F is for First Decent Walk of the Year!

I always mean to post more non-toy-soldier stuff than I do, so while there are thousands of often quite good images of insects, when I do get around to posting some, they aren't always the best, but I like a narrative, and I managed to have my first proper walk of the year the other day (24th April), and found a long hedge, at the top of a dip slope on the downs near Borden, which was facing a very warm sun, and saw loads of butterflies, not all of which were hanging around to be photographed, so missing from these shots are Orange Tips, Small Tortoiseshells, Whites and a Brimstone, but I did get these others.

 

Peacock

It actually posed for me, and when I swore. as it closed its wings, it opened them again!

 

Red Admiral launching.

 

 

 

There were loads of small Holly Blues, but they were actively having what is best described as an orgy, and while I took dozens of shots, most of them are rather blurry, or one of the pair is missing altogether, or I just shot holly leaves!

 

There's a small striped, solitary 'Digger' wasp in there somewhere!

These are the ones who tunnel into well-trodden sandy paths, or bare banks. 

 

 

 

 

Not sure what these are, I need to look them up.

Some kind of fly, maybe Willow Sawflies, with notably long antennae.

 

I thought this was a very big version of the 'Basingstoke Orange Bums' as they were called in our family (Mum had some notion they 'came out of' Basingstoke, to compete with her honey-bees! A journey of about 8-miles), but later following it along the ground for a while, trying to get decent shots, I realised it was probably a [larger] queen, of the aforementioned, looking for a suitable nesting site. She's actually a 'Red Tailed Bumblebee'

 

First Hover-fly of the season, among my favourites.

 

Once they've had some pollen or nectar for sustenance, as the one above was, the Digger Wasps will hunt and take these as larder stock for the small broods - booooo! Raw in tooth and claw!

Standard Buff-bottom, sharing a dandelion with another solitary wasp type, possibly Oxybellus, from the silver and black striping?

 

Robber- or Horse-fly? I was probably lucky not to be bitten by one, while I was concentrating on other things, I often get a bite on the shoulder or back as I'm doing this, especially if I'm only in a T-shirt. There were sheep in the valley at the bottom of the dip, and these biting flies do seem to go hand-in-hand with livestock!

H is for Harvest Moon

Not the greatest shots, but I managed to get these shots of the last 'Harvest Moon' through the light-pollution of the M2/M4 corridor last night!

I don't think it was as close as it was at the beginning of the month, but we had cloud that night and the next, so I only managed a chopped moon a few nights later;

 

I drove out to a more secluded area for this one and got a better level of detail, resting on a farmer's gate! All taken with my Nikkon pocket-jobby!

B is for Blimey, That's Big!

Or at least, it was three nights earlier! I have from time to time tried photographing the Blue Moons, 'Harvest' Moons or the odd eclipse over the years, results being usually only for home consumption! But this recent one was so close, I got a half-decent result with my little pocket Nikon!

 

Typically, particularly as we have been sweltering under clear skies ever since, it was cloudy on the night, and the next night, but on the third night after the full moon I managed, with the aid of a farmer's fence - up at relatively light-less Blackbush - to get this image of it with a big-bite out of it, but still very close to Earth.

 

There will be another chance to see it on the 29th I believe, not as close, but 'closer than', if you know what I mean, and I might try getting a shot of the New Moon over the 14/15th, which I've never tried before, but if it's so close it may be photograph'able?

S is for Snow Pictures in Fleet

Nothing to do with toy soldiers, or even nostalgia; when I was a kid you got snow piled in the corners of shop windows but that was about it, this is a newer craft altogether, and takes advantage of the techniques of the graffiti artist and the properties of fake snow-in-a-can, and I thought they were worth shooting and sticking-up here as we career towards the 25th with alarming speed!

On one level it's a bit formulaic, with the same tropes from picture to picture; four-pointed stars, a snowfield across the bottom, snowmen (all white!) etc . . . but also some skill in making each design fit the window-frame or shop-front, and as a form of advertising it's as good as any other, after-all I made the point of walking the whole high-street and photographing them, didn't I!

Mostly found on the smaller independent shops and boutiques, none of the multi-branch names have bothered, nor have the larger - national - estate agent chains, but a couple of the smaller ones have, along with a couple of the hairdressers and several of the coffee-shops, while some (the 2nd one down and the delivery van) reflect the nature of the business, most were just seasonal fare. Anyway, enjoy - Aliens later!

The hare is very feint in the last two images but he is there, down on the left in the first image and filling this one! There were also a couple I couldn't get decent images of due the the low, winter sun!

It's also reminded me I have a High Street post from last summer in the queue somewhere - animals again, along with last winter's exhibition at the Library, and I'd better get up there and see if this year's is up? I'll have to run them back-to-back!

A is for And so to London - Pleasant Walk Across the River

No, no a toy soldier in sight, but I did purchase a few bits along the way which will be in the final post! After the disappointment of Forbidden Planet, I moseyed-down to - and over - the river at the Golden Jubilee bridge, across Trafalgar Square, skirting Whitehall and shooting a few shots of things which caught my eye.

Something going on inn the Vietnamese quarter?

 

Nigerian (above) and South Korean Embassies (here) flying at half-mast for the late Queen Elizabeth II, the whole of that part of the North bank; Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Victoria Embankment and Northumberland Av' was sealed-off and pedestrianised, which made for a quite and pleasant walk in an area of London usually teeming with angry traffic!

London Eye

Golden Jubilee Bridge, there's actually two, one each side of the old Hungerford

Bridge, which has always been rail-only, I believe?

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

'The Queue', I avoided it like the plague, and I just don't get it, in the 16-somthing's maybe, but now? After over a hundred years of compulsory education and two World Wars . . . ♫ Britons always-always-always will be slaves! ♫

A vista which has changed greatly in my lifetime!

The London 'I'!

 Trying to shoot aircraft at Clapham Junction!

 And then on to Clapham Junction and home, what I found is in the next and last of this sequence!

News, Views Etc . . . Links, Silliness and Seriousness

Silliness first; Toys in the media . . .

A popular meme but not actually true for toy dinosaurs, as the real ones were still millions of years in the future during the carboniferous era, when fossil-fuels were laid down, but definitely true for plastic insects and invertebrates which are made from 'real' insects and invertebrates! I can't find the original post but I downloaded it a while ago and lost it in a dinosaur folder! Faceplant page is here; INRITH

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I found this (first link) a while ago, and now there's a follow-up (second link), lots of interesting snippets within the two, on Bergan-Beton and the early toy industry; not least how far Islyn Thomas's influence stretched!

https://www.plasticstoday.com/consumer-products/plant-manager-behind-modern-plastics-industry

https://www.plasticstoday.com/injection-molding/portrait-mid-century-plastics-pioneer

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Ken Osen, President of the W. Britain will be presenting the talk at Ross County Historical Society in Chillicothe, Ohio on the 16th of November, you may need to post the link directly into the top left-hand search bar of whatever page you've got open, I had trouble finding it again through a Google 'new page', but got the 'memory' URL to come up . . . and it may help to drop the final numerals? Or just Google it yourself from the above details?

https://eu.chillicothegazette.com/story/news/local/2022/10/17/ross-county-historical-society-announces-fall-speakers-series/69560279007/

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Staying in Ohio (lucky Ohioans this Autumnn/Fall!), the Dayton Art Institute has an exhibition of David Levinthal's photographs, running through to January, which involves the use of various toys including what look to be King & Country or Tamiya (?) Modern US Infantry. There's also a bit of a promo-video for a specific digital camera brand, but it's interesting none-the-less.

I can only post what I find, and I found Ohio twice!

This is on a Russian language anti-war article about the lack of democracy and the export of war (Putin's neo-Nazi Wagner Group are already active in Syria, Libya and Central Africa, as well as Ukraine and are now moving into the Sahel through Mali), which you can find here if you want to read it in it's entirety or translate it. Figures are Preiser.

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While a new game seems to have received several good reviews, as I've said before I don't have the time or inclination to game, but if you like a bit of X-Box action try Tin Hearts.

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Missed the event I'm afraid, but still well worth a read;

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/4609210/newtonmore-event-will-highlight-the-impact-of-the-indian-contingent-during-the-second-world-war/

While this shot, a commended photograph in this year's Drone Photography Awards seems to show women in Vietnam (I think) drying the dyed sedge straw from which I think my 'rope' dragon is made?

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The serious bit;

Obituaries

As well as sad news on David Pomeroy's slipping away earlier in the year and the recent passing of Eric Johns, We have also lost;

Ed Borris and Nick Versteeg - PlaysetMagazine Obituary

Britains Collector David Leigh - Legacy Obituary

Collector's Michael Fondren - JeffersonMemorial Funeral Home and Kenneth Backus -Kalas Funeral Home

And famous Spanish author Javiar Marias, of whom The Times said "Marías lived in an apartment in Madrid that was cluttered with toy soldiers, piles of dusty fan mail and . . . ", but as The Times (of London) is hidden behind a pay wall I wouldn't direct you to, I will post the New York Times Obituary, which doesn't mention the toy soldiers, if you have subscribed to the UK-title; the obituary's still there. 

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This rather staid image was on The Conversation's website, illustrating an article on wage growth, or the lack of it - foam-stampings or 3D-prints?