The Spinning Gherkin

Now don't say I don't spoil you. Where else on blip could you see a spinning gherkin?

Mr B and Conor built one of his birthday presents earlier: an electrical circuit board which spins a small green thing to which you attach the orange dinosaur (foreground) in order to make it move in a fearsome way. The instructions positively encourage experimentation so we had a spinning candle (not so photogenic, it turned out) and a spinning gherkin. Just look at that motion blur.

Despite the seemingly desperation blip, it's been a busy day. I greeted the plumbers at the door in my dressing gown (they seemed so nonplussed by that that they just did their work and scampered off without even an au revoir). Then there was the Wednesday series of taxi journeys with the kids to their various clubs, with the added adventure of fog and sunshine. Of course I took my camera, and drove to the top of a hill where I knew there would be fine views. Sure enough, a vista of fog with hill tops sticking out in the glorious sunshine lay below me... and my camera battery gave up. Somehow it managed to take a few shots in the garden later and several shots of this experiment without a new battery. Very odd.

More garden work this afternoon with Katherine while Mr B took Conor to football (apparently he is finally improving - Conor, not Mr B). And in the morning while I was out and about Mr B and Conor built a bird table! Which was convenient as I was at the shops buying bird feed. Our garden robin has been much in evidence today - seeing off the local cat and checking the newly dug and mulched flower bed for worms - but he's not quite plucked up the courage to check out the table yet, though he's given it a few hard stares. Tomorrow I'll put a saucer of water on it - I seem to remember reading somewhere that birds spot that from a long way off and will come to investigate so it's a good way of getting them used to a new table. We'll see.