I Only Asked for Flowers on My Grave, Not a Whole Tree …

Carrying on from yesterday's post, here's some of the work being done in the old cemetery.
It's all a bit of a mess at the moment, but after a century or more of neglect I'm sure most of us would look a little messy, too.
This bunch of headstones looks slightly startled to see daylight again and a little shy and unsure of being exposed.
I'm not sure why they're clearing it after all this time, but the parts they've completed certainly look a lot better. It did have a certain wild and overgrown charm before, though.

WTF Monday - Ears

If anyone wants to know where they can go dig up some ears, I can help.
I found this in a local cemetery that had been left to grow wild for a hundred and fifty years or so. Now they've started clearing away the trees to reveal lots of spooky debris.

More of that another day.

Meanwhile, Back at the Shoe Tree …

Still frosty and wintry here, dammit. About the only things that seem to be enjoying the cold are the shoe tree and the yarn ball tree.

Still Not Quite Spring

It was bloody cold on Cherry Walk this morning and only the very first few buds had burst. I stood and froze for almost fifteen minutes waiting for a tiny break in the clouds to give me about thirty seconds of sunshine for photography.

Most of the trees are still bare and only the most sheltered ones by St.Peter Mancroft tower are showing any sign of blossoming.

Lots of good buddy action, though. By next Saturday they'll all be over and the weather is set shitty for the week so this is all I'll be able to get this year. Hey ho.

The sun went in again almost as soon as it came out and then it was dark grey clouds and biting wind again. So much for the approach of May.

Still, there's always next year …

Just so we remember: this is how they should have looked three weeks ago (from a couple of years back).
Where do I go to get a refund on a faulty season?

Friday Morning Wood - City Hall

Car Porn Thursday - Going Bonkers With 350 Supercharged Horses

No cameras are allowed on site at Lotus, but with Phil around there's always a way of sneaking something.
This is me on Tuesday morning, having just enjoyed a fabulous session (thanks, Phil) of screaming, bonkers, foot-to-the-floor mayhem driving the awesome new Lotus Exige S around the test track (actually, it was more like hanging on for dear life while whooping ecstatically).
The Exige S is a 350BHP supercharged racing monster that weighs less than I do and is more fun to drive round a racetrack than anything I have done in fifty-four years. Yes, ANYTHING.

First up, we got a safety and track talk from our racing driver and instructor, John (and coffee and bickies). Then, one at a time, we headed out on to the race track with John in the passenger seat (I got to go first, yay) and he taught us the lines, the apex of each corner, the braking points and where to floor the pedal and rip your face off with the acceleration.
"Brake, Brake, Brake! Down into second. Stay to the left … Now hard right. Over the kerb and FULL THROTTLE!"
Yee and a hefty dollop of Haw!

The car is simply beyond amazing. Come off the top hairpin in second and floor it through the esses and the thing just keeps on accelerating like a maniac until at last John tells you to change up to third at over seven thousand revs (and what feels like seven thousand miles per hour). Woohoo! The supercharger means the torque is there at all speeds, with no annoying lag like you get with a turbo. The upshot being that you floor the pedal and scream with joy as the thing instantly leaps into hyperspace … and keeps on accelerating at an unbelievable rate! It is a seriously nutjob experience.

I have no idea how fast I was going each lap at the end of the long straight because taking my eyes off the rapidly approaching braking point to look at the speedo would have been suicidal.
Suffice to say it was faster than I've ever been in a car, by a long, long way.
And then I did it again. And again.

So … that's the rest of my life ruined. I now know I've wasted fifty four years not racing cars and I now know I must spend the rest of my life doing it again and again and again.

Fucking awesome!

Lunch With The Dead

Click on this to blow it up. It's really worth it.
The white cherry in St.Stephen's churchyard is always about a week earlier than the big. blowsy, pink Japanese cherries on Cherry Walk and yesterday lunchtime saw a woman brave (or foolish) enough to shiver through the freezing wind and enjoy a spot of lunch amid the gravestones.
This year's blossom is several weeks late but a really welcome sight nonetheless. The trees in Cherry Walk are still bare nekkid, but maybe if we get a sunny weekend … Watch this space.

Arboricultural Ejaculation

Last week's sticky-bud (here, if you don't recall it), has become this week's sexed up exhibitionist.

Your visual treat for the day: a horse chestnut with a boner. I love horse chestnuts. They have beautiful flowers, amusingly hand-like leaves and they give us conkers (yay). Plus, of course, any excuse to say "æsculus hippocastanum" out loud is to be treasured. Try to slip it into a phone conversation.

WTF Monday - Badger

I've seen my local MP and believe me, I really don't want to "badger" him.

Yesterday Morning

At last a sign that spring is on its way, even if it is two months late. Blue sky (though cold enough for a ground frost), Castle Blancheflower and a veil of beech buds.

There Is A God

Bacon Macarons!

"SQUEEEEEE …"

Pokaraekare Ana

How reassuring to discover something truly good coming from this unfortunate week.
You really must watch this. Wait for what happens after about one minute-twenty.
Yay, democracy.

Friday Morning Wood

Meet one of my favourite trees. This old hawthorn - or what's left of it - sits atop the overgrown defensive walls of Venta Icenorum, the Roman town and barracks built after Boudicca's rebellion in an attempt to subdue the revolting locals.
Fat chance. We're still revolting.
The tree's lovely, though.

Car Porn Thursday - Shaguar

Wednesday Window - Hell, Yes!

Here's the outside of the shop where I found yesterday's helical stair.

At long last, Norwich has its own macaron shop. Woo and hoo!

Pretty, huh?

Helical

It's not a spiral, it's a helix, dammit!

WTF Monday - Shoe Tree

It's About Bloody Time

The first signs of the season that should have been here a month ago are beginning to be seen around the city.

Saturday Statuary - Parrot

Porquoi?
Je ne sais quoi …

Friday Wood

No driftwood today; instead I've got an ent for you that I found on Norwich Castle motte last weekend.

Yup

Sing along …

Car Porn Thursday - There is Only One Bond Car

Accept no substitute.

Wednesday Window - Gnarly Glass

CityShapes - Dolphins

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

Hey, it just came on the news. Thatcher has dropped dead!
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa …
Rejoice, oh, happy world.
I'm going to be smiling for weeks.

One For Robyn

Our Robyn's taken up knitting again. I'm asking for a sharp punch on the upper arm here as the last things she knitted were rather splendid, but who can resist the ever-wonderful Natalie Dee? Certainly not me.
Have fun knitting, Robyn. I expect photos.

WTF Monday - Tacky Kitsch Crap

Who buys this stuff? Please tell me it's not you.

Old Dive's Miracle Non-Diet

Hey, peeps! Prithee celebrate with me. Raise a glass of the alcoholic beverage of your own choosing to Old Dive's Miraculous Lightening.

A year ago this week I caught sight of myself on video, standing sideways on to the camera and - as I put it at the time - screamed like a girl.
Here is that offending video and the post that confirmed I had indeed swallowed a planet.

I weighed myself that very day and found to my horror that I weighed 104 kilos (almost 16 and a quarter stone in real money, or 229.3 pounds in American).

Having stuck a big red sign on my fridge saying "DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!" I proceeded not to go on a diet, not to cut down on the booze and not to exercise any more than I did at the time.

What I DID do, however, was begin a regime of portion control. For the past year I've eaten and drunk what the hell I wanted, when the hell I wanted it, but have not "cooked for two and not let it go to waste" which was my previous kitchen habit.
I have consumed many a gallon of Barolo and Pinot Grigio and Islay malt, together with a lorry load of Green and Black's organic chocolate, a veritable Tsukuji Market of fish and shellfish and have committed atrocities against the vegetable kingdom that would shock the squeamish.

This morning, as I stood on my scales (which read the same as those in my doctor's surgery, I'm happy to state) I find I weigh (tadaa) a mere 83.4 kilos (a little under 13 stone 2, or 183.8 pounds in American).

A year ago, I thought the only way I'd lose twenty pounds of ugly fat was to cut off my head, but instead, having shown no restraint whatsoever and not at any moment felt like I was was dieting, I discover I've shed 46 pounds.
Forty-six pounds! That's more than six-and-a-half seven pound babies! Sheesh! Try lifting that weight of bottled water and hefting it up and down the stairs and you'll see just how happy my knees are. Yay for the new, gravity-free me!

Without a belt, my jeans now fall straight to the floor, much to my amusement.

Anyhoo … I'm chuffed to bits, so while I stuff myself full of crayfish tails and salad I wish you all a very merry Sunday. Whoop whoop!

Saturday Statuary

Don't know what's supposed to be going on here. It's called "Monument to Dedalus" though why they can't spell Dædalus is quite beyond me, and why Norwich needs a monument to Dædalus anyway is a mystery.
It looks to me, however, for all the world like a bunch of spare props left over from the Robocop movies … er … on a stick, but then what do I know?

Friday At Last

I've run out of Phil's Indian Ocean driftwood photos, so he'll have to go back and take us some more.
In the meantime, here's some local driftwood from here in colder climes. It may not be quite so warming but I hope it helps you drift into the weekend.
Happy Friday, peeps.

Bugger This

Off to work in another smegging blizzard this morning. Looks like spring's simply not bothered getting up this year; like a teenager moaning that it will haul its lazy ass out of bed sometime in the autumn.
Damn, damn, dammit!

Car Porn Thursday - Ladies' Man

And yes, Speedway: behind our sexily posed hunk of manhood that's another one of Jim Clark's Lotus machines. Sweet.

Wednesday Window - Let Them Eat Fruit

Remember, kids: fruit is an essential daily part of a healthy diet. Get it any way you can.

The Usual

The sun's out today. Bloody typical. Spring waits for the day after the Easter break to show its face.
It's still about minus a million degrees outside, though.
I know just what's going to happen: it's going to freeze all week and then next Monday it will be ninety in the shade and too sweaty to move.
AUGH!

WTF Monday - Choose Carefully

Many thanks to Linda for sending this through: the natural home of Dan Brown, Fifty Shades of Shite, TV tie-ins and Zelebrity "autobiographies".