Full and double

With the return of the rain, the double rainbows make a comeback, with the added benefit of a double full rainbow:

These two weren't as bright as the double rainbow we saw a couple of weeks ago, but in my opinion, a full rainbow is equally as impressive as a shining half-bow.

Bread crusts

In a radio advert I heard recently, its primary voice actor said something about "not throwing their bread crusts away". While it was obviously said humorously within the context of the advert (I don't remember what the advert was about, but that is immaterial to the purposes of this post), it did get me thinking: why do people often throw the crusts of bread away?

The crust is not any less edible, less tasty, or even less healthy (as far as I'm aware) than the rest of the loaf, yet a significant amount of people seem to not bother eating it. I performed a Google search and it brought up some discussions on the subject of throwing away bread crusts, and among the reasons for not eating the crusts were that they're dry, likely to fall apart, pure dislike of the end pieces, and even because the crusts "are not a symbol of wealth".

None of the above rationales are convincing to me. Too dry? They can be toasted. Fall apart? Doesn't make them inedible. Merely dislike them because they're the ends? Same. Not a symbol of wealth? Neither is soup but plenty of people eat that. When there are millions of people starving in the world I think these are fairly poor reasons to not eat something as simple as bread crusts. Even feeding the crusts to birds or ducks is a better choice than throwing them away, in my opinion.

As for me, I eat the crusts as they are still a part of the bread even if they are the end pieces. There are plenty of options for them: for some examples they are nice with jam spread on top, used for cheese on toast, peanut butter is a good choice; and yes, I will also eat them without any sort of topping. Crusts are good: utilise them! Be creative!

How about you? Do you eat bread crusts?

The Whitehouse

This made me smile the other day:

I know it's "The Whitehouse" rather than "The White House", but still, minor things such as this always make my day.

Roses on the fence

These roses are growing next to one of our fences:

Here's a zoomed-in look at them:

Considering the fence is a minimum of eight feet in height, these flowers are from the tallest rose plant I've ever encountered. While I was able to take some decent zoomed shots of the roses, it would have been great to have seen this bunch up even closer! (They are inaccessible from the other side.)

Here come the Olympics

Well, here come the Olympics; the opening ceremony will be starting shortly. It's hard to believe that it's been one year since I wrote this post about the Olympics beginning in a year's time. I agree with what I said back then in that I hope the 2012 London Olympics will be a success and that there will not be too many problems.

"Fireflies" - Owl City

I know this is another Owl City post, but last night I watched the newly-released video for "Good Time" by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen. After I watched it I realized that I had not yet seen the video for "Fireflies", Owl City's biggest hit to date:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4

When this song was hit back in 2009 I remember the video being praised on the Open House Party; every time I listen to "Fireflies" the track brings back a lot of memories of that year. "Vanilla Twilight" has a similar effect (I watched that video for the first time ever last night, too). Both are incredible songs and have imaginative videos.

Owl City's third album, The Midsummer Station, is scheduled for release on the 20th of August in the United Kingdom and the 21st of August worldwide.

Window screens

While I am pleased to have sunny weather again, there is one thing I wish our house...and others, had in the absence of air conditioning: window screens.

Before we moved back to the United Kingdom I knew that summer here would probably be more uncomfortable at times as the vast majority of houses do not have air conditioning. I didn't expect for the windows to not have any sort of screens in them to protect against insects coming inside: there are few things worse than it being a hot day, you're in a hot room, there is a breeze outside, but the room's windows open out onto bushes where bumblebees and wasps like to hang out.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one with this view: my parents and brother agree that the windows should have screens in them, as does one of my cousins. My cousin is often hot at night in summer but if he opens his window the neighbourhood cats enter his room and disturb him.

Not that I want to moan about the weather here...after all, we've had rain for nearly the entire summer so far! It would just be good if more houses here had screens in their windows.

Final answer to the "Who's On Heart" competition

It took six months, thirteen days, 914 rounds of the game, and 1263 unique incorrect guesses, but finally, the remaining voice to the "Who's On Heart" competition was identified (past posts here and here). The person? Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.

I was shocked twice this morning, the first occasion being to discover that the competition was over, and the second was learning that the last voice, the person saying "on", was Al Gore. After subsequently hearing "on" a couple more times and listening to it in context with the rest of the spoken sentence I could tell that the voice was Gore, although he was not someone I had ever considered for the voice. Kevin Taylor was the person to correctly guess Gore and he has won an impressive £60,000 with his answer.

As far as I'm concerned, I am satisfied with the competition: Tina Turner, Al Gore, and Joely Richardson are a diverse trio and I think they were a well-chosen group. Not everyone agrees, unfortunately, as I have read trolling comments in regards to Gore being one of the three (some people saying that he's not a celebrity to a few others whining about the person being an American politician rather than a British one), but most people don't seem to have a problem and are glad the competition is now over.

The three voices, both the individual words and the sentences they were used in, can be found on the Heart website: here's the link for Tina Turner, for Al Gore, and for Joely Richardson.

Red and pink

The weather has been absolutely lovely today; in the afternoon I took the time to capture the following images of some roses in our front yard:

This red rose is impressive to view in person but it looks just as magnificent in an image.

A beautiful pink rose; it's great to have different coloured roses growing in such a small garden.

The pink and red roses together, with the focus being on the pink one. From where the two roses are positioned it is not possible to have them both in focus within a single picture.

Hot air balloon

It was a surprise to see this hot air balloon yesterday evening; it appeared to be landing in a field near our neighbourhood:

It has been a very long time since I last saw watched a hot air balloon land...I certainly didn't expect to see one from my bedroom window!

Colby O'Donis

There was something I didn't write about in yesterday's post about Lady Gaga, primarily because it was irrelevant to her and her overall career, but I feel it bears a mention. I'll introduce it in the form of a question: what happened to Colby O'Donis?

As I said in my previous post, Colby O'Donis was featured in "Just Dance" four years ago, and a few months prior to his work with Lady Gaga becoming a major hit he had released his own successful song called "What You Got", and his track featured Akon. He subsequently vanished until Akon's single, "Beautiful" featuring Kardinal Offishall and O'Donis, was released in January of 2009.

Ever since "Beautiful" left the charts I have not heard anything more about O'Donis, and I don't recall ever hearing "What You Got" on the radio again, either. I have looked to see if he is releasing any new music, but at present there is nothing. It's ironic...myself and others were concerned about Lady Gaga being a one-hit wonder that we didn't stop to consider that the person she featured in her very first single would be the one who would disappear from the scene!

I hope that O'Donis is finding success in whatever path he chose to take. I remember "What You Got" very well, and it would be good for him to return to the spotlight.

Four years of Gaga

Around this time four years ago a particular song started playing on my radio. The track sounded unusual, and was very different to both all the other music that I had heard on the radio that year and to almost everything I had ever heard on the radio overall. It was a dance-pop/electropop song...highly suitable for clubs but unlikely to perform well on the major American music charts. I found myself loving the song and knew to appreciate it while it lasted, so I took the time to research it online and find out about the artist who sang and composed it.

Which song was it? "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga and featuring Colby O'Donis. O'Donis I already knew about from a track he released earlier in 2008 with Akon called "What You Got", but Lady Gaga was an entirely new person. Although "Just Dance" had been released three months prior in April, in July there was still a dearth of information about Lady Gaga, in which the most common pieces about her were that she was from New York City and had worked with Lady Starlight.

"Just Dance" quickly proved to be an incredibly popular and catchy song, and before long Lady Gaga became known throughout the United States. Her debut album, The Fame, was released in August; by this time, Lady Gaga was well on her way to establishing herself in the music business.

Unfortunately, in the late summer of 2008 there were several people (including me, I have to admit, although I wasn't on the radio to discuss my feelings on the subject) who expected Lady Gaga to be a one-hit wonder and to vanish from the scene a year later. This wasn't because of any particular problem with her, but rather, because her style of music had not exactly been having major chart success in the United States for the years up to "Just Dance" (I even recall one radio presenter pointing this out), so there were thoughts floating about that she'd be a mere flash in the pan...at best. Still, I had hoped that she would have a couple of successful singles, at the very least.

Lady Gaga's subsequent achievements shattered both my and others expectations of her. "Poker Face" was released in the United States in September, at which time "Just Dance" became an international hit. In early 2009, "Poker Face" performed strongly on various charts; then three more singles from The Fame, "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)", "Love Game", and "Paparazzi", were released.

In the latter half of 2009, Lady Gaga released The Fame Monster...an EP and her second major release; the first single was "Bad Romance", which was followed by "Telephone" featuring Beyoncé Knowles, "Alejandro" and "Dance in the Dark". The Fame Monster and its singles were successful worldwide; Lady Gaga was clearly a household name by the time her official second studio album, Born This Way, was announced for release. As The Fame and The Fame Monster are often considered to be part of one album, the subsequent massive success of Born This Way and its singles ensured that Lady Gaga would not be limited to being a one-album wonder.

Gaga has also been honorable by using her status to promote worthwhile causes. Her second album's lead single, "Born This Way, is about self-empowerment and self-respect, and her two major areas of activism have been LGBT rights and anti-bullying. She was an influential and powerful campaigner in having "Don't ask, don't tell", a law barring open gays and lesbians from serving in the US military, repealed (DADT was overturned in December 2010); she has also spoken various equality marches in the United States and Europe. Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, formed the Born This Way Foundation, an organization focused on addressing the problems young people face - such as bullying and intolerance, and on wanting to build a kinder, more accepting world as a whole. I have deep respect for people who use their fame to help others, and Lady Gaga qualifies as one of those people.

I also respect Lady Gaga for the way she treats her fanbase and how much appreciation she seems to have for it: she truly appears to love those who consider themselves her fans (the "Mother Monster" and "Little Monsters" terms she invented to describe the relationship between herself and her fans tickles me). I dislike famous individuals who treat their fans with disdain, who have forgotten that it is because of their audience that they were successful in the first place. Lady Gaga doesn't strike me as that type of person.

Lady Gaga appears to be everywhere nowadays in terms of media coverage: on average, I observe Lady Gaga in the news about once a day, but fortunately, unlike a lot of other celebrities who are often in the news frequently for poor reasons, Lady Gaga's coverage is mostly positive or neutral towards her. Putting aside odd instances such as the meat dress, as I implied in the previous paragraph she seems as though she is a really genuine, wonderful, and caring person...not at all somebody deserving of negative or outright hateful opinions and thoughts.

Lady Gaga has come a long way from the era of working with Lady Starlight (who, to her credit, was a huge boost to Lady Gaga's career), and the days of "Just Dance": I am glad she has turned out to be an enduring artist, I wish her continued success with her music and her activism, and I am looking forward to her third studio album. Taking everything into consideration, I think the world is a better place with Lady Gaga around.

The purple poppy

For today's post, more back garden flower pictures; these are of a purple poppy:

I do have a few more flower-related posts coming up at some stage, but I hope to have more content involving writing very soon!

Cat mayor

I was amused and impressed to read about the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska. He was elected to the position fifteen years ago when a write-in campaign was mounted for him; he defeated the main candidates, with the people of Talkeetna being fed up with the usual types running. His victory is all the more impressive considering the fact he is a cat.

Stubbs has spent nearly all of his life as the Mayor of Talkeetna. Unfortunately his title is only honorary, owing to his non-human status, but the people of Talkeetna are happy with this and have continued to re-elect Stubbs since his initial election to the mayoralty. He is highly popular in the town and has turned out to be a great tourist attraction for the place; even better, he seems to love all the residents of Talkeetna, regardless of who they are.

Perhaps it's time to start electing more cats as mayors. Could you imagine New York City or London having a cat each as their mayors?

My main camera and irony

For once, I thought I would post a picture of the piece of equipment I use to take high-quality images. This is my main camera, a Canon PowerShot S2 IS:

The irony here? That would be this image not being high in quality, as it was taken with my phone. Unfortunately, I don't own two powerful cameras!

July Nottingham visit (2)

In two of my early posts I wrote about Holme Pierrepont, a water sports centre and man-made lake in Nottinghamshire. When we went up to Nottingham yesterday my father, my uncle, my brother, and I paid the area a visit. Here are a few images (all taken with my phone):

This is the main ski area. The skis are not independent, rather, they guided by the lines above the water. Occasionally someone will lose control and fall in the water, but there aren't any collisions or injuries.

A view looking down the main water body as rowers prepare to race. There was a rowing event on yesterday at Holme Pierrepont, and some areas of the facility were blocked off.

Some of the rowing during the race. Notice the swan hiding its head in the water!

A random shot looking across the main lake; I wanted to get a picture that had as few boats as possible obstructing the view of the water. With the exception of the boat in the top-right of the picture, I think this turned out as I wanted.

We had a pleasant walk around the park, even though it was the busiest we had ever seen it. This contrasts with our last visit there in December 2010, when we went during the morning on an incredibly cold day (the water was frozen) and the place was empty apart from us.

July Nottingham visit

We spent the day up at my grandparents' house, although this trip was different from the recent ones, as we were there to see one of our uncles. My brother and I have an uncle who lives in Hong Kong, and until today it had been over a year since we last saw him. I have a few images from the afternoon...I'll upload them tomorrow!

"Where My Heart Will Take Me" - Russell Watson

The song "Where My Heart Will Take Me", performed by Russell Watson and written by Diane Warren, was used as the theme song for Star Trek: Enterprise. Of all the Star Trek TV show themes it was the only one to have any lyrics, and unfortunately there were a significant amount of Star Trek fans who despised it as a result (it should be noted that ST: Enterprise was the first ST series since the original 1960s show to be canceled); I presume that there are a lot of people who think that "Star Trek" and "singing" do not go together. In not being a hardcore, Star Trek purist, I have no problem with the song ever being a theme and I even like the track.

Here is a link to the extended version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0azMOJ-h_o

Interestingly enough, "Where My Heart Will Take Me" is a reworked version of "Faith of the Heart" by Rod Stewart, and of course, written by Diane Warren. It was used for the film Patch Adams. Here's a link to Stewart's original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1sYjDc8i4I

I was unaware that "Where My Heart Will Take Me" had originally been sung by Stewart until I looked Watson's cover up for the purpose of this post. I like both versions equally.

More pink petals

Just a couple of pictures for today's post. These are of a couple of flowers in our back garden; I have to admit that it has been delightful to have such a variety of flowers in such a small yard:

Bright and faint

Captured this image of two rainbows last night. Can you spot the second rainbow?

The return of KIFS (107.5 Kiss FM)

Several months ago I wrote about the radio station we listened to in Southern Oregon, KIFS (107.5 Kiss FM). This past weekend I visited the Kiss-FM website to test the online streaming service, and for the first time ever it worked for me (I did this every few months, as it had never worked until now but I checked occasionally anyway). I was delighted as I listened to Kiss-FM for the first time in over two years.

While I was pleased, as I listened to Kiss-FM over a few days I noticed several changes to the station. For one thing, both Hollywood Hamilton's Weekend Top 30 and the Open House Party (both the the Saturday and Sunday versions) were gone, and I think the Party Playhouse is as well...although by the time that would start playing it would be 2:00am here. The adverts no longer appear to be local, but I think this might be because I was listening to it online rather than locally.

On the other hand, the presenters Gemineye, Kristina with a K, and DJ Hope are all still around, as is the Back in the Day Café and Dawson McAllister Live. Still, the feeling I experience while listening to the station again is as though I am visiting an old neighborhood: the place looks the same, but most of the people I knew have moved away. I know it's just a radio station, but after you've listened to something for such an extended period of time you do develop an attachment to it!

Perhaps what was most shocking is how similar the music is at the moment over here and in the United States: while listening to Kiss-FM I heard artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen, Gotye, Calvin Harris, Maroon 5, Fun, Rihanna, Flo Rida, Rita Ora, Nicki Minaj...all of whom I hear every day on the radio here. Only a few songs were different, but overall the playlists were surprisingly identical.

I mainly listen to Kiss-FM while it's the late evening here...(10:00pm here to 2:00pm there) so I can hear the afternoon presenter (Kristina with a K) rather than the middle of the night music. My primary station will still be The Hits Radio and Heart Northamptonshire, certainly, but it's good have the old station back, despite the changes it has undergone...and it being eight hours behind.

Cheese and peanut butter on toast

One of my favourite lunchtime meals is cheese on toast. You take two slices of bread, put them in the oven, and toast one side of them both; then, you flip them over, place cheese slices on the untoasted sides, return them to the oven, let the cheese melt, and voila! You have cheese on toast.

I recently had some peanut butter to use up and it gave me an idea. During one lunch I performed all of the above steps, with a single change: after I flipped my two slices of bread over I spread chunky peanut butter on them and then I placed the cheese on top. As per usual, the cheese melted once the meal was placed back in the oven, and it had melted all over the peanut butter.

I had then created a delicious meal of melted cheese on top of peanut butter on toast. It turned out to be tastier than I had expected (I had even considered that it could have been disgusting), and I have had the dish again a few times since. I have even added various seasonings to it, such as steak, chicken, barbecue, and fish, all of which have been a delightful addition to the meal. The only problem occurs if you use smooth peanut butter, as it can be runny when heated up and the cheese can slide off.

If you like cheese and peanut butter, I recommend this meal to you.

Last of the hosepipe bans

It looks as though the last of the hosepipe bans have been lifted, given the continued rainfall all over the United Kingdom. They had been expected to last all summer, but that has been prevented; now, parts of the country have flooded while others are at risk of flooding.

There are warnings that the bans could be re-implemented if there is a third dry winter in a row. However, summer is still far from over and at present the rain has not showed much sign of wanting to slow down: for the most part, the forecast for the next week has been saying that we will receive even more rain.

Magpies on a roof

I was messing around with the zoom on my main camera earlier and took this picture of four magpies on a nearby roof:

They were all in a line until a fifth magpie flew in to disrupt them, then flew off as these four messed around. None of the magpies are on the roof now.

Using contractions

You may have noticed that I do not use contractions in my blog. When I began Air Nice-to-Livelands I was using them in my writing here, but then I decided to stop as a method of improving the quality of the content.

In recent weeks I have been coming to the conclusion that the lack of contractions is actually removing some of the "emotion" from my posts and is giving me more of a robotic tone, rather than a friendly one. Perhaps I am just reading too much into it, but I am increasingly finding the lack of contractions frustrating. In formal writing contractions are often dropped in favour of complete words, but while I strive to use the best writing possible for my blog it is not meant to be formal.

I am asking you, my readers, what you would prefer: do you think returning to contractions would be an improvement, or are you happy with the blog as is? I am asking you because you likely interpret the blog in a different manner than I do, and you are, after all, my fans: I am grateful for your input!

Questions from "World Turn'd Upside Down"

A couple of days ago my friend Stephanie posted a list of questions on her blog, World Turn'd Upside Down, as a way for her readers to learn a bit about each other. I commented over there saying that I would be glad to do the list; here are my answers:

1. Websites, blogs and social media can skew our lives and make us look hyper-focused on one aspect of your life. What are some interests/hobbies/etc. that you have that you think your readers/friends might not know about?
I proofread/copyedit the writings of other people (I admit it is easier to proofread and copyedit the works of others than my own!), as that is what I am working on career-wise. I love following politics, mainly in the US and UK but sometimes in other countries, too; and while I am not a sports fan, I do not mind occasionally following Wimbledon (as I am at the moment) or the Olympics. I also love meeting with people in person!

2. What have blogs/the Internet introduced you to that you never knew about before?
I have spent my entire life in the United States and the United Kingdom, and have barely ventured beyond those two countries; as such, I have not really experienced what people are like in other places. However, from interacting with different people on the Internet I have learnt that people are similar the world over: the average American wants to live the best life possible, as does the average Brazilian and the average Chinese person (while I would have preferred to have met these people in person, at least I have some insight into them). Labeling people you have never met as "enemies" serves no good purpose whatsoever.

3. What are your top 10 most visited websites?
Google sites (while there are several, I am counting them as one), Yahoo! sites, Wikipedia, BBC News, various dictionary sites, Politico, and The Huffington Post (not ten examples, I know). Beyond them, there are probably dozens more that I use for research, although they are more spread out in how much I visit them and therefore do not qualify among my "most visited".

4. What is your favorite/most bizarre/interesting fact about something in history?
Apparently, when Richard Nixon was courting his future wife, Pat Ryan, he loved her so deeply that he would take her to her dates with other men (sources here and here) merely to spend some time with her. Disregarding his problems as president, I think this shows a little-known, positive side to the man. I consider this to be my favorite historical fact.

5. If you could wake up tomorrow and have acquired a new skill in your sleep, what would it be and why?
The ability to play the piano: I currently do not play any type of musical instrument, and I have heard that the piano is amongst the most difficult to master.

6. If you could spend 1 year in a different time period, which would you choose and why?
The United States in 1977, for no other reason than to experience living under one of my favorite US presidents, Jimmy Carter.

7. What are your Internet pet-peeves?
Harassment issues aside, I would say my biggest annoyances on the Internet are when some people post uninformed comments on news articles, post off-topic trolling comments to light-hearted pieces, or "debate" by insulting other people rather than coming up with a reasonable argument to support their view(s).

8.  What is your newest hobby/interest? Tell us a little about it.
Related to answer #1, exploring the website lang-8.com: it has been a worthwhile experience to increase my proofreading/copyediting skills by correcting the writings of people who are not native English speakers. It has also been something new to do while the weather has been incredibly wet recently!

9. If you could invite 3 deceased people to dinner who would it be and what would you talk to them about?
The aforementioned Nixon would be one and I would talk to him about his courting of and love for Pat. Another would be Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh politician who was the driving force behind the establishment of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom; I would be interested in his thoughts on the NHS when it was implemented and on its current state. The third would be my great-grandfather (the father of my Dad's mother), as he was the only one of my great-grandparents alive at the time of my birth and I hardly knew him.

10. If you had to play a character in a movie, who would you play and why?
This may not be very original, but I choose Marty McFly from all the Back to the Future films. I find time travel fascinating, and McFly did go on some exciting adventures! I have always loved the third part, where he went back in time to the Wild West.

This has been an interesting set of questions to answer. Thank you, Stephanie!

"Good Time" - Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen

Back in 2009, I thought that "Fireflies" by Owl City was an excellent song. Here in 2012, I think that "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen is an excellent song. Now put the two artists together and we get this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oBU7d5oenQ

"Good Time", which is an awesome song, in my opinion. Back when my brother and I first heard Jepsen we thought she would be great in a song by Owl City, and as such we are delighted that they have done a track together. "Good Time" is a perfect summer song!

July 4th, 2012

Wishing everybody, in particular my US readers, a happy Independence Day; as of today, the United States has been in existence for 236 years.

I hope those of you who have celebrations planned will have a good time; unfortunately, I have had a bad cough both all day and for this past week. My family seems to be dealing with two colds at the moment (my mother and I have one that I picked up, and Dad and my brother have one that Dad caught), so it is not exactly fun here at the moment.

It would be nice if we get a firework display akin to the surprise one we saw in Littleport last year. That would certainly improve the day!

Happy Independence Day, or even just happy Fourth...whichever you prefer!

Peony

This flower in our back garden is apparently called a peony. A few days ago I was able to capture this image of its beautiful pink petals:

There has been a significant amount of rain since then, and I doubt the flower now looks as magnificent as it did at the time I took the picture.

Carnival treats

A couple of images of the food I bought at the recent carnival:

My ice cream, a Magnum Ecuador Dark. It consists of vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate on a stick; I have had Magnum ice creams before, and they have a really good flavour. Sorry about the grass being in focus rather than the ice cream...I wanted to get a picture of the treat but had to do it quickly before it started melting!

I purchased these from the candy stand. From left to right they are: gummy worms (although they were not called that, they had some other name), flying saucers, and toffee honeycomb. The worms were merely a larger version of the bags of gummy worms that you can buy. The flying saucers were an odd type of candy, consisting of a "papery" saucer shell with a sour, sugary substance in the middle; at first it tastes as though you are biting into a piece of cardboard, but you soon get used to it and it tastes nice. The honeycomb toffee is self-explanatory: it is a crunchy, highly sweet and sticky toffee; one of my cousins introduced me to honeycomb toffee last year.

I paid about £5 for the lot, much cheaper than I was anticipating considering that food at such events is normally very expensive. My brother purchased some marshmallows and a bar of nougat, which would have amounted to about £2.50 in price.

Local carnival pictures

Some images from yesterday's carnival:

These were the main carnival grounds; during this picture the place was mostly empty, as it would not open until the parade had travelled through the middle of our town. The entry fee to the carnival was £1 per adult.

The carnival began with a parade through the town: this is the parade's pirate truck; that object hanging from the top of the central pole is a toy monkey. The two kids on the far left were fascinated by the toy sword and shield props they had for their role in the parade!

The Ancient Greece truck, likely a reference to the upcoming Olympics here in the United Kingdom.

This is the "bumblebee" truck; at least that is what I called it anyway, I do not know its actual title!

The royalty even showed up for the parade! Maybe not...in was a guy in a Prince Philip mask

A shot taken from near the middle of the festival grounds: it looks over towards some of the food stands and the bouncy castles.

A shot looking towards the western side of the grounds, where the stage was located. The award ceremony for the parade took place there.

People lining up for the candy and hot/cold food stands; I purchased some candies a little later on, as well as got an ice cream from one of the vans.

This last image was done by my brother; he remained at the carnival when I returned home, but I left him with my camera. According to him, some of the events that took place during the remaining time included some dance troupes performing, an owl display, and a raffle draw; the part he found most amusing, however, was when Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" came onto the music system, as all the young people were singing along to it while the adults looked on!

It was well worth going to the carnival, my only regret was going home as early as I did when clearly should have stayed longer. With any luck the carnival will take place again next year.