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Diary – 2010 May to August
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All my diary pages going back to 2009
DRAWING & PAINTING:
1 May 2010
Well done to all the lads who have laid all the
paving bricks in Orpington High Street. I think this must be where they
keep their tools, but I would like to think of it as a rest room
with sofa, footstool, kettle and biscuit tin.
3 May
We visited Petts Wood May Fair. There were lots
of toy and plant stalls and a mini funfair. I took my 50p as I
always do.
The Orpington Beekeepers club had a wonderful
stall, with a glass cabinet full of bees. The queen bee is marked
with a green spot, and there was a beehive on show. I bought a
jar of real Orpington honey but I needed some help as 50p was not
enough!
The Beaver Water World stand had some live snakes sleeping in their
boxes. This is Calleigh a Californian King Snake. I think people forget that reptiles grow big – unless of course it is a friendly dinosaur like
our Dino! Here is the website of Beaver Water World who look after
and find homes for rescued reptiles
www.beaverwaterworld.com
and you can visit them and their other animals in Westerham, Kent. I
am glad to say that Calleigh and his friends found a new home and
were just visiting for the day.
6 May
People having been voting today. I vote for
oven chips, Brown Teddy votes for vegetarian sausages, Parrot votes for
crusty apple pies, and Dino votes for chocolate oranges. I think that
settles the matter very well!
Someone admiring my lawn said it was a carpet of daisies. We love our daisies and we mow round them leaving islands of daisies, until they get too long. I was really amazed to see you can buy lawns rolled up like carpets! This is new to me, probably because our our lawn was put down a long time ago, before my time. I am going to have some daisies in pots this year so that I always have some even after mowing. I am going to dig out some of the pinky ones because they are extra special.
14 May
We had a huge bag of paper to recycle, but
fortunately the bin had lots of room. Then we went on to shop at
Bexleyheath. This wall near the big supermarket is very eye-catching
and I wish I could have been there when they were painting it.
This Bricklayers Arms is being reroofed and I
think all the tilers are inside for their lunch break. Maybe it
should be renamed the Rooftilers Arms!
Dino wanted this picture taken because it looks
like a creamy ice lolly dipped in crushed hazelnuts. If he tries to
eat this, he will end up with crushed teeth, but I think he's really
just dreaming of visits to the ice cream freezer in the supermarket.
16 May
Another exciting time looking for bargains at
the boot fair. This candy floss stall looks interesting. I might get
something for Dino here, if he promises to clean his teeth straight
afterwards.
18 May
This is Covet Wood near where I live, and it
has a lot of old trees. Under here would be a very cosy place to
shelter if it rained hard, as long as you had something dry to sit
on. It's just the right size for me, Brown Teddy and Dino.
One of the trees was raining fluff on us. It
looks very useful but the only thing you can do with it, according
to Dino, is to line a nest with it and put your dinosaur eggs on it,
then some more over the top to keep them warm.
23 May
Our annual trip to Luton for the Radio Rally Boot Sale. We went
through the Dartford Tunnel from Kent to Essex. Here are the bargain
hunters having a rummage.
We all liked these colourful stalls but we
didn't know what the things were in the boxes. If they had been
selling the coloured boxes and card, then we might have bought that!
I wonder if anyone bought this antique telephone. Dino was the first
to see the Snowdonia Radio Company stall because of the red Welsh dragons. They
look fierce but Dino says that one look from a true dinosaur will
quieten them down.
None of us could guess what this was, but we
decided it must be an aerial that goes down like an umbrella. Parrot
spent all morning wondering when we would have lunch. I think he did
not eat enough breakfast! But I always take spare sandwiches for
anyone who is starving mid-morning.
After our sandwiches, we went to the Discovery
Centre Gardens. Here is a display of old gardening tools. Dino liked
the hay fork because you can pick up a really big slice of cake with
it, or lots of mashed potato, and not drop any.
This is a pretending grotto, but there was no
stream or water in it. At the stables, Brown Teddy thought the brown
horse was a very handsome colour. Sorry Dino, there are no orange
coloured horses!
I am glad to say that Blue Parrot did NOT touch this
very sharp cactus. There is a bees section and here I am inspecting
the beehive or skep. There are lots of pictures and information, and
real bee-keepers equipment to look at.
It was very hot in the greenhouses. I was glad to get out in the
fresh air and under this lovely bamboo arch where it was a lot
cooler. We visited the chickens in the Dig For Victory garden. I
could not talk to them for very long because there were lots of
children crowding around to see them.
Blue
Parrot found this friend at the other end of the gardens, and was
wondering when they were going to paint him. I think he looks very
nice and soft just as he is with the wood grain stripy effect.
31 May
Here is Wrotham Hill boot fair in the north of
Kent. It is not far from Brands Hatch Racing Circuit. The name is
pronounced "Rootam" and comes from when pigs were kept in the woods
and they rooted with their "wrots" (snouts) for acorns.
There are always lots of rows, and we always visit Martin's stall
first to look at all his wonderful plants and get some new ones.
Lots of people were selling England flags, to celebrate the football
games.
Opposite the field is a place that sells garden
sheds. This playhouse is the best I have ever seen, and is just the
right size for small Teds and a larger Dino to enjoy some sponge tea
cakes and orange juice, sitting on a big bean bag. Even better if it
was raining outside, because Dino would definitely have some extra
spare cakes in a box somewhere.
4 June
Day out to Tunbridge Wells. This is a shop in The Pantiles part of
town. If you bought some of these vegetables, it might spoil the
arrangement, but I expect they have plenty more inside. I have never
seen tomatoes such a bright red.
Everyone in Tunbridge Wells knows how to make a
good shop window display. I am sure they all have notepads by their
beds, so that they can write down their good ideas in the middle of
the night. The right hand one is a tree made entirely of white card.
More lovely displays. I think I like the fish
one best because that is exactly what my goldfish do, all following
each other in case the one at the front has seen something
interesting.
A plaque on the railway bridge at the end of
the High Street – Do Well Doubt Not. So this is why all the shop
window displays are so interesting and well done!
We also went to Tonbridge. Here is a carving of
boat on a monument in Tonbridge Castle park, gliding up the river
and going under an arched bridge. This sign was near a weir. I think
you would see (and hear) the weir before you saw the notice! I hope
this picture of a boat going over the edge has never happened to anyone.
The miniature train track is being repaired and
replaced, which means it will be there for a long time to come. Here
is an interesting sign, I am thinking of the swimming pool water
overflowing and all the cars having to move to another car park to
stay dry – and of course all the swimmers swimming back to their
cars instead of walking!
15 June
Blue Parrot always like to undo any parcels
that come. I always say to him, you have to ask the person whose
name is on the box whether you can open it now, and of course he is
always allowed to. This was some bottles of really good fountain pen
ink and I will be practising my handwriting in a special dark blue
and a specially bright red ink. I could have got yellow ink as well but
it would be a bit invisible on the paper!
19 June
Look at what the snails did to the sunflower seedlings,
they are getting very fat and I am not happy about it! This year we are keeping
our sunflowers in big buckets and I am putting some sticky-backed copper tape
around the bottom to keep the snails away. I hope it
works because a few snail bites at the bottom of the stem makes the whole plant
fall.
Dino eventually managed to clear away all the backing
strips, but he did what the blackbirds do with the bread, every time he picked
up one more bit, he dropped one of what he already had.
23 June
I knew Dino would like this sunflower, and the
snails can't eat it either! It's a spongy kneeling mat from Auntie
Freda, who always has very good garden ideas, and thought of us
while she was out shopping.
Brown Teddy is pretending to be wearing a
flamenco dress. It's called Handel but I wish it was called Flamenco
Rose! The good thing about not being very tall is you can get right
into the flowers and their smells. These are pinks and they are my
very top favourite perfume.
25 June
These lions are in the windows at Christ Church, Chislehurst, Kent.
Dino likes lions because he can give them tips on how to look very
fierce. They look as if they have got the job of guarding the church
and I think they will do a good job of it, especially as the big
lion can fly. The eagle is Blue Parrot's favourite.
26 June
We enjoyed a lovely box of chocolates from
Auntie Freda and Dino ate this one with the dragon on. I had to be
really quick taking the picture before the chocolate disappeared.
27 June
This yellow sports car at the boot fair is just
my style! Brilliant! This is the big transmitting mast at Wrotham
where the boot fair is held. You can see it a long time before you
actually arrive. Sometimes on wintry days the top disappears in
mist.
30 June
We keep this solar butterfly light outside the back door so we can
look at it every night. We now have some new ones in the shape of
ice cubes. They remind me of tealights floating in glasses.
Altogether they are quite bright and I like to think of them when I
am lying in bed waiting to fall asleep.
1 July
Some ducklings on Prickend Pond,
Chislehurst. We know they are used to being fed because they swam
towards us straight away. Fortunately some other people arrived at
the same time, with a big bag of bread for them.
6 July
This is Chislehurst village sign, showing Queen
Elizabeth the First knighting Thomas Walsingham in 1592. A lot of
the houses in Chislehurst and Petts Wood still have the same wooden
stripey pattern like the ones in the background, so Elizabeth and
Thomas would feel right at home today.
Frogs love living in Sidcup and Chislehurst!
Frognal Corner is a roundabout near Sidcup in Kent. It is all big
busy roads and we always take the bike along all winding paths
through the underpasses and take pictures of the all the wild
flowers.
7 July
These tile pictures are in the underpass at
Crittalls Corner, Sidcup. There are other pictures of cars and
lorries. You have to stand back a bit to be able to see what the
pictures are. You could knit these on a jumper!
11 July
The sunflower on the left is winning over the
one on the right. We have put milk cartons round the bottom with the
copper strip around. The sunflowers in the pots are even bigger. I
am glad to report that no snails have managed to get across the
copper and there are no bite holes in the leaves.
This wind vane goes round like a propellor and the tails make wonderful spiral patterns.
13 July
Here is a coot's nest in Orpington Priory pond.
I saw the coot making some of it, but I was not quick enough with
the camera. Young coots are very noisy and squeaky when
swimming behind mum, they all want to be the first to be fed. This crow makes a good job of tidying up all
the leftover bread, when the ducks and geese get too full. Crows are
big but they do not like being near people, so they grab the
food quickly and fly off with it. The crows and magpies are doing a
good job, so that there is none left for any rats that are about.
17 July
I went to Polhill Garden Centre just outside
Orpington with Auntie
Freda. These lovely flowers are not from my country (England) so I
think they would have to be kept in a greenhouse. This wicker plant
wigwam would make a good tent for a little someone if it had
something waterproof round it, and a waterproof cosy mat on the
floor, leaving a little gap open to make a door. Just the place for
a picnic of juice and cakes, and some puzzle books! I wonder if they
make bigger Ted-sized ones?
These topiary bushes of a dolphin and dog must
have taken a lot of hard work to make. I think the branches had a
lot of help to bend, using a wire frame. I have some box bushes, but
they are all in ball shapes or straight lines.
At Polhill they have built a wonderful new indoor pond for the Koi fishes which
is just the right height to adults to look over, and with glass
windows in the sides for children and Teddies. I could have spent
all day in here. The fish are very friendly but you must not put
your hand in the water. I don't think Koi fishes bite because they
have very soft mouths, I think the shop does not want people
frightening the fish or getting ill from the pond water – supposing
someone ate an ice cream with pond water on their hands?
22 July
This poppy seed must have blown into a crack in
the asphalt but I think there must be some water underneath. When I
lift a big stone or a flower pot in my garden, it is always damp
underneath. Think of the hundreds of seeds from this one that will
blow into all the other cracks! I wish some would blow into my
garden. Maybe I can buy a packet and put them in the cracks myself.
29 July
The sunflowers are now very big and it's hard
work watering them. We bought a watering hose that drips onto the
pots. Following the instruction pictures was harder work than
carrying watering cans! In the end, I did what I always do – I laid
out all the pieces on a tray, counted them, and worked out what each
piece was for.
You have to make holes in the long hose and
join in all the little short hoses, and clip them onto each pot.
Dino was thinking of untangling it but the hose was too stiff to lie
flat. Parrot said can he drink the drips like garden birds do with
rainwater drops, but the answer was no, it is not clean enough. We
connected it to the rainwater butts, so we had to put in a little
filter to catch all the dirt bits which might block the drippers. It
all worked wonderfully well and if you turn the end of the dripper,
you can make the drips come out faster. We watched the drips for
quite a while, at least until dinner was ready.
4 August
I like rain, especially when I am indoors in
the warm, but rainbows are even better. Snails like it when it
rains, and we saw these ones on a footpath on the way to Orpington
High Street. They are all eating an apple that has fallen from one
of the hedgerow trees. They are well camouflaged, their shell
stripes are the same colour as the dried sticks and mud.
9 August
The drip watering hose is doing a good job and the sunflowers have a
supply of long-lasting plant food granules in the soil. They are as big
as last year, and we have had to tie them to the washing line to
stop them falling over! The seed heads get too heavy so we have to
take them off and wait for the next lot of buds to come out. If you
click the last picture, you get a high resolution sunflower picture,
so that you can
make a print or a painting of it!
Well, at last the old apple tree stump has rotted at the base, and
we were able to pull it over. We had to saw it up so that we could
get rid of it, but we are keeping the bit with the big hole that the
robins nested in last spring. If we put it under the yew bush, the robins
can use the hole again next year. Nearby, the Spartan apple tree is
doing very well, and those are apples that we can eat straight away.
The old tree was Bramley Apple which needs cooking and too much
sugar!
23 August
We have been amusing ourselves during most of August, because people were
away painting a house for friends. How did they get painty fingers
when they took so many rubber gloves with them? Aha, taking off the
gloves to have a biscuit or two, I think! Sunset means time to pack
up and get back to us Teds, waiting patiently with our bedtime
reading books.
You can use the space on your 404 page to help find missing people by embedding info from notfound.org See Yellow Teddy's 404 page
Where to report a lost or found teddy or
toy in
the UK:
https://www.facebook.com/LostboxTeddyBears
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