Imagine..

Can you imagine having this visitor to your garden?

I have family living there so - perhaps a trip is called for.........

A Local Lass

When you hear of people's successes and (at the moment that's mostly linked to the Olympics), it's easy to overlook that the person is someone's - child, parent, partner, friend etc. etc.

This was really brought home to me today when having lunch in a local pub in a small West Sussex village where my Mother lives.

Another resident of that village (until recently) was Tina Cook - twice bronze medallist in the Equestrian events! As a local lass and daughter of Josh Gifford (the well-known stable owner in said West Sussex village), she merited several pictures in the local pub. All the locals eating there were so proud of Tina and took such obvious pride in promoting her success - it was great to see.

Well done Tina!!

Why am I not surprised?

Most of you will be aware of the 3,000 blank Passports that were stolen last week (see here for the BBC News account). At the time, it was claimed the stolen items couldn't be used as "passports" because of the technology used in producing them. The Times (a couple of days ago) now points out that this is not the case! Not, I imagine, that many of you will be surprised about this!

And I quote:

Using his own software, a publicly available programming code, a £40 card reader and two £10 RFID chips, Mr van Beek took less than an hour to clone and manipulate two passport chips to a level at which they were ready to be planted inside fake or stolen paper passports.

I always consider denials, following Government faux pas, rather empty statements and this one is no different than others.

A Furry Visitor and shipwrecked planks!

Sunday was a quiet day but did manage to get a picture (through the double-glazed door) of one of my garden visitors. Not feathered but furry - a field mouse!


Today I went down to Sussex to visit my Mother.

A ship, the Ice Prince, had recently capsized out at sea with a cargo of wooden planks. This cargo had been washed ashore and landed in West Sussex and along the coast as far as Hastings in East Sussex.

At Ferring, where the debris comes to a halt in the west of the county, there were only a few planks scattered over the shingle at the top of the beach. The contractors are concentrating their clear-up operation on the area immediately surrounding Worthing pier; this being the most populated part of the beach and very close to the town centre. I imagine the council elders are thankful that, if it was going to happen, that it happened now rather than in the main summer tourist season! Who knows how many weeks/months it's going to take to clear such a vast area.

Other observations today. A flock of about 60 turnstones at the receding edge of the sea - flying up and creating patterns against the sky only to land in the same spot they had just left. Wonderful!

A few pics.
Near the Pier - these "heaps" are repeated all along the coastline!

At Ferring, furthermost point of debris

Whilst removing the debris is theft, no-one had forbidden imagination for building wigwams!