Once Works Well was pure technology. Now it seeks merely to divert.
Pansy subjects - Verse! Opera! Domestic trivia! - are now commonplace.
The 300-word limit for posts is retained. The ego is enlarged

Wednesday 31 December 2008

Post-Christmas at No. 56


Finally we caught up meteorologically with Marja-Leena. But only lightly and only, I suspect, briefly. But enough to disguise the fact that the garden looks like a junk-heap without the white dusting.

But all is not what it seems. The top picture has been Photoshopped. Cropped, of course, but also the recipient of Healing Brush Tool. As a result the washing line that runs right to left above the fence has disappeared. So too has the ugly street lamp which dominates pix taken from this angle.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt, the ducks are made of a stonish sort of substance. The bottles – minus two still in the utility room – represent the household’s consumption since December 26 (Boxing Day).

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, you do photoshopping! Snow does look like powdered icing on the cake, doesn't it? Happy New Year, BB.

Unknown said...

No weather for gardening!

Avus said...

The empty bottles..........just the two of you there for Christmas then?

herhimnbryn said...

Not exactly weather for ducks.....

Lucy said...

The bottles look very pretty in the snow but not as pretty as they looked full and in the house...

Happy New Year BB!

Roderick Robinson said...

M-L: My next view of the garden will remove the fence, two dozen houses and reveal I have a frontage to the River Wye.

Plutarch: I could of course garden with Photoshop (see above).

Avus: 'Tis the season to be merry (The New Penguin English Dictionary Merry: Brit, informal slightly drunk, tipsy.)

HHB: Knowing the British soft-heartedness towards fluffy things, I had to explain these were stone.

Lucy: All are catalogued according to country, grape, millésime, terroir, and, where appropriate, négociant in the hard (getting softer) disk that is my brain.

Julia said...

Burning question - what was this year's Christmas cocktail?

Roderick Robinson said...

Julia: Gosh, I feel I've let you down. We were alone on Christmas Day (it has to do with the oscillations of my younger daughter between parents and in-laws) and I would have done the laboratory test had I not received a bottle of 10-year-old single-malt Talisker in my stocking. Since some very special wine had been bought for the dinner, I had to choose between liquor at the beginning of the meal (cocktail) or at the end (digestif). But not both. However I promise to revive the custom in the interests of science.

By the way I just checked out a clearance sale on trumpets in the US at KK Music Store. I've never heard of the two makes listed, Cecilio and Mendini, but top-whack was $500 (that's got monel valves; whooo-eee) but half were less than $200. Just don't buy in the UK. Dolphin Music lists a Yamaha YTR-8335LA at £1442.10. Note: that's quid not bucks. For that price I'd need a gold-plated lip thrown in. As it is you get a modified leadpipe taper ("For high air capacity") and a modified 8310Z bell ("leads to a projecting, brilliant and complex sound" - otherwise the scream of the person who's just seen their credit-card bill). Best of luck.

Julia said...

Prague is also an incredibly expensive spot for trumpet shopping, so we're pinning our hopes on the U.S. music market!

No worries on the cocktail, we went the way of homemade eggnog once again ourselves, with just one dip into whiskey to try out some new glasses.