Good Neighbours

 

A couple of days ago a new neighbour moved in next door. I asked her in for a cuppa: she accepted with alacrity, seized her little dog and jacket but not, unfortunately, one of her five sets of keys. The Yale lock clicked shut behind her. I phoned our friendly local builder and invited him to do a burglary, a request which he also accepted with alacrity. Five minutes later he was up his ladder, breaking a window and, with an ingenious lever, forced open the old sash window. This noise attracted a small but enthusiastic crowd who offered helpful advice. When it came to the actual entry, we voted for the thinnest amongst us and all was well within minutes. The irony is that, if I hadn't invited her in, she would have been perfectly OK as she had thoughtfully brought with her a kettle and other necessities.  One can be too much of a good neighbour perhaps. Yet it was one way of meeting everybody!

Quay Street

In the area where I stayed on holiday recently were two different Quay Streets. The houses, though varied other ways, were all painted in tasteful cream and beige. I think that, by the sea, bright and strong colours work best and so I have livened them up in this naïf representation.

Mendel's nightmare

 

Some nights Gregor woke up all the other monks with his screams.

 

 

The father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel is such an admirable figure, growing 29,000 pea plants in his monastery garden and observing colour (green or yellow), skins (wrinkled or smooth) and other characteristics. He discovered precise rules of inheritance - a dream come true. But what if.......

 

Rocks in Dorset

 

When I see rocks like this I try to imagine the volcanic force that caused the upthrust - impossible to conceive of its power.

Not tonight, Joseph

Sometimes a girl just has to say, "No."

My little friends

 

I have recently had a massive invasion of mice. Someone left a bird fat ball in the scullery, the result being a family of HUGE plump rodents settling in. The smell of next door's cat did not seem to bother them in the slightest but, thanks to a humane trap, they are all now happily established in the garden compost heap.

Lizard

 

When I see a lizard I feel that time has suddenly reversed by thousands of years - almost like meeting a dinosaur.

The Daffodils speak out

 

Looming too near our jocund crowd,

Stood Wordsworth, muttering aloud.

No one could catch Testudo graeca when he put a spurt on

 

I simply cannot resist posting some of my drawings and cartoons.  There will be more to come in the future.