Pig Sty Avenue

Pig Sty Avenue is now officially a palaver , rather than a malarkey . Much more accurate, don't you think?

My Lasses , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Ave . ...and it's looking good.

Molly at the Central Station with Berlin , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Ave . In furtherance of the diet I've been making up salads in a box to take to work. But I left it behind yesterday so Herself came up to Town to make sure I didn't starve or buy a McFuckingDonalds. We had tea at the buffet in the Central Station. Molly, as you can see, sits up in any old high chair, quite the thing, now. I'm hoping to get a lend of a lens from Brendadada later today, and should get some better photos from that. I'm after more aperture. The lens I really want , I can't afford. I can't afford its cheaper friend yet either :( Maybe for Christmas... Speaking of which. I'm down to 14st now - so that's a stone I've lost (14lbs to our American readers) in a month. My healthy weight, I've learned, would be somewhere around 11st. So I'm going to be dieting on-and-off until Christmas to get there - which is probably where I was when I stoppe...

A lot of Thursday was at the allotment, moving riddled soil from the top of the garden to the greenhouse, and moving plants around: pricking out (which always sounds slightly comical) and hardening off (ditto). The putative prize winning leeks are in the ground. This week should see the brassicas planted out - we've miscalculated with them, it seems, and could end up with a cabbage mountain. The tatties and onions are flying away. The pond's great. There seem to be two different varieties of tadpole; or maybe just two stages of development, (we got our frogspawn from two separate sources). And there' a watersnail in the pond - must have come as an egg witht the weed, which came with the frogspawn, and is growing like barmy, too. There are water boatmen and beetles, too. Managed a lot of studying this weekend, as well: getting the hang of phonetics, and ploughing through the grammar - now, more or less, I could spout on about transitivity with some confidence. And Mo...

photographer , originally uploaded by timojazz . That's me on the Shields Ferry.

I've tidied up the blogroll, removing some blogs which I rarely visit and which never visit here. (If you come by here and I've removed your blog and you're not happy, do get in touch and I'll restore it forthwith. In fact, anyone who calls by occassionally and would like a link, do tell). In the dialect of North East England, hacky is an adjective meaning very dirty. I found out from one of my Iranian students this morning that it means exactly the same thing in Farsi. How come? What's the link between Geordieland and Iran?

Sermon to the Mounted , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Ave . The other day I went with some Flickrpals to the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, where a Christian group were protesting against a production of "Jerry Springer - The Opera". I managed to get this snap, which I'm really pleased with. It's a bit of a puzzle, though. The cyclist is clearly not a theatre-goer. Presumably he was a passer-by. Anyway, the Minister there has clearly spotted a likely convert. Good luck to both of them.

toe up , originally uploaded by timojazz .

Likely to be otherwise engaged: studying, gardening, Mollying. More nonsense in due course...