Tyler the Leaf Insect

As I said in the last post, more on N's little Leaf Insect in the next post! I'd simply posted my last entry from my mobile but I needed to get on the PC to get some pictures.



Tyler is his name and if you follow this link you'll be able to see the Wikipedia page about this interesting critter. They're very easy to look after and are a really fascinating creature, especially if you think camouflage and mimicry is in any way interesting!




The whole point of this was to post pictures, so here are some pictures!

I'm back!

It would seem that it's been very nearly a year since I posted anything on this blog - in fact, I'm surprised it's still active!

But, I suppose that's what happens when you become one of the workers instead of being one of those scrounging students! I'm mostly enjoying work - as much as work can be enjoyed. After a week and a bit off over Christmas with the family it's been a bit of a wrench going back today. After all that training I suppose I should put the 'skills' I've learned to good use…oh, and I should be contributing to the house seeing as F has supported us for the best part of five years! Mind you, I still felt like feigning some kind of tropical disease this morning…!

Christmas was very pleasant this year. The boys got some nice presents which they're still enjoying eight days later! Animal mad N bought a corn snake with his Christmas money but current thought suggests that this he may be heading back on account of him being a very grumpy snake.

N also got a Leaf Insect which is a really cool creature. More on this little fella in my next post!

Working for a change

N went back to school today and, as I'm not back in college until next week, I've got three days work experience at my friendly not-so-neighbourhood solicitors office.

I've been seconded to the other office this time. I like the usual office - lots of observing court proceedings, meeting clients and meeting counse,l all of which are really interesting and great for the CV. Unfortunately, that is not all the life of a solicitor entails and it's always good, if not a little daunting, to get to spend a bit of time working with G at this office.

G knows his stuff and his enthusiasm and knowledge rub off. Today he's had me drafting particulars of claim (which he was mostly happy with), giving my opinion on a dispute over a piece of land (which he was mostly happy with) and making a site visit to take photographs (which I was unhappy with because he sent me to the wrong place!).

I'm looking forward to another few hours of getting into some 'real' legal work again tomorrow!

Dognuts

We're back down to two big dogs in the house.

We've been doing our bit and helping to rehome rescue dogs. Bear was a lovely English Mastiff who had been pretty badly treated and was initially scared of his own shadow. He grew in confidence and this was perhaps a little bit of a problem as he started to show some aggressive tendencies towards other dogs. On his own, he was fine, but mixed with our 'pack' he was starting to be a pain.

F's sister had recently lost her two GSD's and had taken on the bitch that had been kennelled with Bear when they were rescued. After some (very brief) negotiation it was decided that Bear would go to live at their house and I'm pleased to report that he seems very, very happy there.

The other rescue dig was Eddie the Rottweiler. Again, Eddie had been very badly treated, locked in a cupboard, beaten and starved. When he came here he was remarkably well adjusted with just the odd behavioural trait to be ironed out. Eddie was only ever here on a temporary basis and he found a forever home quite quickly. His new owner couldn't take him straight away but came over at least twice a week to take him out. He went to his forever home last week and so far he seems very happy with his new family.

Our two, Rosie and Dave, seem pretty happy to enjoy the spoils of being the only dogs!

Experimental 2

Ok, that seemed to work. Now to try a picture taken in landscape mode. If that works I need to figure out how to insert pictures between blocks of text!

Experimental

I've just been checking the previous posts I'd done via Blogger for mobile on the computer and it seems that the images aren't uploading properly. I've altered the image size to see if this makes any difference.

So, I'll try a picture of N decorating the Christmas tree...

Give peas a chance

I had a hankering for some pea and ham soup. This is a meal that I like to cook over a couple of days starting with soaking the gammon shanks in water overnight to get rid of some of the salt.

I boiled them this afternoon with an onion, some parsnips (all I had in) and a few peppercorns.

While they were cooking I started the dried peas going. We have to use dried peas because F says they taste better. I disagree but I'm outnumbered. Or something.

These two lovely ingredients combine to make this luscious greenness that I will devour with crusty bread tomorrow. Not all of it though, this pan will last a few days!

I'm pretty sure that the pictures won't insert as I intended so that's a feature I'm going to have to play with...