Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardens. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 July 2008

Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden

It was another hot day (28°C) and not the best for a drive in a car without an air conditioning, but nevertheless, we went to Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden for the three hours that it is open on Sundays. Not easy to take photos with the puppy pulling on the lead that is attached to the hand that is holding the camera, but between us we managed to take turns in attending to the puppy and take a few OK photos of the sculptures and the lovely garden that they were in.

































Hang on a minute - exactly HOW big is that puppy?!?

By the way, I'll show a detail from the above photo:



See the lower jaw? Three milk teeth missing! :-) I didn't get a chance to see Zeb without his upper middle incisors because the following day I noticed the they are loose, the teeth were gone and tiny adult teeth were already showing! Seems that it takes a lot longer for the lower front adult teeth to appear (after the milk teeth have fallen out).

Back to the sculpture garden then.




























Tuesday, 3 June 2008

Zebedee explores the garden

Zebedee likes to explore the garden, even though there is not much to it, being a very small garden. He got really excited the first time I took him out, and ran around and sprung amongst the tall grasses. Naturally, like any baby of any species (well, at least humans and dogs!), everything new goes straight into the mouth. First, it was plain old grasses and other plants.



...but soon Zeb developed a penchant for these:



He has them sashimi style, of course (i.e. uncooked), garnished with these lovely magenta petals that he also loves.



Must be delicious. (Ugh. Yuk.) There are plenty of slugs in my garden, but we'll see how long till they all escape from this slug monster to the neighbouring gardens! Until then, in they go into the giant doggy's tummy, unless I see them first! Today I heard Zeb eating something crunchy and when I turned around to see what it was, I saw pieces of snail shell on the floor under his nose. So he likes escargot, aussi!

I was expecting Zeb to throw up after the first snail, but he didn't show any sign of malfunction as a consequence of eating this rather disgusting delicacy. I did a little research into the matter today and found out that snails and slugs may carry lungworm and possibly heartworm larvae as parasites. Awful! They can also be dangerous for a dog if they have been in touch with certain kind of slug killer substances. Well, Zeb hasn't shown any sign of poisoning symptoms, so I think he's OK, but I will check with the vet tomorrow whether I should give Zeb a doze of wormer just in case. He is due worming at nine weeks of age (next Monday), but I'll worm him earlier, if the vet recommends it.

Doesn't look like Zeb is concerned, though.



It's all just a big, exciting, fun adventure.



Ooo, that was pretty distorted. What a big nose you have!

Zebedee can also look the shy, bashful type if he wants.



Let's have another look at those charmer eyes.



Zeb has the longest eyelashes I have ever seen on a dog. One day I will try and get a close-up of them. Today (using the SLR for the first time, rather than the pocket camera) I found that, when shooting close up, it is easier to get photos of Zeb by not looking through the viewfinder but by holding the camera lower down so that he can see my face and doesn't get upset by the weird device in front of it. Not all photos come out in focus that way, but they wouldn't do anyway - Zebedee doesn't pose motionless for the camera after all...

Sunday, 4 May 2008

Glyndebourne

Today we went to Glyndebourne to see and hear Tokyo String Quartet. The music was beautiful, as was the venue - both inside and out. I never knew about Glyndebourne before, but this is one of those peculiar places in England: it's an opera house, and when you go there to see an opera, you bring a picnic with you so that you can enjoy the surrounding gardens with your friends while getting tipsy on Champagne, dressed in evening dress/dinner jacket. Membership costs more than a year's rent of a smallish flat. It's all very nice, of course. But with my non-millionaire financial status, I think I prefer to listen to operas on the hi-fi at home, and spend my "spare" money on more photography gear.

Anyhow, here is the auditorium (at interval). The acoustics were very good.



One of the older buildings.



Lots of weird and wonderful flowers in the gardens.





And of course I found some blossoms again... Hey, it's spring!