kimbofo

Bird on a bouy

Place: Kensington Palace Gardens, London.
Date: April 15, 2012.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

Snapped this today on the return leg of an 8 mile walk to Mayfair and back. I can't believe the size of his feet!

Eggs in the City

All pictures taken: City of London.
Date: February 26, 2012.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

A couple of years ago the Elephant Parade came to London and I got a little bit obsessed about looking for these wonderful statues to photograph for my online gallery.

Now the same charity that brought us the elephants is now bringing us The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt in which 209 eggs are hidden across central London.

This afternoon we headed to the Square Mile to see what we could find and this is just some of what we discovered...

You can see more in my online Egg Hunt gallery.

Grow-your-own-skeleton

Place: Tenterden Station, Kent.
Date: October 30, 2011.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve.

We recently spent a week's holiday in East Sussex, where we rented a cottage on the beach at Camber Sands, near Rye. On our first day we journeyed to nearby Tenterden, just across the border in Kent, to take a train ride on the Kent & East Sussex Railway (K&ESR). I was amazed at the station's Halloween decorations: there was ghost-adorned bunting flying overhead, carved pumpkins dotted all over the place and skeletons "growing" in the garden beds. Imagine my disappointment when I realised the K&ESR had hosted a special evening ghost ride the night before — take all the kids out of the equation and I would have loved to have gone on a spooky train trip through the countryside.

Dublin graffiti: a message to the Queen

 

Place: Pearse Street, Dublin.
Date: June 16, 2011.
Camera: BlackBerry Curve.

I spent four nights in Dublin last week, as a guest of Tourism Ireland, and every time I headed back to the hotel on Pearse Street, just up the road from the giant Garda station and across the way from Trinity College, I walked past this sign and had a little titter to myself. I know loads of Dubliners loved having the Queen pay a visit recently, but obviously someone wanted to make sure she knew the rules about parking!

Does this mean it gives you an itchy bottom?

 
Place: Hangzhou, China.
Date: December 3, 2010.
Camera: Panasonic TZ3.

I'm loving the English language signs in China, but this one had us all scratching our heads in wonder. For a start, Hangzhou, which is north-east of Shanghai, is a long way from Alaska. And what on earth is a "chafing dish"?*

* Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I see that chafing dish is a dish, raised over a heat source, to keep food warm. You learn something new every day.

Good advice

Place: Oxford, England.
Date: Saturday August 23, 2008.
Camera: Panasonic DMC-TZ3.

Seen scrawled on the wall of a college at Oxford.

Student radicalism. Don't you just love it? Hehe.

A dip in the Irish Sea

Place: Curracloe, Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Date: Saturday April 21, 2007.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

Take five Irish brothers and one Canadian, dare them to go swimming in the Irish Sea one April afternoon and what do you get?

Hypothermia.

Famous vegetables

Place: My kitchen.
Date: April 3, 2007.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

Even vegetables are cashing in on the world's obsession with celebrity. Apparently this packet of tenderstem broccoli has been "seen on TV".

Who are Marks & Spencer kidding? Does it think consumers buy their vegetables on this basis? Honestly. What next? A reality TV show set in a refrigerator vegetable drawer?

Murky water

Place: The bathing pool at Hampstead Heath, London.
Date: August 20, 2005.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

They're having a laugh, right? I would not even dangle a toe in this water let alone go swimming in it!

These boots are made for walking

Place: Ground Zero, New York.
Date: May 6, 2005.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.

I feel this takes patriotism a step too far. Ba-boom!