholes and dozens and dozens of elephants are heading to either Tau or Tembe  at Africam  in their hoards.  I have never seen such large herds.  The trouble is the big elephants trample the water's edge to soft mud.  Now instead of bathing in the water they are rolling in the mud.  It does help keep off the biting flies.

My Own Choice

My own choice this month is again from Africam web page.   Some of you may remember the hippo that would lie in the water with terrapins on his back.  Well they have been evicted by the new tenants - a pair of Egyptian Geese.  They are there nearly all night only getting off when the hippo goes out of the water to graze.  

Now off to see other's interpretation of Kate's choice of words.  Take care everyone and keep safe during these trying times.