MY TOWN SHOOT-OUTS

A TASTE OF OUR TOWN

I've taken a bit of a liberty with this prompt.  "Our Town" is Carlsbad, California.  Being so close to the border of Mexico, Mexican food is a priority.  We love it!

Being on the coast fish of many kinds is always important too.  My favorite is green thresher shark, or just plain old fish 'n' chips done in deep fried batter.

However we are ex-pats from 1960's and one of our favorite places has just moved from downtown Carlsbad,  to just 5 minutes away.  It is called "A Bit O' Britain".  Since they have moved, they have expanded to become a sort of tea shop.  As well as selling many British food products and gifts, they now serve scones and cream, shepherd's pie, pork pies, bangers and mash and my favorite...sausage rolls.

They have only been open at this new location for about 2 months so they are still stocking up. Because they are so popular, they run out very quickly. I took these photos a couple of weeks ago when my sister was visiting.

Ye olde telephone booth is on display.

I think that is me taking the photo, reflected in the window.

 Contemplating choices -- notice the chocolate flakes on display -- and the Marmite. Yummmm!

   Lots of gifts and food stuffs.

 The obligatory pot of tea and china cups no less!

 I loved these teaspoons with the teapot on the end.  I may get a couple of these for Christmas.

Tonight, since Barry had a large lunch, I asked him to pick up a couple of sausage rolls for me to have this evening.  Mmm!  Tasty treat in our Town!
Their website is www.bitobritain.com please click. 

So our taste of  Our Town definitely has a British flavor.

To see other presentations of  A taste of Our Town please click HERE

OH, WHAT A SURPRISE !

THE SAGA OF THE STRANGE FLOWER

Living in this new house (since March), it has been an adventure to see what would spring up and flower in our yard as the weeks and months have passed by. This one in particular has been a true mystery.

It didn't look too fascinating at first.  It was only about 3 feet high to begin with.  We had no idea what it was but we kept on faithfully watering it until it was about 6 feet tall.

Then these strange looking 'flowers' appeared:

There were two of them and they stayed looking like this for weeks.  The banana shaped things were actually more brown looking than in this photo.  But we thought that was all there was to this plant.  I tried to research it on the web but couldn't find anything.

Then...BOINGGGG...look what happened:

Now the second one has started to pop open.

All this has happened within the space of a couple of days.  I will take photos of its progress every day.  It looks like each one of those brown things is going to burst into bloom.

And we still have no idea what it is called!

H IS FOR....

ABC WEDNESDAY

H is FOR...

HEAT, and HUMIDITY
Here I am again, late as usual.  And I'm going to blame the heat and humidity.  I finally gave in and put the air conditioning on last night.

For almost two weeks now the weather man has been saying we were going to get rain and that the weather was cooling off.  So I kept thinking, I can handle one more day, after all we lived for 40 years without air conditioning and we lived literally only five minutes away from here.

So what has changed?  Well I am 40 years older and these periods of heat and humidity are actually longer than we have had in the past. So when it really became hard for me to think straight (yes, I was drinking plenty of water) and I needed to prepare for my Bible Study, I gave in and enjoyed the air conditioning.

HEALTHY
When my sister came to stay at the beginning of August she talked me into doing a LITTLE walking every day. Since then I have continued to walk 10 to 15 minutes each evening. (I have fibromyalgia, neuropathy and vertigo so I have to increase length and time slowly).  Some days I do more, yes even in the heat and humidity because it does cool down quite a bit in the evening.  The consequences are -- I have lost four pounds and I am moving around much better -- and  one day last week my vertigo (actually nystigma) just went away! Something clicked in my neck and it was gone!

HALLELUJAH!
,,,and I don't mean that in a flippant way.  It means "praise the Lord" and that's what I mean...first of all for the improvement I've just written about, but also because...our  HOUSE has been sold!  We closed escrow last week after 12 weeks on the market.  It is a HUGE relief especially for my HUSBAND who faithfully kept it looking good during that time and made  HUNDREDS of decisions regarding the sale and its details.

Sorry no pictures this week and perhaps too much personal information but I  HOPE  to have everything back to normal next week .

Please check out ABC Wednesday for some other really interesting and stimulating entries.  If you click HERE the link will take you there.

My thoughts on Assad

It has to be said....

There are some people in this world who are so evil, and who have committed such atrocities, that death is just not enough for them.......that's why we have hell.

God is Good and God is Love, but He is also Righteous.

MY TOWN SHOOT-OUTS

COLORFUL CARLSBAD

Jacaranda Trees to be found everywhere during May and June

Ice plant, simply vibrant with color, growing densely and compactly along side freeways, around Legoland and around homes

  Peacocks -- forty of them at the Leo Carrillo Ranch

This might be a lantana, but I've only been noticing it lately so have to find out its name, but it blooms most of the summer to the great joy of the bees.

Bougainvillea, blooms for many months and sometimes during the winter.

The photo I really should show you is the one of our beautiful flower fields, full of varieties and colors of Ranuculus, but I just can't find it among all my photos, yet I know it is there.  Just the result of my bad filing system, which has been a 'learn as you go' process from when I first started with computers.

This is my submission for week's My Town Shoot-outs.  To see more photos of towns all over the world please click HERE

CREATIVE TUESDAY -- SEPTEMBER

(For ABC WEDNESDAY please scroll down one post). 

For CREATIVE TUESDAY our prompt is September.

Phew!!!  I almost missed the deadline.  I'm the furthest west I think and for some reason I couldn't settle on what to draw.  I wanted to draw leaves, but I always draw leaves.  Since all my other ideas were too demanding and the days and hours were continuing to tick on by,  -- guess what?  -- I drew leaves.

I used water color, pencil, pen and Prisma color pencils.

I don't think I've finished with this piece yet.  I may add something more, but not for a while, I just have a lot of things going on right now. 

To see more interpretations of our theme please click 

HERE

G IS FOR....

G  IS FOR...

GOLDEN GLOW

This is the time of year that we get our beautiful sunsets.  Actually it is a month early, but everything else seems to be a month early.  I know everyone loves a sunset, so I couldn't miss the chance for submitting this one.

And here is another G,  just for Good measure:

G is for GIMLET

A very handy little tool used for boring holes, usually in wood.  This one belonged to my husband's great uncle who was a survivor of World War I.

This is my entry for ABC WEDNESDAY, ROUND 13. Please click HERE to see the other Great and Glorious entries from participants from all over the world.