Pet Peeving via Memes

Facebook is truly a modern technological marvel. With the push of a button, I know where people are traveling for summer vacation, what they cooked for supper, what color dress their daughter wore to prom, who the grand babies look like and if I need to move them to acquaintance status because they're backing Hillary or Donald for president.

As handy and informative as Facebook can be, it is also equally aggravating. These memes cover some of the things that irk me to the nth degree.

OMG, y'all, you've got another splinter, hangnail and fungal infection between your toes. Or callous on your thumbs from posting about all the various ailments or mishaps so people will give you some attention. Cancer is a biggie, but that zit on your cheek or flat tire you get once every decade is not.

Boy howdy, you beat the bushes and rustled up a new significant other. In record time, I might add. You're not picky and selective, but rather lonely. So now we all have to hear about how he/she is the love of your life after a couple months. It's great that you're spending time with someone, but we don't need to hear about every fast food drive thru run or trip to refill meds at Walmart that is yet another gloriously happy, no one has ever been in love like us experience with your new guy/gal.

These drive me insane because the nosey rosey me wants to hear the whole story. Whether it's the ex-wife driving you nuts, co-worker making you crazy or health scare you had with that suspicious wart on your butt. Post the deets for everyone to see, or don't bother sharing at all. You're praising God and glad to be alive because ______? 

Mutilated, abused, crippled... it's all the same to me. I HATE seeing these sorts of animal posts on Facebook, even the ones that have a happy ending. Just.Don't. It's shocking and sad and makes me worry about the fate of a society where some individuals think animals are disposable. We know you hate it - so do most of us on the planet. So please, I'd consider it a public service if you would quite sharing the sad animal posts. However, feel free to keep the dog shaming pics or cute baby animal videos a comin'.

Guest Room Debut

I'm always encouraging friends and family to come visit us in England, but I seldom have any takers. I attribute that to the cost of getting here. Plus some folks just don't like long haul international flights. Fortunately, all three of our guest rooms got some use recently with a visit from my mother, hometown friend and her mom. 

Everyone arrived on Saturday, April 2, from Texas and Holland. My friend is a long term expat in Holland, so I'd almost consider her local if she didn't live on the other side of the English Channel. We kicked off the Mamarazzi Tour with lunch at The Anchor pub in Pyrford that sits along a canal. Long boats coasted lazily past us. Dogs were game for some exercise with their owners along the canal path in a typical spring mix of sun as well as clouds that spit out some sprinkles.

It wouldn't be a full on pub meal without fish and chips, so these two obliged with the traditional favourite. Everyone got settled for the week and we kicked off our touring the next day at Kensington Palace. Since no pics were allowed in the interior, and the exterior was underwhelming, I've got nothing to share. 

We were impressed with the Whole Foods Market we passed on the way from the tube station to Hyde Park when we dashed in to let the moms use the toilets. The highlight at Kensington for the moms was the temporary exhibit of dresses worn through the years by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana. It was an interesting contrast to an original mourning dress worn by Queen Victoria in her later years on exhibit. The widow's weeds were quite voluminous and not at all flattering, even when worn by royalty. Brown stitching on black fabric is beyond blah.

Easter Sunday 2016

Now that our company is gone and we're finished with travels until summer vacation, it's time to wrap up our Easter weekend tour of the south coast with a final blog post about Easter Sunday.

The weather all weekend was crap - intermittent rain bands heralded in by sustained winds of around 25-30 mph that gusted up to 40 quite often. This picture pretty much sums up the state of things. The air temp was in the low 50s, but it felt much colder thanks to the whipping winds.

We started out the morning with breakfast at our B&B. Then we drove to the Isle of Portland, just southwest of Weymouth where we were staying. While there, we stopped to check out some very rough seas and one of the lighthouses.

Below is the view from the daughter's room on the third floor of the B&B, looking out over the tops of houses to the water, in-between rain showers.

After returning to the B&B to gather up our gear, we drove west along the coast to Charmouth. I had tried to book a private three hour fossil hunting guide, but he was unavailable on Sunday - understandable since it was Easter. So I opted to sign us up for a two hour group fossil hunting walk with the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. While we were hearing the initial spiel inside the centre from the resident palaeontologist, it was raining buckets. By the time we bought our £1 fossil guide booklet and were ready to go, the rain had passed. We headed off with our guided group to the rock and pebble beach to get down to the business of finding and attempting to identify fossils that are millions of years old.

Needle in a haystack, you say? Sorta. We all adopted the same approach of parking it on a big rock, then sifting in the rocks all around us. We found some lovely examples like the one you see below. Plus a lot of beach glass. I definitely want to return at some point for a bit more fossil hunting in better weather. Maybe hit the beach at nearby Lyme Regis, too, since they're also good fossil hunting grounds. We got splattered with some sprinkles while on the beach, but nothing too bad. As we looked out to sea, we could see where the rain was headed and were just glad it wasn't directly over us.

We wrapped up our Easter Sunday with fish and chips at a local place in Weymouth along the harbour. It was a nontraditional holiday weekend spent on the road touring some of our adopted country and we enjoyed the experience.

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Two weeks ago, I was prepping for my mother (aka Mimi) to arrive, as well as a childhood friend and her mom coming for a visit. With the last goodbye this morning, I'll be getting back to the same old same old around here. Until I have a chance to sort our pics from the family/friends visit, in addition to taking pics of our Jurassic Coast fossil finds from Easter weekend, here is a shot of Ollie. Every week his doggy daycare sends out an email that includes random photos of the dogs at "school". Our Ollie is on the right, hanging out with his Cairn doppelgänger.

Mr. McSprawly Bedhog

The little prince, Ollie our four-year-old Cairn Terrier, got into the habit of sleeping with us a couple years ago. His favourite thing is to snuggle down under the covers in the winter months. The upside of this arrangement is that he gets a weekly bath to keep the doggy BO to a minimum. The downside is that the little fella's 20 lb frame seems to take on St. Bernard proportions when he's sprawled across the sheets, even in a king size bed.

The husband and I have talked about sharing sleeping space with the dog, possibly getting him a new bed for the master floor or returning him to his crate since that's where he slept for the first two years of his life. But it just seems so cruel. How would we make him understand we still love him, but are tired of adopting odd or uncomfortable sleeping positions so we don't disturb him. You understand our predicament.

I had seen this pet bed in a catalog at some point, so decided to check it out. It's looks so cute and comfy, and it should be since it costs upwards of $300. Plus it's so big and bulky. How does that person have to get on and off the bed? And what if you forget it's there for a middle-of-the-night potty run since the middle age bladder seems to be shrinking. That could get downright painful and leave bruises if you hit it square on in the dark.

The husband got this bright idea to order a small baby bed with a side that drops to allow co-sleeping. We set it up, put a padded dog bed in it and placed it adjacent to my side of the bed at the foot. No dice. We put Ollie in it a couple times and he promptly hopped back onto our bed. So I pushed it over against the wall since the husband decided he'd train Ollie to sleep there once warmer weather arrived.

Yesterday I was running some errands, namely hauling these bags of purged clothes to the local recycling centre, when the teen texted me a pic. She's on spring break this week and next.

Sure enough, there was Ollie lounging on his bed like a champ. He was hogging space on her double sized bed that morning, so she rolled his bed into her room and he was easily coaxed onto it. Go figure. 

Easter Saturday Afternoon, 2016

After leaving Exeter, we drove over to Bovington for the afternoon because my husband wanted to tour The Tank Museum. It's housed adjacent to Bovington Camp, a British army military base. It houses soldiers and provides training for the Royal Armored Corps. It's the real deal, including a tank crossing sign along the road leading to the museum.

The great thing about the museum is that everything was so well labeled and explained. These information placards were found on the almost 300 different vehicles inside the museum's six large display halls. Below is a picture of the Scout Car information, as well as the teen standing next to it. 

There were tanks both large and small, as well as other different types of tracked vehicles.

Tanks that dated back to World War I, which were completely unfamiliar to me.

Tanks as far as the eye could see.

 

Towards the end of our time at the museum, we ended up in the hall where a small military band was playing. I recognised that old wartime favourite, "The White Cliffs of Dover". 

When I looked up the song here at home, I discovered it was released in 1942 by singer Vera Lynn. That's the year my grandfather joined the army and was sent to fight in northern Africa. As I placed this video into the blog post, I realised the area where I did the brief recording houses vehicles used in the African campaign. It's funny to think that my grandfather, who served in the motor pool during the war, might have worked on some of the vehicles just like the ones I was seeing. 

Easter Saturday Morning, 2016

We spent Friday night in Exeter so we could tour it's lovely 13th century cathedral the next morning before driving to Weymouth via The Tank Museum in Bovington. The weather went to hell Friday night, ushering in rain that often fell on the diagonal thanks to winds gusting up to 40 mph. Thankfully, I got some pics of the the cathedral's exterior late Friday afternoon before the weather turned nasty. There were impressive towers located on either side of the cathedral's centre structure. I loved the way the stone seemed to glow with a golden light in the late day sun.

Below is a close-up of one of the angels carved into the facade. This was the best of the bunch. The bulk of the cathedral was built from 1270-1342 and was actually hit by a bomb during World War II, so it's a wonder the exterior is in such good repair at this time.

There were many interesting old buildings around the cathedral. This was one of my favourites, with a sign reading Mol's, coat-of-arms and the date of 1596 above the floor of windows. 

We returned Saturday morning bright and early to tour the cathedral. The handheld audio players gave us a lot of interesting background. This cathedral is undoubtedly well known because it's the longest unbroken and unsupported Gothic arch in the world. That big brown structure in the middle is the organ, sitting about halfway up the centre of the cathedral.

I loved all of the details found in the nooks and crannies, as seen below.

There was the obligatory stained glass, no doubt removed and hidden away during World War II since Exeter was bombed extensively by the Luftwaffe in 1942. 

 

Above is a pic of the husband checking out the large central wooden doors into the cathedral. Below is a pic of the early 14th century hand-carved bishop's throne located in the quire area. It stands 59 feet tall and is a very stately sight.

Like all older English churches, there were the inevitable beneath-the-floor burials and crypts with sarcophagi lying in repose. The floor slab inscription below really tugged at my heart. It says Elizabeth died in childbed at age 28 and is most deservedly lamented, the last line of the inscription.

I would have loved to learn more about the lady below, but alas her epitaph was written in Latin.

No doubt a victim of the Reformation, the figure standing next to the knight's head was decapitated. Man's best friend at the feet of the night below has also been defaced. I could wring King Henry VIII's neck for allowing religious buildings that had been in operation for decades and even centuries to be looted, pillaged and destroyed during his reign. Such a loss of amazing architecture and history that future generations will never be able to enjoy or appreciate.