Coming Home

Whilst we were away, Gail and I often wondered how our little Marmalade was getting on back in Beeston. We had asked our neighbour 'Uncle Brian' to keep an eye on her and make sure she got some food. Although by all accounts, she has restaurants all along our road, and never goes hungry.

When we arrived back, we both whistled her, and she came running. She was obviously pleased to see us, as us her. But after a while, she was back to her old self and fell asleep on her throne.

As The Night Closes In

Well Gail and I are back safely in Beeston, after taking the night flight from Dubai. Getting a bit tired now, but still have to blog. My final photo from our latest holiday is the classic sundown shot over the Creek, with an Abra and a Dhow passing across the water. Back to normality tomorrow with getting up early for work. Boo!

On Top Of The World

Last night Gail and I visited the tallest building in the world; the Burj Khalifah. You can go on a tour where you are taken up to the 124th floor and you can see the whole of Dubai. But the 124th floor is only about two thirds the way up. The rest of the floors are made up of apartments, offices and an Armani designed hotel.

I'm not very good with heights, especially trying to stand by windows or walls. I always have this fear that the structure is going to break and I am going to fall out. Sitting on the floor seems to cool my terror a bit, so did that to take some photos of Dubai at night. I would have preferred to go during the day, but no places seemed to be available then.

Fair Fun

It was quite strange walking around Dubai Festival City and seeing a funfair completely empty. All the rides were there and lights flashing, but no music or screaming kids. All down to Ramadan. No food, drink or fun until the sun has disappeared.

Rail Ways

Those people that have used the London Underground, and indeed any form of rail transport in England will know what a grim experience it can be. Torn seats, grafitti and some rather rude travellers make for a ride best forgotten. How different in Dubai. Because there is a fine for practically every misdemour going, the stations and trains are spotless. Feet on seats carries a fine, eating and drinking are banned. One of the biggest fines is for setting off the fire alarm for a joke.
Here's a shot of inside the monorail. Everyone sits quite still, or speaks in hushed tones.

Monorail Mania

We've finally managed to go on the Dubai Metro. There are 4 different kinds of tickets you can buy, depending on how much travelling you do. We opted for one where you pay a couple of pounds and can travel all day. We tried to visit Jebel Ali, as we have not been there yet, but for some reason the train didn't go that far, even though there is a station there. So we visited a couple of the shopping malls enroute. I took loads of photos of the various buildings that we passed. I was going to put them on Flickr, but it has been blocked by the leaders here, although strangely enough you can use Facebook, which is far more subversive.

Keep Your Cool

A difficult headbanger challenge set by Tom this week; 'Animal Reflections'. Made even the more difficult, as I'm presently on holiday with just a nextbook. So I've had to do a bit of blue sky thinkiing. Which in Dubai is very easy, as everyday there's a blue sky! It came to me last night as I was waiting for Gail to buy some make up. I just happen to be standing next to a mirror, and so got one of the postcards I was posting to our nearest and dearest and proped it up. Voila, my submission for this week.

My daily shot today is of the swimming pool at the hotel. Which is very welcome at the moment, as it's a rather humid 88*F. I'm just quietly sitting here in the shade typing away and sweat is pouring off me. As it's Ramadan at the moment, we can't eat and drink in public. So as soon as I've finished blogging, I'm off back to the room for a long cold glass of something.

Going Underground

We had our first glimpse of the new Dubai Metro last night, as we visited one of the stations to pick up a map and timetable, and to see how much the tickets are. Unfortunately they didn't have any maps left. The assistant suggested we got a silver card as that allowed travel on the buses too. It's something to do later on in the week, as we want to spend the whole day travelling the entire route and getting off at specific points of interest, such as the Burj Kalifah and Jebel Ali.

Lighting Up Time

It's nice to be back in Dubai again. It's been a whole year since our last visit. The pace of change appears to have slowed a little, although the new monorail and the Burj Khalifa are now finished and working. We intend to spend one of our days travelling on the monorail, as it goes from one end of Dubai to the other and you can buy a day roving ticket for a couple of pounds. Today's photo is a night shot which shows the Burj Khalifa towering over some of the other skyscrapers along the Sheikh Zayed Road.

Rocky Roller

The journey with Air France wasn't too bad, even though I didn't get a window seat and the screen wasn't working properly, so I couldn't watch any of the films on offer. Gail and I had a walk to the back of the plane for a bit of exercise. I took lots of photos of the earth below. I had no idea where we were, but these mountains looked quite impressive from 36,000 feet.

Not So Much Oh La La

Gail and I usually fly to Dubai with Emirates. But things being what that are, we had to look for a cheaper airline. After much trawling on the Internet, we found one with Air France. As neither of us had been to France before, we were looking forward to seeing what Charles de Gaul Airport in Paris had to offer. We were disappointed. There was quite a performance in getting off the plane, going through transit, and back on a different plane. We were searched twice, even though we hadn't been in contact with anybody. The first time by a very officious employee, who insisted people were checked one at a time. Some passengers got a bit irate, as they were in danger of missing their flight, as it took about 10 minutes for each search. Then the airport bus driver couldn't find the plane. He eventually did. Then whilst reversing, crashed the bus into an airport truck. Just as well it wasn't a tanker.
Here's a shot of the roof of the terminal T2, that I took whilst waiting to board the plane.

Shopping And All That Jazz

During August, my local council hires a band every Saturday morning to entertain the passing shoppers. Some seats are put out in the square, so people can sit a listen for a while. The band on Saturday were called Ty Garner and the Blue Notes. They played a selection of light jazz classics during which Ty showed off his very good guitar skills.
I don't normally like jazz at all, but these guys were worth listening to. Like most musicians these days he has a website, so you can listen for yourself.

Can I Do You Now Sir?

You have to be of a certain age or know about radio comedy to know where the title of this post comes from. I'll let you Google it, if you don't.
I thought it was an apt title to show you this old advertising light bulb, which I took the other day at the Brewhouse Museum.
Here's a link to some history of the barber and his shop.

Signs Of The Times

It's another Headbanger Challenge today, and I've set the theme this week. I've gone for "famous street names in your town". Nottingham is blessed with quite a few. Here's three that I knew about, but which unfortunately do not share the same attributes as the originals. Broadway has no theatres; Abbey Road does not have a zebra crossing and Regent Street only contains a pizza parlour, a hairdressers and a builders.

My other photo complements the Duffy hit from 2008. If I had some spare time, I would have got in my car and snapped 'Electric Avenue' for you, the 27 year old Eddy Grant reggae hit.

Please visit the four other contestants' pages to see what they have come up with. Maybe they have found a Downing Street, a Blueberry Hill or a Coronation Street.

I Scream For Ice Cream

Nothing quite so colourful as an ice cream van. Plenty of Disney characters to entice the children and beg their parents. Loud, happy music, so everyone knows it is there.

"A 99 please, with a dash of chocolate sauce".

"Do You Mind Not Taking My Photo Whilst I Am Sunbathing!"

Spotted this interesting little scene whilst walking around Wollaton Park.

I'm sure you could all make up your own amusing comment to this tableau.

500 x 2

I was surprised to see an original Fiat 500 when I went back to my car. As there weren't any other cars near it, I got in mine and parked up next to it. As you can see it's tiny compared to mine, and my 500 isn't a very big car! I'm not sure what it would look like parked next to say a Range Rover or a RAV4. Possibly like a little toy. As I was taking some pictures, the owner arrived with his son. We got chatting, and I told him about mine. Even he was surprised to see how small his looked.

Back To The Future

I went to Wollaton Park this afternoon as there was a small classic car show on. It was sunny when I started out, but of course it began to rain. So in between showers, I took some photos of the vehicles on offer. I then went for a walk around the gardens. Coming back, I saw that one of the DeLoreans had been parked close to the hall, ready to be photographed for the DeLorean club magazine.

The Golden Couple

These two performing statues were attracting a fair crowd on Lister Gate yesterday, as they stood stock still, but only moved when someone put some money in their collecting hat. There was another performer further down who was painted silver, but not that many people seemed interested in him.

With Envious Eyes

For obvious reasons I tend not to take photos of children, but I couldn't resist this little boy looking sadly on at the ride at the Riverside Festival that he is too small and too young to go on.
My friend Imac went to the festival as well. Unfortunately not on the same day, as it would have been nice to have met up with him and his wife Julie again. Have a look at his page for further views of this yearly treat.

The White House

It's the Headbanger Challenge once again, and this week Dave joins us for the first time, as Darla is taking a sabbatical for personal reasons. So welcome to Dave and this week's theme of clouds. I took my shot tonight from the upstairs window, as believe it or not, I've not come across any interesting formations this week. I was planning to use today's photo of the River Trent looking towards West Bridgford, but as there was quite a good sunset tonight, I decided to use that instead.

Don't forget to visit all the gang's photos, to see what they have come up with.

Goin Back To My Roots

This is Levi Roots, one of the many contestants to appear on Dragons' Den. Their aim is to try and convince the millionaires on the show to back their fledgling businesses for a share of the profits. His product was Reggae Reggae Sauce. A spicy Caribbean cooking ingredient he developed from a secret family recipe. It was snapped up, and soon became available in one of the major supermarkets. We have a bottle in the cupboard, which I sometimes use to add a bit of flavour to a spag bol or similar dish.

It's A Balls Up

One interesting attraction of the Riverside Festival were these giant transparent plastic balls. Children crawled into them, they were then pumped up with air (the balls, not the children) and then set free into a large pool of water, where the kids would happily splash about for about 10 minutes, like aquatic dodgems.

Gail wanted to have a go, but unfortunately it was for children only.

Marmalade had a quiet word with me a couple of days ago. She wanted me to set up a blog site of her very own. So I've done one for her called Moments With Marmalade. Please pay a visit if you have time. You'll make a little ginger cat very happy.

On The Fiddle

This fiddle player was part of a Irish jig band that were keeping lots of the audience on their feet dancing. I don't know what they were called, as we were passing the stage as they were playing. They were rather good and even got my foot tapping, which is really saying something, as I'm no dancer.

Little White Riding Hood

Gail and I went to the Riverside Festival this afternoon. Besides the usual fairground attractions, food kiosks and side shows, this fox puppet was walking around and being cheeky to the passers by, as this young girl has just found out.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

I went past that science fiction/fantasy shop yesterday, to see if there was a new attraction in the window. Sulley was still there, but now he has some company in the form of Harrison Ford aka Indiana Jones. He's yours for a mere £1200. But I think it includes the golden figure. I'm not sure whether you can get a model of Ford's wife Calista (Ali McBeal) Flockart as well. But as she's only small and very thin, she shouldn't cost anymore than £300!

Where's The Seagulls?

Here's one of the attractions in the Old Market Square; the good old helter skelter, stalwart of many a Victorian seaside pier. It seems quite popular with kids and adults alike.

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Well the beach is open for business once again in the Old Market Square. Tons of sand, rides and attractions are there for people (especially the kids) to enjoy for the next six weeks. Since it opened last Wednesday, the sun seems to have stopped shining. In fact we've had rain today, so I've not really had a suitable opportunity of taking any good photos.

Wednesday is of course the usual Headbanger Challenge. This week's is Lanny's choice of 'weed or flower'. So I've been out with my camera snapping flowery weeds, or is that weedy flowers. Don't forget to pop over and see what the others have come up with.

Not A Mini MINI

Last Friday after work, I made a quick dash to Sytner's, our local Mini dealer, as they were launching the new MINI Countryman. It is the first ever official 4 door Mini. Gail quite fancies one, so I went to see if they had any publicity material. Unfortunately they didn't. Only a reproduction of a magazine article. So I took that and a small packet of M&M's, that they had in a bowl for prospective customers.

Here Be Dragons

During the after party show, Julian the producer and Dominic the director gave us all a demonstration of fire breathing. I was asked to take some photos of them doing it, as my G1 can do rapid shooting, and so wouldn't miss anything. Although there were several pauses, as the camera wrote the pictures on the memory card.
Everyone was asked if they wanted to have a go. A couple of the younger actors decided to take the plunge. I thought about it, but wasn't sure about having paraffin in my mouth and accidentally swallowing it. Maybe next time..

Running Amonk

Well, the show's over. And what a great success it was too. After three nights, and 600 audience members, everyone is very happy about how things went. Gail came last night and took loads of photos. We met up after the performance and she took some photos of me in my costume posing by the remains of the priory.

I am now up to date with my postings. So please have a trawl through the past few days, as you may have missed a photo or two.