So, that’s it for another year, and the end of the road for this particular blog. There will be another, at a different WordPress address, coincident with the start of the Chinese New Year on 31 January 2014…
All that remains for me now though is to say thank you to a few loyal visitors to this site over the past twelve months, specifically to gpcox, Frivolous Monsters, and to my sister Chris…a very Happy New Year to you all :).
Excuse me, Dear Reader, there’s something I need to get off my chest, some detritus left there by gale force winds and torrential rain…
Ah, that feels better; that was some audio therapy from a Welsh band called Budgie, from their 1972 album, ‘Squawk’, the track being ‘Stranded’, and an epitome for the frustration of being marooned on Portsea Island over Christmas, when I should have been celebrating the festival with family in faraway Kent…
But never mind, let’s take some positives from it all; it at least provided me with an opportunity to watch a few films I otherwise wouldn’t have watched, including ‘The Bishop’s Wife’, ‘The Red Shoes’ and ‘Love Actually’, while today I wandered down to Canoe Lake in Southsea, and enjoyed a ramble along the seafront under beautiful blue skies, to Southsea Castle and the nearby D-Day Museum…
Southsea seafront near Canoe Lake…
Canoe Lake has plentiful swans, and here’s one of them…
And in homage to ‘The Red Shoes’, with Moira Shearer in all her Technicolor beauty, here are a couple of swans enacting pas de deux in ‘Le Lac des cygnes’… 😉
And here is one final photo of a swan on this photoblog, which now has less than a week to run…
Wandering westwards along the seafront, the wonderful South Parade Pier soon comes into view…
Promenading (and jogging) along the seafront is a popular activity among both locals and visitors…
There’s very obviously some lens flare here to the right of the pier, but I thought I’d post it nonetheless…
Wasn’t doing any business today, but it’s a lot more popular in the summer months
Nearing Southsea Castle, with its lighthouse, and visible in the distance are both the Naval War Memorial and at the extreme right, the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth Harbour…
The Castle Lighthouse, done in sepia…
In front of the D-Day Museum, near Southsea Castle, are a couple of restored Second World War tanks…
A British Churchill Crocodile tank …
A Canadian Sherman Grizzly tank…
From the D-Day Museum, I wandered up to Palmerston Road, for a pint in The Lord Palmerston (Wetherspoon’s) pub, before heading on to Debenhams, to have a look at the Boxing Day Sale items. I didn’t buy anything, but this rather appealed…
‘Nancy’ one of the ‘Pretty Ladies’ figurines in the Royal Doulton series…
As did this Christmas gift from my boss at work, which I drank this evening…Cheers!…and just two more posts to go :)…
A Lakeland Pale Ale, ‘Cocker Hoop’ from Jennings Brewery
A Weekend Diary 