Growing up in a rural village I’ve seen my fair share of foxes, but I’ve not seen many urban foxes. In fact before this little lovely, I’d only seen one previous urban fox.
I’m pretty sure this is a vixen, she’s too small and delicate to be a dog-fox.
She’s been around the rear courtyard at least twice now, both times at about 4am. Of course, the first time I didn’t think to grab my camera – we just ooh’ed and ahh’ed at her through the kitchen window. The second time I did think to grab the camera but it was slightly foggy out. I also discovered that taking pics through a double-glazed glass door isn’t the most practical thing.
Hopefully I can get some better shots if I see her again.

please excuse pic quality, I didn’t want to disturb her, so these were taken through a glass door on a slightly foggy morning.

Urban Fox

Urban Fox

I think there is less of them than I saw at first. Between 1/2 – 3/4 inch long now and voraciously cleaning micro algae off the glass and rasping on the bogwood. It was suggested that they be fed on Hikari first bites, but 1) that’s not quite such an easy task in a 72Gallon community tank and 2) they seem to be doing just fine rasping on regular algae wafers, catfish pellets and the various yummyness that the rest of the fish get fed.

Baby Bristlenoses Exploring

Ingredients:
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
4 chicken breasts (cut into bite-sized chunks)

Method:
In a bowl combine honey, soy and lime.
Add in the chicken pieces and coat well.
Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
You could do this in a large resealable plastic bag and cut down on your washing up!

Discard the marinade.
Skewer the chicken pieces and pop them on your bbq.
Too cold for a bbq? Do as I do, put them in a griddle pan lightly sprayed with oil.
Make sure the chicken pieces are cooked right through.

You could serve with salad and pita bread, or with tomato rice, or pasta lightly drizzled with olive oil, or… you decide =)

Deciding we wanted to do something different we embarked on a “Ghost Cruise” last night…
We were promised “sinister stories and terrible tales of ghosts, witches, murder and the unexplained – with a little magic” and that we would hear about “a St. Valentine’s Day murder, a haunted ship, the ghost at a historic Stratford pub and much more”.
I was actually quite looking forward to this evening out.

Unfortunately, the first impressions were not good.
First we were greeted by “The Lady in Black” – a double for Most Haunted’s Lesley Smith.
The Lady in Black led us into the river boat, where we took our seats. Seats that I am sure they must have searched long and hard to find, for they were the most bum-numbing creations I have ever sat upon.

Once everyone had arrived and taken their bum-numbing seats The Lady in Black introduced none other than… The Man in Black - our story-teller extraordinaire and magician for the evening.

It was a dark and frosty evening, and to ehance that ghostly chill the heating was turned off as the boat left it’s moorings, although they clearly didn’t want to give the ghosts too much opportunity and ensured that the bright white LED lighting remained on through the entire trip.

The Man in Black began with “Tales of the Riverbank”… Wait… “Tales of the Riverbank”??? Isn’t this a “Ghost Cruise”? He did move on to an excerpt from a book about “Local Ghosts”, but it was about now that we realised just how bad the storytelling was to be and that the delivery of magic was even worse. By now we were exchanging horrified glances – 90 minutes of this?

Shortly, The Lady in Black produced some cards, I was almost expecting prompt cards telling me to yell “It’s behind you!”, but in fact we were presented with Zener ESP cards instead.
Overall, the magic trick was pretty clever and did link several mini-tricks together quite nicely – or it would have done if the delivery wasn’t so abysmal.

To alleviate the intense mind-numbingness hubby joined forces with Gary, a fellow hostage of “The Man and Woman in Black”. Between them they began to hatch plans to host a mutiny, but were thwarted by the omnipotent presence of The Lady in Black. Mind you their antics certainly reduced the boredom for myself, Charlotte (Gary’s girlfriend) and some of the other nearby hostages.

The scariest part of the trip came when our Captain was evidently attacked by the river ghosts, while he was turning the boat around, for the boat bounced off the nearby moorings several times. However, he managed to fend them off and we were eventually on our return trip.

By the time we arrived back at the Marina, I’m not sure if we were more numb from the seats, the cold or the story-telling. Along with our fellow hostages, we were only too glad to be released ready to trek along the unlit, muddy, branch-strewn path back to the car-park.

Well, Paddy, my male bristlenose has been hangin out under his log alone for several days now. I figured he probably had some eggs under there but no amount of awkward positions enabled us to get a look inside his little den. From the tail end of what we could see of Paddy it was clear he was fanning.

Finally today I saw a glimpse of Paddy’s treasure. Lots and lots of tiny baby bristleys. Paddy has been an awesome daddy, totally devoting himself to the well being of his eggs, keeping all these tiny bristleys safe.

I’ve been looking forward to the new series of this since the end of the last, and it didn’t disappoint =)

The quote of the series so far, and I anticipate it will be THE quote of the series, was Bambi asking Belle Why can’t I come in? Is it because I’m black?” to which Belle replied “No, it’s because you’re a whore – you muppet!”

I know it doesn’t suit all tastes but I enjoy the little narratives Belle gives to the camera. I think one thing people probably find hard to follow is the switch from 3rd person view of most t.v. programs to the 1st person narratives within Secret Diary.

The “Reveal All” between Billie and Brooke, shown after the first 2 back-to-back episodes, was interesting but felt a little stilted at times. It was hard to see Dr Brooke Magnanti as being either as sassy or dizzy as Billie’s Belle.

Truth or fiction? I’m not really fussed. I loved the books (Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl and Further adventures of a London Call Girl) and I loved the first 2 series, for me the 3rd is just as promising.

New year, new site, new blog!

I thought about moving the old posts over to this new blog, but decided “nope”, so that’s it – they’re gone! Ooh that’s a scary thought.

So, where are we at?
Well, the main site http://www.kia-glitz.com has had it’s make over, this blog has had it’s makeover, the new tag gallery is getting it’s makeover – actually it’s second makeover. I did the first before the new look site, but having done the main site the colours don’t match, so there’s a wee bit of tweaking needs doing there – then I’m ready to start tagging properly again – woohoo!