Giraffe Love

Sounds kinky, but no…

We went out to Giraffe House yesterday in the winter sunshine and saw much animal. Highlight for our 5-year-old daughter though, was Gerry the Giraffe. She decided that she wanted Gerry to meet her somewhat smaller stuffed toy giraffe. It was a lovely idea, but the chances of it happening seemed slim. At this point, as a parent, you have to decide whether to prepare your child for probable disappointment or take a chance on success – the downside being potentially facing a distraught little girl when things don’t go according to plan.
My thanks go out at this point to Gerry the Giraffe, because he really came through for us yesterday afternoon:

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It might have been [let’s face it, it clearly was] that Gerry thought that Scoop’s toy giraffe was actually a tasty morsel of food, but in my little girl’s mind, Gerry was so happy to see the little fellow that she’d brought along, that he gave him a big, wet kiss.

It made her day. Which is great, because the alternative, had Gerry been less accommodating, would probably have been unpretty.

More on Giraffe House when I get chance to review and upload my photos.

1989 cool

Susanna Hoffs’ Throwback Thursday picture on… er… Thursday was kinda cool – in a 1989 kinda cool way:

Do you see what she did there? I see what she did there.

There’s something a bit odd about seeing icons of a bygone age together, in that bygone age. Yes, we see them together now, and that’s great, but it’s wholly manufactured. This was a moment when a whole band met another whole band and they had their photos taken together. I’m guessing Music Awards after-party, but if so, everyone is being remarkably well-behaved. Also, the boy-band/girl-band thing adds weight to the weirdness. That, and the fact that they managed to get all seven of them in and virtually nothing or no-one else.

Note also that the Bangles’ photographers’ obligation to get at least some of their legs into shot has come at the expense of Pål’s hair.

Which is not bad thing, based on my memory of Pål’s hair in the late 1980s.

New recipe idea

This via @Dr_Rousseau.

Slow Cooker Giant African Land Snails

Sounds delicious. As they say here in SA “local is lekker” and we see plenty of these ingredients snails around the cottage, as you might have seen from my flickr stream:

The link provided above doesn’t actually take you through to the recipe (that’s actually here), but rather to the charming story of someone following the recipe. The twist in the tale comes as our protagonist used to own an African Giant Land Snail as a pet and it takes her a fair amount of sherry to overcome her reticence to… er… “begin” the creative process.

Go, be brave, hold the contents of your stomach and learn the ins and outs of cooking big molluscs.

23 Landscape Photography Tips From A Pro

Incoming from 500px, the photography sharing site that my stuff really isn’t anywhere near good enough for: “23 Landscape Photography Tips From A Pro“, the Pro in question being Moldovan Iurie Belegurschi:

…whose own jaw-dropping landscapes never fails [sic] to amaze us.

Indeed, because yes, he’s pretty good:

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But the advice is less helpful – and yes, I’m being a bit cynical here, but aside from the motivational stuff (“Start with a vision”, “It’s not easy”, “Never stop learning” etc etc), it does seem it does seem to fall, basically, into three broad categories:

  1. Become a full-time photographer
  2. Move to Iceland, and
  3. Buy expensive equipment.

I’d wager that at least two, if not all three of those, are somewhat beyond the bounds of possibility for the majority of my readership.
That said, if you can do it (like Iurie did), then perhaps you too could produce stuff like this:

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Stunning. And do go and have a look at the rest of his stuff, if only because Iceland.

For the rest of us, it’s equally(?) beautiful Cape Town, with our flimsy tripods and our point-and-shoots. And the hope that one day we get especially lucky.

Photo credits: Iurie Belegurschi