there's been a little accident here

My small plaster elephant, Ruby, has taken a tumble off the windowsill.....

legs and trunk and other tiny bits

poor Ruby. It was my fault. I was careless when readjusting the blind after dusting off the windowsill.

I propped her up.....

so you can see what Ruby is supposed to look like. I've found my blunt edged shoe repair knife and I'll get busy with the contact glue later today. I hope I've found all the small pieces, there's a chip off her trunk and the ear on her other side and tiny chips off her feet. I may have to colour those with a melted red crayon.

Today is a public holiday here in Adelaide, it's a horse racing thing...Adelaide Cup Day.
Not the least bit interested, I'll be spending my day working on that Sony playlist. The player is accepting two songs at a time if they are from different artists and up to five at a time from the same artist. I've worked my way from A to D so far.  Only E to Y to go.......

Sunday Selections # 162

Welcome back to Sunday Selections!

This once-a- week-meme was originally begun by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs.

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to me, River, somewhere in your post

3. leave me a comment so that I know you've joined in and can come over and see what you've posted.

4. hop on over to TheElephant’s Child to see more of her wonderful photos.

Kath and Andrew often join in as well, although Kath has been quite busy lately and unable to join us.

There are several other participants now though:

Jackie K at WorkingThrough It

Gillie at RandomThoughts From Abroad

I usually go with a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week my theme is flowers.

Specifically, Dahlias.

A week ago I headed into town in hopes of getting photos of the famed Skywhale which was to be hovering over the Botanic Gardens. 

It's a BIG whale, so I was surprised to not see any sign of it and asked at the kiosk and was told it was supposed to be "down by the other cafe, it was there this morning" .

I'd missed it! Well that's too bad, an opportunity lost. 

Not feeling in much of a photo taking mood, I wandered through the gardens towards the gate and spotted this......

a hedged bed of Dahlias!

 

okay, it's a hedged section with many small beds of dahlia plants...

naturally I went in and took lots of photos, about 100 or so.

Here are just a few of them, without commentary. Well, maybe a few words...enjoy.

my favourite, love the sunset colours.

this giant bloom was too heavy for its stem, it was bigger than my open hand!

Look! It's Jiminy Cricket!
 

see the spider web?

 

Love this colour!

 

 

 

 

 

These white ones would be great in wedding bouquets I think.

 

Bindi Irwin as Ambassador (and gravy is a bitch)

I heard on the radio this morning and again on the TV news tonight that Bindi Irwin has signed up to be an Ambassador for Sea World.

Apparently people are outraged because Sea World has a history of not treating its Orca Whales very well.
Many are disgusted with Bindi for "selling out"

I have a different opinion.
Bindi has signed on to work with them and change the way they work with their animals, teaching them more humane ways of managing Sea World.
I certainly don't see her condoning their practices, so helping them improve would be her reason as far as I see it.

Yes?
No?

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In a TV newsflash last night , I was horrified, gobsmacked even, to hear someone is putting forth a suggestion that parents PAY THEIR CHILDREN to eat their vegetables in an attempt to curb the obesity crisis.
WTF??
So wrong.
So very wrong.

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In further news, a kitchen tip from yours truly...(that would be me)

Gravy is a fussy bitch who demands your complete attention at all times.

Turn your back for even a second and she has a hissy fit......

and spits all over your stovetop.....

the edge of the bench and down onto your floor.

Grrr!

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, Delores, from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls

“Words for Wednesday”.

She puts up a selection of six words which we then use in a short story, or a poem.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. boxed

2. amazed

3. fragmented

4. dice

5. flagged

6. frog

we also have  "describe a rainbow to a blind person"

Which requires a lot more thought than I am capable of today....

Here is my story:

Kirsty looked around the science lab at the other students, amazed that no one else seemed to be the slightest bit panicky at Mr Petty's surprise announcement.

Today they were going to dissect a frog.

A live frog!

Sealed jars with a frog in each were being passed along the tables with each student keeping one as the tray slid along. The frogs inside were alive, moving around, looking up at them with no idea their lives would soon be over. Smaller jars with cotton balls soaked in chloroform were also passed to each student. 

Kirsty glanced around again, there were too many people suddenly, no clear path to the door. She felt boxed in and began to sweat. She didn't want to do this. She couldn't do this. 

Jonno on her right whispered, "yay! a slice and dice class!"

Kirsty felt a little sick and hoped she wouldn't vomit. Wasn't this sort of thing usually kept for higher grades? Medical students who needed to know how to use a scalpel? Not for kids in year 9, surely.

She tried to flag Mr Petty's attention, but he had already turned to the blackboard to list the steps they were to take.

Step one was to drop the soaked cotton ball into the jar with the frog, then put the lid back on until the frog was asleep. Or dead.

Kirsty made up her mind. She wasn't doing this. No way. She pushed away the small jar with the cotton ball and left her frog alive. 

She would fail this class and she didn't care. 

Her perfect A record would be fragmented and she didn't care. 

When Mr Petty turned back to the class, Kirsty was at his desk waiting for him. She held up her jar with her still alive frog, then walked out of class. Back in her home room, Kirsty packed her backpack and left the school grounds. 

Her parents would be horrified and she didn't care.

"I'm not a killer," she told herself. "It's only a frog, but I'm not a killer." 

On her way home, Kirsty walked along beside the grassy creek and let her frog go free. 

She'd face the consequences tomorrow. 

Detention maybe, possibly a change in curriculum. 

A chance to choose something that didn't involve killing defenceless animals.

at last! realism on TV

No, no, I'm not taking about a so-called "reality" show.

I randomly selected a channel and saw a few scenes from Law & Order SVU.
There was a shoot-out going on, as there so often is and a young female officer was shot.
She was shown sobbing and screaming from the pain. How's that for realism!

Usually these shows have someone get shot and the wounded person lies there stoically waiting for medical assistance, with maybe a grimace or two.

I think the sobbing and screaming is a better screenplay, it might make people realise that getting shot does actually hurt. Maybe someone, somewhere, will think twice about buying, carrying, using a gun.

What I'm reading

I'm reading a bit more than I used to, although nowhere near as much as I did in the past.

My current book is Moon over Soho, by Ben Aaronovitch.

It's book two in a series of four, about a young constable in London, Peter Grant,  who discovers he has latent magical abilities and is taken under the wing of an older officer, a wizard, who helps him develop those abilities and subsequently solve mysterious cases that don't seem to make sense.

Book one is titled Rivers of London; book two as I've stated above is Moon over Soho; book three is Whispers Underground and book four is Broken Homes.

There is magic, which I love, murder and mystery which I also love and little bits of nonsensical whimsy which makes me smile and keep reading.
I heard about these books from other bloggers and now I'm glad I bought them.

The one thing that bothered me isn't such a big deal and by page...whatever...I'd gotten used to it, is the female character Lesley May. In books one, three and four, her name is spelled Lesley, in book two however, it is spelled Leslie and at first I thought she was a new character.

Here are a couple of quotes from book two:

"At this very moment astronomers are detecting planets around distant stars by measuring how much their orbits wobble and the clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop."

"We both stood for a moment and contemplated the hazy far-off days of yesterday evening."

I'd recommend these for anyone who loves a little magic in their murder mysteries, or perhaps a little mystery in their magic?

Whimsical Wednesday # 113

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday!

The day for your googled giggle that gets you over the hump that is Wednesday and sliding down into the weekend.

it's true then; curiosity does kill cats!