New Friends.

 A few weeks ago, Andrea found this lost sheep on her way home.  Somebody had dropped him on the floor face down and he was quite traumatized.  He's been settling in very well though, sitting on the bed with all the Bed Bear Gang.  He says his name is Stinky Baa and he's stuff with Lavendar and he's smelly.

Then yesterday, Andrea was given a present from her Mum who'd been to India recently.  His name is Lemmie!  He says he can see in the dark and he gets grumpy sometimes.  That's OK, Andrea's like that most mornings.....

Marbling with nail polish!!!

 Yesterday Andrea was given some left over nail polish by somebody at work and tonight when she got home, we had a go at marbling with it!!!  We got a big plastic tub and part-filled it with water and then dripped some of the nail varnish into it, swished it about a bit and then placed some card on top...... these are the results!!!

Even the "collecting the remnant bits of polish" ones worked!!!

Movie Review - "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"

Movie review number 36

PLOT

This movie starts with three Klingon Warbirds intercepting a Very Large Cloud Thing  (VLCT) in space and trying to destroy it.  Their photon torpedoes have no effect, and disappear into the VLCT and then the Klingons get attacked and consumed by the VLCT.
Meanwhile on planet Vulcan, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is undergoing the Kohlinahr ceremony as he had reputedly achieved total logic.  However at the last moment, he stops proceedings as his mind has contacted the VLCT and he then knows his destiny lies elsewhere.  The ceremony ends.

Back on Earth Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) is on his way to see the Big Chief to get himself in charge of the Starship Enterprise which is currently in spacedock undergoing an upgrade.  Scotty the Engineer (James Doohan) drives him to the ship in a little shuttlepod gizmo, and the Captain eventually finds his way to the Bridge to meet the rest of the crew.  From there, he goes to Engineering to speak to Captain Will Decker (Stephen Collins) to tell him that he's not in charge any more, because Kirk's taken over because he's heard about the VLCT and wants to catch it. Decker is a bit pissed off but can't do anything to prevent it.  They later learn of a Space Station which has now being intercepted by the VLCT and the crew of the Enterprise witness the Space Station's destruction, and then depart to intercept..... but not before the arrival of the last crew member to step onboard ship - Deltan Ilya (Persis Khambatta - since sadly died) who had previously had a failed relationship with Decker.
On the way to the VLCT, another space shuttle gizmo arrives at the ship and asks for docking permission.  The shuttle contains Spock, direct from Vulcan...... who then joins the crew as Science Officer for the remainder of the trip.
They then encounter the VLCT which sends them a message....... and when that's not replied to, it starts photon torpedoeing the ship!!!  The Enterprise then works out the message is in binary and sends a friendly reply....... and a while later, they get a plasma probe on board the ship which starts downloading all the information from the computers!!!  Spock smashes a computer console to stop the probe and gets a few nasty electric shocks in response.  Then Ilya gets a bunch of electric shocks...... and then suddenly disappears as does the plasma probe!!!  OH NOOO!!!
Then the intruder alert goes off on deck five, and Kirk & Spock rush down to find out what's going on.  They find Ilya in the shower in her old cabin...... except it isn't Ilya!!!  It's a mechanised computer probe version of Ilya to interact easier with the Carbon Infestation on the ship whilst collecting information prior to the Carbon Infestation being reduced to data information units.  Decker is told to show the Ilya probe around the ship to assist in collecting information.  In the meantime, the ship is tractor beamed inside the VLCT and continues on their way back to earth.
On arrival in Earth Orbit, Ilya then states that the VLCT is actually called Vger and has arrived to join with the Creator, and eliminate the Carbon Infestation on Earth.  Vger has sent a message to the Creator which is not answered (the Creator doesn't use the same speech patterns!) so Vger sends plasma bombs into Earths orbit - and Kirk says he knows why the Creator hasn't answered!!!!  But Kirk won't tell Ilya the answer until the plasma bombs have been removed, and THEN insists on tell Vger directly instead of Ilya!!!
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker and Ilya then go to the centre of the Vger cloud..... and discover it's actually the Voyager 6 probe sent from Earth by NASA 300 years previously to collect all information in the Universe and then return to transmit the information to The Creator..... which was the Carbon Infestation on Earth..... and the message was sent to the Creator by radiowaves which are no longer in use!!!
The very end of the movie shows .......... I'm not going to tell you but the Earth doesn't get blown to pieces!!!

RECOMMENDED
Yes..... not the strongest of Star Trek movies, but a good yarn nevertheless.

SCORE
6 squeaks out of 10

SCOOBY SNACKS
Neon green lime jelly with sprinkles on top.

Sky Spam

Picture of my dirty window taken at about 7 o'clock this morning!!!

(I really must clean them you know.....!)

Complete non-UK drain cover collection!

The pineapple one was found in Florida by Ryan!

 The Aero bubble one above is Canadian and so is the froggy one underneath!!

Alexander MacKenzie Bear found this one in Vancouver, Canada!!

 The one above and the one below were both found in Quebec, Canada by my mate Mim!!!  (But there's still a few pictures from France that are AWOL - still looking for those!)

 The one above and the following six were found in Paris in May 2014

Sullivan found this one above in Normandy!

 Well, some of my drain cover pictures have gone missing but I'm still trying to find them on Google Images.  Meanwhile, Hammie found three more in Brittany for me!!! (Above and next two)

And then found these three in Lauwersoog Holland!  (above and next two!)

 The ones above and below were found in Bremen, Germany by my friend Hammie!!  The one below, if you put a coin through the slot in the middle it plays songs for you!!!!  Isn't that great!!!

My friend Emily in Australia emailed me this photo of a drain cover in Wellington, New Zealand!!!  Isn't it brilliant!!!  I'm going to add this in to my collection...!!

 We found this drain cover in Lille, France, in March 2013!!

 I found these ones in Brussels in February 2012!  This shell isn't really a drain cover but it's still rather pretty!!  So far, all these are European except for one.

That's the last Brussels drain (above)!!!

Recently, I got some mail art from a friend called Kaz who lives in Japan.  Kaz sent me a picture of a man hole cover!!!!!

I can't remember where he said it was - I think it was either Japan or LA, but I'll check and update this update later!!!

Hammie went on holiday a while ago and sent me this picture of a drain cover he found!! 

These are French!

Hammie sent me two more pictures today - he found more drain covers on his camera!!  This one is from Amien in France...

And this one is also from Amien in France!!!

Last week, Andrea got out some old photographs from a trip she took to Barcelona.  She went there before she met me, which is why I didn't go.  But she showed me a picture of a Spanish drain cover she found there!  It has lots of little pictures all over it!!!

She also showed me this picture in Barcelona.  She found this on the pavement/sidewalk but she's not sure if it's a drain cover or not. 

She says it might be a fancy sundial or something...

My friend Hammie went on vacation in the Brittany area of France (August 2011).  Because he knows that I like looking at drain covers, he took lots of pictures of different French ones and said I could post them here!

I'm not sure what towns they're in but maybe he'll tell us!

This one looks like a telephone cover!!

A circle inside a rectangle!  We don't get those in England!

This one's almost a Fleur De Lys design!!

A spotty one!  It has measles!

That looks a little bit like the English Gas covers...

I think Hammie said these three are from St Malo.....

Wow!!  Those are pretty!!  Thank you for sending those, Hammie!!!

This one was recently found in Prague, Czech Republic by my friend Sullivan McPig (he has his own blog too, listed on right).  He took a photo of it specially for this collection!

I found this one (above) in Groningen, Holland back in February 2011 and has the Martini Tower on it!

These ones are from Groningen, too!