Wavin’ Flag No More

Well it's over, and in a spectacular style, England crashed out of the World Cup to a far superior, younger German team. German youth flourished and English maturity tipped over into obsolescence. They pushed a whole crop of household names into permanent shadow.

It only took the first few minutes to realise that Germany were so much better than the England team. After Klose scored in the 20th minute and minutes later Podolski, England had to do the chasing. The Germans had outclassed and out played England with some superbly slick football. And to be honest, it could have been more, 5-1 or perhaps 6-1.

Lampard had a goal clearly disallowed meaning that we went in at half time 2-1 down. Would it have mattered?  Even if the midfielder’s shot had stood, England cannot escape the brutal reality that Germany were superior in every department

The English didn’t have it in them to beat Germany. They just didn’t do enough. I can't quite believe that Rooney, Terry, Lampard, Gerard and the rest of Capello's side played badly when it mattered most. As the final whistle went and the shadows stretched across Bloemfontein, England began another retreat from another World Cup and the years of hurt stretched to 44. Ouch…

We need to go somewhere, anywhere to drown our sorrows. And Sunday was supposed to be the warmest day so far in the year. What a waste to be indoors watching a shambolic game. What better place to go than our favourite playground.

Along the route, we only passed one car that had the St. George’s flag. I bet the rest had been quickly stripped off. I guess most of us would paint the red cross white. We had surrendered!!!. I’ve also taken my flags down. The football tee will be washed and stored with my flags, for the next game, maybe. And where’s that Mars bar which was emblazoned with the flag? It’s time to have some chocolate.

When we arrived at Brandon Marsh, we met the other members who’d the same idea. No one wants to talk about what happened at 3pm. We met Andy and Kay and had a nice long natter. We promised to come over for dinner, honest :-).

We checked out the pond and saw another frog.  Yipee, this is the 2nd time we saw this adorable amphibian. It was very soothing to see him lazily crawling and swimming about, soaking the evening sun.

We walked towards the forest and was greeted by a family of wrens. They were making soo much noise that it was impossible not to see them. We’d a good laugh when this Red Admiral  was trying to land on Babe’s shiny head. She must have mistook him as a flower!!!

We checked out Steely Hide but nobody was home. We could see that the river was getting quite shallow. At Baldwin Hide, everyone was talking about the Hobby which kept them entertained with his aerial displays.  We missed them but today Babe was able to get this smashing shot. Isn’t he just spectacular?

We saw the terns still sitting on their eggs. A pair of lapwing chicks, Little Red Plovers and a redshank were feeding on the mudbanks. At the far end of the lake, I counted 10 herons (!!!) keeping a beady eyes on things. As we were walking out, we spotted this Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum) enjoying the evening heat.

I’m glad we went out to get some fresh air. Babe was poorly the whole of Saturday and the walk did help. I then spent the evening watching Argentina disposed of Mexico to seal a quarter-final tie against Germany. That should be a good one.

Today, I took the morning off to attend a digital photography workshop organised by the University’s IT services. The facilitator, BR, was a once a lecturer from one of the local colleges and now works as a professional photographer. He was good and knows what he was talking about.

From the start, I felt that this workshop was more about image manipulation using different post production editing tools and I was right. Of course, we were introduced to the Rule of Thirds, triangles and curves.

Then each of us were given a compact digital camera and we ventured into the lovely sunny weather to practice  what we learnt. I did mentioned to BR that he should have asked us to bring our own cameras which we are familiar with. We really enjoyed the outdoor session.

Back inside, we downloaded the digital images into the computer. We, then, discussed and criticised each other’s image composition and exposure with constructive feedback provided by the facilitator. For me, Babe does everything. All I did was press the shutter and he does the rest. But, at least I knew what was going on.

It was an interesting session and BR said that an advanced session was in the pipeline. I’ll keep an eye on that one. Then it was a lovely walk back in the sunshine to the office.

As I walked past the University House, I came across fairground rides, a bouncy castle, marquees, a bandstand and a beer tent. Huh..am I in the right place? Oh yes, the inaugural Summer Party for the students will be on tomorrow. Have fun guys, stay safe.

June will be gone in a few days. Time flies…

"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June."
~L. M. Montgomery (1874-1942)~