View allAll Photos Tagged Awkward
This Jay came in too hot, and had to arrest the forward momentum with it's bill on the branch.
California Scrub Jay - Brown Acres - Jackson County - Oregon - USA
An alligator is joined by 7 turtles on a log with limited basking real estate. Hopefully turtles 3 and 5 are not strangers...
This Red-breasted Merganser needed lots of runway to get airborne. Its webbed feet dug vigorously at the water in an attempt to gain sufficient airspeed.
Yellow-billed Stork - Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, while travelling with www.PhotoTourTrekkers.com.
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This one's actually really special to me. It's the first picture on my second roll of film on a 35mm SLR, taken on my T70. I didn't have a tripod at the time so I used a pile of my books and editorial magazines to carry the weight of the camera. I was so scared it would topple over because of the clacky self-timer. This came out of some ilford 400, overexposed, and was an experimentational shot - I had no idea how to work that thing lool. I like this though.
...Anyway, here's a picture of me standing awkwardly.
Sometime pelicans look a little goofy when they land. I am confident that I would look much worse trying to the do same.
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) Juvenile
Emigrant Creek – Jackson County – Oregon – USA
“The Bald Eagle has been the national emblem of the United States since 1782 and a spiritual symbol for native people for far longer than that….. The Bald Eagle dwarfs most other raptors, including the Turkey Vulture and Red-tailed Hawk. It has a heavy body, large head, and long, hooked bill. In flight, a Bald Eagle holds its broad wings flat like a board….. You'll find Bald Eagles soaring high in the sky, flapping low over treetops with slow wingbeats, or perched in trees or on the ground. Bald Eagles scavenge many meals by harassing other birds or by eating carrion or garbage. They eat mainly fish, but also hunt mammals, gulls, and waterfowl.”
Source : Cornell University of Ornithology
Status : Least Concern
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
After a busy morning working at her desk, painting some interior designs for the Duchess of Whitby, Lettice prepares to curl up in one of her armchairs and enjoy her latest library book from Boots, a thrilling mystery, when the telephone rings noisily on the occasional table beside her.
“Oh blast!” Lettice cries. “And just as I was getting comfortable.”
The silver and Bakelite telephone continues to trill loudly as Lettice brushes herself down and picks up the receiver.
“Mayfair 432,” she answers without the slightest trace of irritation in her very best telephone voice. A distant female voice speaks down the line. “Oh Mrs. Hatchett, how do you do. Yes, this is Miss Chetwynd speaking.” She listens. “You’d like me to visit your home in Sussex? Next Thursday? Well Mrs Hatchett, I am rather in demand at the moment, and it is after all, the Season, which makes it doubly difficult.” She listens to more simpering words coming down the line. “Let me just check my diary.”
Lettice deposits the receiver next to the telephone. She reaches across to the low table before her and helps herself to a sip of tea and a nibble of one of the biscuits Edith has brought her. She then flicks a few pages in her new novel. Finally, when she thinks enough time has passed, she reaches across past the telephone and picks up her leather-bound diary which is fastened with an ornate silver clip. Taking up her silver pen, she flicks to next Thursday, knowing full well that it is free. She puts a star next to the Friday to Monday country party inked in for the following day. She will have plenty of time to get down to Sussex by train to visit Mrs Hatchett’s parochial manor house and back again to London to then travel the next day to Worcestershire for the weekend party.
Picking up the receiver she says, “You’re lucky Mrs. Hatchett. Thursday is the only day I have free in my diary for next week.”
She smiles like a Cheshire cat as she listens to Mrs. Hatchett’s enthusiastic response.
“Now, if you’d just remind me of your address is Sussex please, Mrs. Hatchett.” She jots it in her diary. “And you will ensure your driver picks me up from Rotherfield and Mark Cross*?” She listens to Mrs. Hatchett’s reassurances. “Splendid! Shall we say one o’clock then?” She listens. “Yes? Very good. Yes… yes, I shall see you then. Good morning Mrs. Hatchett.”
Lettice hangs up the receiver and squeals with delight.
“Edith! Edith!” she calls.
Her maid scurries in, frustrated that her mistress insists of screaming through the flat rather than pressing the servants’ bell next to the fireplace. “Can I help you, Miss?”
“Oh Edith!” Lettice gasps, leaping up from her seat and clasping her hands in delight. “Such good news!”
“Yes Miss?” Edith asks, waiting to hear more.
“Your cake did the trick!”
“My cake, Miss?” Edith does not understand.
“Yes, yes! Your mother’s chocolate cake recipe, for Mrs. Hatchett. Remember?”
“Oh that cake!” Edith thinks to herself how many cakes she has made since the rather loud and somewhat gauche Mrs. Hatchett, wife of a banker, sat in Lettice’s drawing room, enthusing over her host’s taste and style. “Very good, Miss.”
“It’s splendid Edith. Mrs. Hatchett wants me to visit her next Thursday to look about her home to then propose some interior design ideas!” She throws her arms around Edith’s neck, much to the other woman’s consternation as she stiffens awkwardly at the overfamiliarity.
“I best fetch you the Bluebell timetable then, Miss.” Edith mutters, slipping from her mistress’ grasp.
“Edith,” Lettice called after her.
“Yes, Miss?”
“You’re such a brick!”
“Yes, Miss!”
Lettice sinks back down into her round tub armchair, picks up her book and sighs happily.
*The village of Rotherfield in East Sussex had a railway station open there on September 1st 1880. It was renamed Rotherfield and Mark Cross on November 11th 1901. It was never a busy railway station with only light traffic boarding to London, partly due to an inconvenient location. The station was finally closed on June 14th 1965.
This year the FFF+ Group have decided to have a weekly challenge called “Snap Happy”. A different theme chosen by a member of the group each week, and the image is to be posted on the Monday of the week.
This week the theme, “connections/connected” was chosen by David, DaveSPN.
I have taken a slightly different perspective on the theme, but I hope that this telephone, which kept people connected in the 1920s and keep them equally connected today. This upper-class domestic scene is different to what you may think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature of a model introduced around 1919.
The vase of red roses on the Art Deco occasional table and the glass vase of pink roses on the right-hand side of the mantlepiece are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium.
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The biscuits are also artisan miniatures from a specialist stockist of food stuffs. He has a dizzying array of meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The chair set has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.
On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.
The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.
On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.
In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Everybody else gets really cutesy pictures of squirrels...
except me.
This male squirrel has been a regular for some time and no, he doesn't do 'cutesy'. I do have a 'kitvision' camera set up on the windowsill for when the birds visit. However, this is what greeted me yesterday morning when I walked into the kitchen. I'm used to it.
I mean, the muddy paw prints and also little drag marks. I could lower the feeder, but I've already done that and he won't use it. I've come to the conclusion he likes the challenge of using the feeder at this rather awkward height off the windowsill. I have to travel to the other side of Manchester if I want to find a squirrel that's going to act 'cute' (that's three buses there and three buses back - no doable that often if you're travel sick)
I have yet to see other squirrels in the area that would do me the honour of looking and acting a little more cute than this little fella. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely adore squirrels! I love their personality, charm, cheek, charisma and ability to be feisty and noisy when they feel a need to. They're awesome!