An orange poppy

This is an absolutely beautiful picture of an orange poppy, taken a few days ago by my brother. I love the colours in this image, including both the poppy and its surroundings; my brother has recently been experimenting with some different settings on his camera, and this is among the results of his tests:

Pretty yellow flower

This flower is in our back garden. Currently, I do not know what plant it is from, but it is pretty and this is a good image (from the main camera):

More sky pictures

Some more blue and cloudy sky pictures from Sunday's walk. All images were taken with my phone:

I will have some more non-image posts up again soon. I have been busy recently, and have had time to only post pictures!

The non-existent slope

Another image from me today; this was meant to be a picture of the sky (there have been some great blue skies with clouds recently), but some of the landscape was in the sight of the camera on my phone, and as I was holding my phone at an angle, the land appears to be on a heavy slope:

I love how the power pylon is on the right of the picture appears to be heavily slanted. As the day was incredibly bright I could not see the display on my phone very well, so I merely pointed the camera in the direction of the clouds and pressed the button to take the picture.

Resting orange cat

The orange cat we frequently see around here was recently taking a break in a place that was not safe for it to rest at for too long! Even so, I took a nice picture of it slumped where it was comfortable for a quarter of an hour:

Have no worries, the orange cat moved! It became interested in a bird that decided to enter its territory (the bird got away, too).

Bushes and field

Something I took this afternoon (using my phone):

Blog anniversary

It was one year ago when, with the encouragement of my friend and fellow blogger Kimberly, I started my blog and made my first-ever post.

Back when I began I did not really expect to write anything more than a post a week, but with this being post 371 I have managed to create slightly over one per day! When it comes to my readership I have attained close to 5,000 views, with at least one view from over 75 different countries; in addition, I currently have seven official followers plus several other people who read the blog but are not bloggers themselves.

It has been a pleasant experience writing my blog over the past year, and I hope you have had as much fun reading as I have had writing. I also hope all of you who follow Air Nice-to-Livelands on a regular basis will continue to do so, and that I will pick up more readers before the second anniversary! Thank you!

A walk and a pond

A pond in my town has featured in two posts of mine. In the most recent post about the pond, I stated in the comments section that I hoped to get a picture of it in the spring with my main camera. Well, I took a walk yesterday and did exactly that:

Yes, it is covered in a significant amount of algae. Still, I wanted to get a photograph of the pond at this time of the year and now I have have done so (actually, I took four pictures of it).

Short Stories: The Missing Coat

During an afternoon, I prepared myself for a short trip out: I cleaned my teeth, changed my shirt, and ensured the shoes I would be wearing were my decent pair. I was almost ready when I went to reach for my coat; however, it was not in its usual place on the floor, so I looked in my wardrobe for it there instead. The coat was not put away in there, so I looked on top. Alas, it was not up there either! Where had my coat gone?

This was not just any coat...it was my favourite! I frantically began searching for it, but then I heard voices from downstairs demanding that I hurry up, as everyone else was ready to go and they did not want to be late. When the voices became angry I grabbed another coat of mine at random...one that turned out be be too short for me but was still better than not having a coat at all...then headed down before the complaints became excessive.

On the way to our destination my coat was the only concern I had in my thoughts. What had I done with it? Had it been put away in an effort to tidy the house? Had I forgotten it someplace, never to retrieve it? Had someone else taken it? Had it been accidentally put in the washer and shrunk so much it could not be seen anymore? I did not pay any attention to the places we drove past on our journey, being too preoccupied with the disappearance of my best coat.

Even during the time spent at our destination I was too distracted thinking about my coat to appreciate the event we were attending. I merely hid myself until it was time for us to leave, distressed to point where I did not want to be seen by anyone else or have to talk to them. It was a relief to be back in the car and returning home.

Upon arriving back at out house I rushed upstairs and turned my room upside down in a newly-energised search for my beloved coat. I emptied my wardrobe and cabinets of all their contents and even moved my bed in case the coat had somehow been trapped beneath or behind it. As before, the coat was nowhere to be found, and I came to the conclusion that it was lost forever.

I sat down on the floor and faced the door. The afternoon had been a real downer, and now the evening was going the same way. Not only was my favourite coat missing, but my room was now a mess! Granted, it was all my own fault; if I had just been more careful...wait. What is that behind the door...

...my coat! It had been in my room all along! I had hung it up on the doorknob on the inside of my room, but I had not noticed the coat earlier since the door had been open wide all day and I never thought to look behind the door until I just saw part of the coat peeking out.

My worrying over the past few hours had been unnecessary, but I felt relieved when I reached for my coat and put it on. Next time I shall be more observant, and better at remembering where I leave my belongings.

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This post was inspired by our recent trip to Cambridgeshire: before we left, I could not find the coat I usually wear when going out, and it was missing until it was found this morning in our garage. Most of the events in the above piece did not occur in real-life, and the parts that did were exaggerated for the sake of storytelling: in reality, while I was slightly annoyed that I could not find my coat, I was certainly not fussing over it the entire time we were out! In fact, I barely thought about it at all! If I ever did lose the coat for certain, I would be disappointed but I would not break down over it.

Cambridge picture or two (again)

Here are four pictures that I took yesterday during our trip to Cambridgeshire. I was indoors for most of the time out, as I was meeting up with some people; however, I did manage to get a few photographs while in the car. While I was at my event, Dad, Mum, and my brother all went to Littleport to see how much the place has changed since we moved from the town last July. All of these images were taken with my phone:

One of Cambridge's numerous spires, and this particular one belongs to the Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church. There was a bit of a traffic jam in this part of Cambridge as we left the city, but it meant the car was still enough for me to get a couple of good pictures of the building (despite the side mirror present in the picture, I was completely inside the car and my window was closed).

The same church, just from a different angle. I am pleased with how this image turned out.

A picture of a random park area during another time when our car was paused from the traffic. Unlike the region where aforementioned church is, I am not sure what the road the park is located on is called or where in Cambridge it is.

This was on the way back to Northamptonshire. It is blurry, as it was taken while our car was in motion at high speeds (well, 60-70mph). However, I like the contrast of the blurred, green plants in the foreground with the yellow of the flora in the field behind them.

As you can see, I did not take many pictures of the afternoon trip, but I hope the ones I did post were pleasing.

Cambridge picture or two

We went to Cambridgeshire for a couple of hours this afternoon. Tomorrow I will post a couple of pictures I took while we were in Cambridge itself, as well as give a little insight into why we were there.

Booker and Christie

I was fortunate to come across a parody video by Governor Chris Christie and Mayor Corey Booker, both of New Jersey and Booker of the state's city of Newark. Both politicians make fun of themselves in the piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHN0ZeS5c-4

I believe the video can be appreciated regardless of what political persuasion you are or what your opinions of either Booker or Christie happen to be. I think it is a good thing that the two of them can laugh at themselves, and their performance does seem natural to me rather than forced or uncomfortable.

Stuffed bird house

That active bird house from earlier this month? We are not exactly sure what has happened to it: we have not seen any birds in or near it for the past week, and what is even more bizarre is that the birds appear to have stuffed the house with items normally used for building a nest:

We doubt that there is a nest inside, otherwise we would have observed more activity around the house. In fact, we are not sure if any birds can get into the structure anymore (or at least Blue Tit-sized birds anyway, as they were the ones using it before).

Dennis Kucinich

Another politician I have respect for in the United States, Dennis Kucinich (Rep. D-OH), is now certain to leave the government when the 112th Congress expires: he announced yesterday that he will not be contesting an open House seat in Washington. In March, he competed with Marcy Kaptur for the Democratic nomination in Ohio's 9th congressional district, but he was unsuccessful.

I agree with him not seeking a seat in Washington, but I do have mixed emotions about his decision. On one hand, I was highly disappointed to see that his district was affected when Ohio lost two of its House seats and electoral votes as a result of the 2010 census. I have long admired Kucinich's strong anti-war views, his support for healthcare for every American, and his willingness to criticize people from both major parties: I think he is needed in Congress and that those aforementioned qualities need to be emphasized more.

At the same time, Washington is far away from Ohio, and Kucinich does not have any ties to the state; here in the United Kingdom, I do not support the practice of "parachuting" somebody into a seat far away from their residence, and so I would be a hypocrite to endorse it elsewhere. In addition, there was no guarantee that Kucinich would have won the primary anyway, and it would have been awful if his career in Congress had ended on him losing two primaries in two different states within the same year. Finally, if he had gone to Washington, he would likely have had an aura of "abandoning Ohio" surrounding him.

I loathe to lose a strong anti-war voice in the House, but again, I do believe that Kucinich made the correct decision by not attempting to run for a House seat in Washington. Over the past forty years, he has been involved in Ohio politics in some form or another: it is the state he comes from, and I am sure there is still more he can do for it.

Female blackbird and chick

I was very lucky to take these two pictures of a female blackbird and one of her chicks during their feeding time:

The mother is on the right (yes, she is a blackbird; female blackbirds are brown with yellowish spots), while the chick is on the left and appears to have a slug in its mouth. It was not sure what to do with its prey, so the mother fed the slug to the chick herself; in the following image the mother can be seen taking the slug:

It was a wonderful scene to watch. There was a second chick bouncing about, and it too was being fed, although I do not have any pictures of it receiving its meal. All three birds hopped into the bushes once they were finished in the grass.

All images were taken with my main camera, and were shot through a window.