In Birthday Denial

This was the view as I walked home yesterday at about 4:45 p.m., looking toward the approaching sunset. Don't recognize that corner? It's the same one where the Emminster and Hinstock apartment blocks once stood. The buildings are rubble now -- there's still a snaggled fragment of Emminster standing beyond the trees to the right, but it's only a few floors high and will be gone soon enough.

And soon enough, new apartment blocks will be rising in their place, so I'm going to enjoy this open view while it lasts.

Today is a momentous day in our little household -- I turn 57 years old. Not that there's any significance attached to that number, really. In celebration (or denial), let's have a look at an assortment of completely non-birthday-related random photos, shall we?

Hmmm...what happened here?!

I found this little sticker in support of BullyXL dogs, which are basically gigantic pit bulls. (I'm sure some dog aficionados will take exception to that description, but please give me a pass and don't harass me in comments. It is my birthday, after all.) The government has outlawed the BullyXL breed in the UK, and this sticker makes the point that the owners are the problem, not the dogs.

I will say that I've seen BullyXL dogs on the street and even I think they're scary-looking. And I'm a dog person. They're about twice as big as Olga. But I don't dispute that their training makes a huge difference in their behavior.

Scene from a rubbish bin on our high street: Poor pumpkin, smacked in the face with packing tape, and poor ghost, now an ashtray. Another holiday past.

I was watching an old episode of Bob Newhart the other day when this scene came on, set in Jerry's dental office. See that Picasso poster on the wall? I had an immediate flashback to my childhood, because I remember that poster. It was very popular in the early '70s and I'm pretty sure we had one hanging in our house, maybe even in my room. Or maybe someone had it at my parents' office. I liked it as a kid and in fact I've now added an image of it to my blog sidebar, below the archives.

I found this hat on the pavement. My first thought was that Bunga Bunga must be some place in Australia. Turns out it's an Italian nightclub in London, and it's also a slang term that refers specifically to the sexual exploits of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Who knew?!

I was walking the dog on Halloween morning when I found this awful thing sitting on someone's garden wall. It scared me!

And finally, this building has a very strange decorating scheme. It looks like someone tripped and spilled a bagful of squash down the front steps.

We were supposed to get a big storm overnight, Storm Ciarán. Winds of more than 80 mph were predicted, but that hasn't happened here -- maybe by the ocean. Here we're just getting rain -- par for the course in this very damp year.