I mean, aren’t local pubs really just an extension of home, really (in the UK and Ireland, at least)? We really don’t have that in our culture here in the states nearly as much. We used to, but I think our bar culture is getting more corporate… plus, especially where I live, we have a much more puritanical view of bars and the like… Closest we come is coffee shops, but for a while, that was losing out to chain places like starbucks, though in some places, local coffee shops are making a come back…
I know we’re a little OT but our routine is Annie’s coffee-shop for an hour - dogs welcome - he shares my little sofa there and gets a strip of sliced ham in a ramekin. Then the pub over the road. The distances are small enough for my aged father to manage. I park them both in the pub while I get the shopping in.
Then me and the dog team up for a few games of cribbage with friends.
So yes, very much an extension of home. We are losing them at a rate of knots, but pubs like this one are well-supported and built to last (not just physically).
The old man kitty looks so tiny next to, and a bit under, the princess. But he weighs 9 pounds
Of course, Princess Ravus Devourer of Worlds is 17 pounds
I have to share this story, though I don’t come off well in it.
When asked his name, I used to introduce little Baillie, pictured above, as “Beelzebub, Destroyer of Worlds, but for short we call him Baillie, nibbler of slippers”.
That was my spiel. It was amusing until…
There’s a lovely guy, pushing 60, with a terrible speech impediment at the local also pictured above. I got through the first part of the “Name-explain” when he bent down to stroke the dog and burst out with “Ibblybob”. I never got to explain the last part.
To my shame, this was five years ago and I still haven’t told him the dog’s real name.
In my (rather weak) defence, they both seem happy with the arrangement.
Sounds like a perfect nickname to me! I had a cat named Sybil who acquired the nick Snibbles because a young relative couldn’t do Sybil. Perfectly legit way to get a great 2nd or 10th name.
ETA: if the nice gentleman ever asks why you didn’t correct him, you could say you liked ibblybob so much it became a nickname
I miss hanging my hummingbird feeder. But I can’t do it anymore because the zooming birds would freak out the cats. I can only admire the occasional humming birds that I came over in the streets.
You guys ever hear of the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam? We’ve been followers since before it was a live cam. The tree is walking distance from freinds of ours that used to live in North Fort Meyers. We used to go watch them all the time.
There’s been some serious drama since February, mamma eagle, Harriet, went missing and is presumed dead. She’s been in that nest with two different mates since 2006.
Daddy has been doing what experts say doesn’t happen that often, he brought the babies up without mamma and today they flew for the first time. He’s had to fend off predators and leave them alone while he goes hunting. Some days it didn’t look good for the little guys but they may just be over the hump.
My wife has had it on all day, one of our teenagers was fascinated by it for quite some time.
In her absence, Southwest Florida Eagle Cam fans have spent the last month anxiously watching her longtime mate, M15, care for their two eaglets on his own—feeding them and protecting them from opportunistic intruders. It’s uncommon for single eagle parents to succeed in raising their young, but M15 has proven himself an exceptional father to E21 and E22.
Oh wow, I never realized the porphyrin pigments in eggshells stand out to birds but of course they would in ultraviolet. Thank you so much for sharing that.
