no sleeping
the ideal sign for insomniacs ? no swimming either by the looks of things.
« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
January 2008 Archives
the ideal sign for insomniacs ? no swimming either by the looks of things.
guest glove
princess carmen sent me this glove from Missouri (near Kansas City). she also sent some lovelovelove which was very welcome !
i'd like a bit of snow, but we usually miss out in southern england which is a shame.
better than the actual tree
these trees are outside buckingham palace. they seem to have replaced the bark with a wooden fence. nice idea. real trees don't look wooden enough.
how computers know things
if you've never opened up a computer you'll be surprised to learn that they get all their knowledge and information by reading newspapers like the daily telegraph. when you surf the web the computer is actually creating the pages for you based on it's own experience.
funkypancake only exists in the mind of your computer. fact.
post office shortage
turns out this is a topical story as post office closures are upon us in greatest of all britains (see here). a number of closures were announced today.
anyway, i took this photo last week as it was a teeny postbox. like much smaller than usual. small enough for a toddler to pop a letter in (which is what they love doing, so is ideal). it's also good for the stooping elderly.
when i saw it over a grass verge i thought "wouldn't it be great to have a person next to it for scale" and suddenly this jogger ran by. a quick grab of the camera from its holster, shoot, fire, and there you have it.
geocachers on the ridgeway
the motorway of its time is pretty empty these days
view from BT Tower
this one is worth clicking for a big view. it's the last one from my recent trip, and you can see right out to docklands.
click the picture, or here to download it bigly
here's another not so big
meanwhile, back in athens
for some reason pictures from Athens seem to be floating to the top of my still-to-post folder.
here's a wild greek dog . they are everywhere. a few even jumped up and barked at me. i didn't like that.
here's a wild greek dog . they are everywhere. a few even jumped up and barked at me. i didn't like that.
this person lives in a little cupboard up the acropolis (i think)
and this is a view.
tongue twister sign
the shingle beach shelves steeply.
time for a sit down
randomly, this village bench had a big pink wall clock on it. it wasn't even telling the correct time !
kezia's birthday party
it was kezia's birthday party yesterday and i'm exhausted.
about the only think i had to do was to cut this banner so it would fit on two lines. of course i chopped it at the wrong bit and we ended up with 'happy birth' on the second line. ooops.
for the first time ever with our girls we got an entertainer in (as we weren't sure if our house would be up to the job this year - in fact it was, but hey ho).
the entertainer chap was very good and at one point got the kids to wrap jane and tanya up (it was going to be me, but jane kindly took my place).
big shout out (as they say) to jane's mum, tanya and julie for their massive helpage too.
here's jane's mum in the giant kitchen
and here's the pink lady bird cake that jane built
and here's a picture from before the party where the girls were blowing up lots of balloons
geocaching
yesterday we went for a 4 hour walk on the ridgeway. we didn't expect it to take that long.
of course, it was all down to geocaching. we found 13 yesterday
i think we walked about 12km up and down hills, and kezia only needed two short carries.of course, it was all down to geocaching. we found 13 yesterday
travel bug in
travel bug out
didcot power station
and it was nearly dark by the time we finished
street bathrooom parking
somewhere in london some time ago.
graffiti from athens
it's only taken me 18 months to get round to posting this !
clean it up
brilliant news - a load of fresh stencil dog signs are out on the streets (literally) around west london
arthur the camel
i recon this camel is called Arthur ('R4'). Probably txt spk for the younger zoo visitor.
all destination ticket
i like the idea of a ticket to a wide range of destinations. just buy and go. anywhere
dismantling Louise Bourgeois' spider
when i walked past tate modern yesterday they were dismantling Louise Bourgeois' spider.
it was interesting that the egg sack was the only recognisable thing
there were lots of leg bits everywhere
and it looked nice with the sun rise lighting st paul's in the background
lying there it looked like some science fiction thing with its dormant eggs waiting to hatch
of course it would have been easier to catch it in a giant jar and throw it out the front door
or perhaps flush it down the plug hole or chuck it in the thames
cross bones graveyard
work colleague harry recommended i track down the cross bones graveyard about a year ago.
i finally got there yesterday
it's quite a place. in fact it's just a fence. what lies behind is a building site at the moment.
hand drier instructions
i do like hand drier instruction diagrams. i'd take more pictures of them but i'm always slightly waring of taking photos in public toilets ! this one was a particularly good one (and empty) so i thought i'd share it with you.
the top picture looks like some hand shadow puppetry, and the lower one is very mysterious - look at the finger and the details in the ear. what IS going on ?
beer price anger and 4s a crowd
i spotted the poster at the bottom right in a pub on saturday evening when jane and i were having a lovely meal out. i like the idea of the landlords being as disappointed about the price rise as the punter is.
jane thought i was taking a picture of the poster above it which she thought was bonkers, but i had read but not spotted the implications - who wants a romantic dinner for 4 or more ?
jane thought i was taking a picture of the poster above it which she thought was bonkers, but i had read but not spotted the implications - who wants a romantic dinner for 4 or more ?
military types with big hats
everyday sights in london town
urban toothbrii
look at these chaps out in the street. the one in the foreground above looks in quite good shape, but old yellow has a few problems. i fear for pinky (above) being lead astray. or perhaps it's gone out to help the yellow.
i find the toothbrushes / toothbrii behaviour very difficult to read.
wind and rain
wind and rain go hand in hand, yet the umberolly rarely seems up to the job. here are but two which failed the road test.
endorsed by chris tarrant
what more would any shop need ?
what a brilliant sign
would please kindly read carefully.
thank you for your coopration.
(see i'm not totally the worse speller)
thank you for your coopration.
(see i'm not totally the worse speller)
polish dog signs
a nice polish dog sign. next to some other dogs on a sign
and here's a classic no dogs/bikes combo
bicyles etc.
etcetera full stop. little too vague for my liking.
person dressed as a traffic light
if this chap had had a green hat on he could have been the traffic light he was mending
BT Tower
it was quite wet and windy yesterday and i got a bit soggy walking from Paddington to BT Tower . I remained mostly dry (and became a walking tourist attraction for japanese business men with cameras) thanks to my military style poncho.
when we arrived we went up for pastries and it was quite rainy, but the weather cleared up a bit by our second trip up at lunchtime. I hadn't realised, but the the tower wobbles slightly in the wind - enough to feel slightly sea sick which was weird.
i'll post a couple of high res pictures soon so you can zoom in and have a look around a bit.
playstation dancemats
great news - the girls got a replacement Shrek game sent to them and kezia spent a happy hour or so zooming about. and last week i bought a couple of dance mats via ebay which have been a complete winner. jane (in her christmas socks) and esther are shown above, but it's been a great all-family fun thing.
statue in a field
when out geocaching on sunday we passed an amazing house which had a garden full of giant statues. here's one
style-ish
the stile above is over a barbed wire fence. worth carrying one of those round in kit form in case you ever need to use one.
and this one was a fancy swing open type thing as demonstrated by the lovely mrs funkypancake
tony the contortionist
a true professional can set up his camera and hold a teacake and crumpet on his plate without them falling off. he's learnt well.
the great concert
planning the repertoire
upping sticks
the grande finale. fantastic stuff.
liz's luxury mince pies
our friend liz invited us round for afternoon tea yesterday. she'd made some mince pies ('mincers') which were most excellent. i hereby announce the start of Xmas 2008
hassock of the week
hassock and fancy shoe
reading university
this was the view esther and i saw when we turned round after finding a geocache. quite nice actually.
visionary cycling
complementary looking. esther took full advantage and looked at the bike
reflections of bt tower
final shot, looking in to a puddle
reflections of bt tower
these ones are liney
reflections of bt tower
the pigeon wasn't bothered.
reflections of bt tower
here's a short study of BT Tower reflected in puddles. I've got 7 shots all together which should take us Tuesday when hopefully i'll be going up it. i say hopefully as last time i was due to go up we ended up in the basement and only saw the inside of a conference room !
twin bins
one for dogs, one for people ?
the invisible mural
i consider myself pretty observant, but i failed to properly notice this mural despite working by it for over 4 years. i popped back for a meeting yesterday and 'spotted' it !
mannequin and an office
no camera trickery - just a sunny day and a nice reflection in a shop window !
baby rhino
esther thought the baby rhino looked like a robot. which it did
gate lock
i knew you'd be interested in this kissing gate locking mechanism. it's a heavy metal loop on a heavy metal chain. that's it.
air hockey
i had yesterday off work as we were expecting builders to start work (now delayed 2 weeks - ho hum). since jane was at work and the girls don't start back at school until tomorrow we went off adventuring, which involved ten pin bowling.
kezia beat esther, and in classic 'loser is the chooser' mode she chose air hockey as the follow up gain which she won. 'winner chooses dinner' meant we dined like kings chez McD's before heading home to watch ponkyhonta 2 on VHS (retro). which wasn't as tearful for the watchers as ponky 1.
on the subject of old fashioned technology we scoured the second hand shops for Playstation 1 games as the girls favourite one departed at the same time as our house guests last week much to their sadness (tears for that too!). A man in computer shop said "sorry, we don't do retro games". Esther said "don't worry dad, we don't have the latest computer games but we do have lots of adventures" which is good to know.
sticky taping the jigsaw
turned out this picture had all fallen apart so they had to sticky tape all the pieces back together.
penguins
penguins are great. each of these photos deserves it's own caption. but you'd be sick of penguins if i posted them all separately, so have a giant penguin post instead.
recycling information
we passed some home recycling bins when we were out yesterday. i always think it's interesting to have a quick look in them to see what kind of things the owner reads. And of course it's even more interesting at this time of year as people recycle their old christmas cards.
we could have taken this box away and had a lovely evening speculating about other people's lives using the short messages in unknown people's christmas cards. but we didn't.
we could have taken this box away and had a lovely evening speculating about other people's lives using the short messages in unknown people's christmas cards. but we didn't.
is jane lost ?
jane looks like she's lost. can you see the obvious clue about which direction she should go ?
lots off
i recon they've taken more than 70% off
hassock of the week
here's a very special hassock of the week. it was made by my mum when we were little. it was from a kit i think. i found the photo yesterday in a big pile of family photos which jane kindly extracted from the loft, and the memories came flooding back. i wonder where this hassock is now - probably where it was back then.
the king's table
fancy table set for a fancy dinner party with fancy guests. very nice.
danger at the zoo
i like zoo signs like these. it suggests there's some real danger about.
for example you might have a chunk bitten out of your little finger
for example you might have a chunk bitten out of your little finger
or perhaps 2 of your fingers and most of your hand pecked off
which is probably why they left some gloves on these railings
here's a good danger medley
even apples are forbidden
and of course, special signs for the lemurs are in order.
never smile at a lemur when you've got food near by
whipsnade zoo
we had a fantastic last-day-of-daddy's-holiday day out to Whipsnade Zoo yesterday. Cold as anything it was, which the siberian tigers seemed to be ok with. i've got tons of pictures so i'll just put up the interesting ones over the next few weeks and link to a gallery with a few more shots, if that's ok with you.
(colour version here)
christmas decs
this angel ate all the christmas pies. i think jane's de-knickerating the house tomorrow, so thought i'd put up the last few deccy photos. (if you want to know about the knickerations, see here)
bother in law kev
here is my bother-in-law kev who has been staying with us for a couple of days. they head back north tomorrow and i'm back to work tomorrow so the normal mundane funkypancake will return, rather than the recent geocaching and family/friends pictures.
new year's day party
jane arranged a new year's day party for everyone yesterday. the highlight for all involved was the pass the parcel with forfeits written by jane's sister. Party (jane's dad) was a star balancing for 30 seconds on one leg
and thomas, sarah and kezia enjoyed being wrapped up as mummies
and breaking free.
and esther built this lovely hat.
and thomas, sarah and kezia enjoyed being wrapped up as mummies
and breaking free.
and esther built this lovely hat.
playstation 1
you may remember we bought a playstation 1 from a car boot sale earlier in the year when we were on holiday with jane's sister's family and her parents. since the same combination of people were back together we got it out again.
jane's dad was interested so joined the kids behind the sofa to have a go himself.
jane's dad was interested so joined the kids behind the sofa to have a go himself.
and of course, as soon as the kids were called away for tea, he and poochy (jane's mum) both settled down to master the shrek game
new year's day geocaching
this was just a strange pin thing in a post
thomas and kezia lose their marbles
as with all good marbles games, some became lost under a chest of drawers. here is kezia and thomas attempting to retrieve it.
new year's eve geocaching
another couple of geocaching with jane's parents and sister's family, one of which took all 11 of us well over half an hour to find.
thomas took full advantage of the deep puddles and his wellies
even granny got involved in the ford paddling
suction hooks
jane's mum got jane and me these excellent suction hooks for christmas. that in itself was worth a picture
but i particularly liked this note on the back telling us they were 'foreign made'. which is like the opposite of 'buy british'. and how do they know they weren't made in the country which they were currently in ? foreign seems a little too vague for my liking.
happy new year
here is my jolly new years face to offset my misery of yesterday !
« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »