BUTTERPILLAR ALASTAIRENSUS

What fun it is to see the garden through the eyes of Little People! Wee Alastair (2 1/4 years) is fascinated with things that fly and crawl in the garden. He is often seen peering into the bushes (when his is not shredding them) and shouting "spider"! It could be an ant, a dragonfly, a moth or ... yes, even a spider. He likes to watch them scurry about their business. Well, it keeps him out of mischief for a whole 2 minutes!

When I arrived at the house yesterday he came running up the steps to greet Iain and I "Grandma .....Grandpa". Before he got to the top, he stopped and pointed shouting "Butterpillar"!

I didn't actually see the creepy crawly because (1) I was laughing so hard and (2) it was hidden to me.

I just love the word "Butterpillar"! Now just because we have never seen one doesn't mean to say it doesn't exist. Therefore to help things along I conjured up a picture of what one might look like. I got the images off Wikipedia* which was easy (and a wonderful diversion).

I have given this new species Alastair's name. If it catches on it might go some way to providing a counter-weight to the other names that he is sometimes called by all of us ... "Alastair Here Comes Trouble" and "Alastair You've Ruined It"!

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* Butterfly: Wikipedia; Papilio demodocus (Citrus Swallotail). Pictured in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Muhammad Mahdi Karim, January 2009

* Catepillar: Wikipedia; Papilio machaon [Schwalbenschwanz (Raupe)] Photo taken by Eric Steinert at Paussac, France, August 2005.

A JOYCE JOURNEY

Frank Delany has started something new. He going to read James Joyce's Ulysses here on his website. He is a well-known author, broadcaster, judge of literary prizes and so on. Like so many Irish I know, he clearly loves words!

In the past he has had (among many other things) his own one-man show on Joyce in London called ReJoyce.

So now he has started this marathon exercise: once a week for about 15 minutes he presents Ulysses. It is like an English Lit. class, i.e. while he reads - from the very beginning - he highlights aspects of the work hence giving insight into the way Joyce uses words. Great stuff! I love it!

It has only just started and looks like it could go on for years! That's OK by me ... as always, the joy is in the journey!

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Photo: Wikipedia
Poster: Wikipedia

DOCTOR-ING JOHN

Just feast your eyes on this wonderful photograph! John took this early morning shot while sailing to St Kilda last week. This is a real "Wow" picture as far as I am concerned!

This is the original photo but at 72 res. for the web. I thought I would play around with it and do some arty stuff. So here is what I came up with.

There are a million ways to 'doctor' photos and this one is putting a glow filter on. Let's see, I think it would be a good piece of artwork for a jewellery advert.

Similar to above using a duck-egg blue colour... I can see this on one whole wall say in a clinic for chilling out or maybe an airport boarding lounge?

And this one is using a 'texture' filter. Would be good as a card, I reckon.

IRISH BUILDERS

These days my views are mostly of builder's bums. The roof tiles are all off, the basic materials for the new tiles are in place. Soon we will be over the worst of the mess (at least outside the house).

When Maggie and Brian arrived for a meal Maggie declared, as she stepped over the rubble and mess at the front door, "Looks like Beruit!" She's right; it does!

As a salute to our team of Irish roofers I came across the following video

HERE [click on this to view]

which is a song by the Dubliners about a building site. It's called the Sick Note Song but is also known as The Bricklayer's Song. This video is of the Dubliners but it has been copied many times!