It was a great title while I was driving home, but...

By the time I drove home, grabbed my sweetheart, went to Costco and Safeway, the title had totally disappeared from my head.  You might be thinking, Well, write it down! Well, did you miss the part about driving?! Anyway, there were 2 seals and finally an octopus! And no, there will be no octo-pictures, because it darted back deep into its den, leaving me with bupkis.  But at least I saw its leg for about 2 seconds....I was starting to get a complex. And not in a good way...

But I do understand.  In the afternoon, everyone and their mother is in the water. No wonder the octopuses want to hide. Even a seal was there!

Yes, that's it, lurking just offshore.  I must have stood there for 10 minutes, waiting to see where it wanted to go.  Of course, the waves had calmed down enough for me to venture into the Big Pond where it was.  But I didn't want to get in if I was going to be meeting this seal...again. I'm told it is the same one that I saw yesterday.  The volunteer lady said it was the same one and added that what appeared to be something around its neck was no longer a something.  She knew the seal and apparently they had helped it lose whatever it was around its neck.  That was a relief. (See yesterday's post for the photo.  I took one, then swam the other way.)

So started off with 2 seals, actually.  One in the water and one snoozing on the beach:

This one was rather small, so I am assuming it was young. And very peaceful.  That's one nice thing about arriving in the afternoon: they are usually already roped off and protected.

So other stars of the afternoon were Abudefduf:

They are all over the reef/rocky area, but fast, so I don't always have the talent to get a good photo..The white spots are sand that was kicked up.  

Nice pencil urchins, too:

Gives new meaning to being between a rock and a hard place.  ha.

This one was cute, and small.  The biggest "pencil" piece was probably 2 inches long. Maybe.

Mr. Pinktail Durgon swam by me, too.  

And my bad: No, I really do not know if it's a male.  Just another one of those many things I need to look up!  I haven't ever seen one look different, though.  I mean, in some fishes, the male looks different than the female.  Will you think I'm lazy if I tell you the book that might explain this is about a foot to my left?  But I'd have to get up, and walk around the fan, and find it.  Gee, the days are packed...

And just like in Biblical days, they traveled two by two:

Two two-spot butterfly and 2 convict tangs.  Nice.
I saw a Leaf Fish, but the photo wasn't great.  Check yesterday's post, I think the photo was better. I mention this because I saw another Scorpion Fish today in the Big Pond.  Doesn't prove it's a different one than yesterday's in the Kiddie Pond, but it seemed bigger.  Tell me what you think:

They do look mean, don't they?  Maybe because they are.  Glad none has ever tried to take a bit outa me. This one didn't move at all, so cannot see the bright colors on its fins.
Trunk Fish for Alex:

This is a male.  The females are just black and white. 

 Yes, someone had lunch.  I liked this photo because it shows some of the pokey spines, as well as the connectors.  The husk is really fragile, so I've never managed to collect any. 









Two cowries were hiding.  Well, trying to anyway.

With these two, I knew they were both there.  Usually, when hiding in a hole, one is on the "roof" so I don't see it until I catch the photo at home.
And speaking of shells:

Isn't it cool?  The Turban shell itself, resting against my glove.  Then the operculum.  THEN the animal itself! Woohoo! The animal in this case is apparently a tan color.  It was probably really wondering if it was going home with me to be dried out.  But I wouldn't do that, so this one went back to the bottom where I found it.  The operculum can snap down, to protect the animal from predation. What a great idea God had when He created this shell. And just saying: do you realize there were no fishes or shells in the ark? Why would they need to be?  They were ok with water.

Nice Moorish Idol

Every now and then, the light and the animal collide...in a good way

As my husband would say: Eelage!

This little guy definitely wanted me to disappear.  So I did.

Which led me to the Peacock Flounder:

There is also a video on youtube. look for octopigirl7.

And yes, this blog supposedly lets me upload videos, but truly, not so efficient.  Last time I tried, it said: Oh no you won't either! So I used youtube.com

And palm trees for my sweetheart.  With the moon. Nice catch, eh?

Thank you for reading.  I'm not trying to become VIRAL but it would be nice to have more than 23 readers. HA.  But thanks, to those of you who do read. Faithfully.

A quick trip to London

Sometimes a photo just grabs you. This is my almost empty glass on a trip to London. You can see the wonderful James Avery silver ring...it's my prized possession.  It's a solid ring, worn on my thumb, that has the Cross.  It serves as a reminder of many things.  But also to watch my p's and q's! 

Sweetheart and I visited London and France in May of this year. SO enjoyed it!  I had visited London in 1975 on my own, so it was different to visit on a Rick Steves' tour and also with my sweetheart.  He makes traveling different.  In a good way.

I have an interest in chimneys...and doors.  Not sure why other than the fact that they are all different, but serve the same purpose.

We didn't get to visit inside the buildings to see where all these chimneys led, but I enjoyed the look of them. I can't imagine building them or what is involved in doing so.  Some skills are simply beyond me.  But in most cases, there are always lots of them.  Which maybe tells me that they serve many different parts of the buildings underneath.

And on all of our trips, we bring Domo with us.  Mostly because it's fun.  Or maybe also because we can throw him into the photos and he just stands there, doing what we tell him to do.

In this case, he had wandered into a toy and game shop in London, and decided to await our pleasure underneath this old rocking horse. 










The same store had Easter eggs:

I thought the one shaped like a lady was odd enough to include.  They also had neat wooden, carved ones.

And there was something else that one doesn't see very often:

Lunch time Bible talks!  I do wonder who comes to these and what they discuss.  It would have been interesting to hear the subject matter chosen for this day, but we were not there at the right time. Glad to see that the Bible is still featured there, though.








As is chocolate:

Ooooh, this was dark and yummy!

Can't you imagine delving into these chocolate boats of flavor?!  Totally out in the open, in nice wooden bowls, ready to be sampled and purchased. Yum.

Chocolate was VERY big in London.  We saw variants everywhere.

Turned out that Domo was thirsty, so we stopped into a local drinkery....and actually, it was probably really a restaurant.  I think we maybe visited one pub on our trip.  Just not our thing to be in a group and hanging out in something like a bar....even though it's a different cultural experience over there.

Domo followed up with some food:

I don't know how often he eats like this, but apparently, he was quite hungry for serious food at this point in the trip.  Maybe it's from being stuck into pockets all day.  
We went on a foodie walk, sampling curry, and bagels and chocolate and beer and oh yeah, pork!

St John's Bread and Wine.  They use the entire pig from the snout to the tail.  Which sounds rather disgusting at first blush, but was in fact the spot for a quite wonderful (if high fat!) sandwich:

Moist, flavorful and quite delicious.  Even as it glistened with juicy fat...

And Domo appeared again

Some folks just show up in time for dessert. At least he deigned to wave to us..








And no red white and blue trucks for British mail: oh no!  They gotta have the Queen's insignia on the vehicles.

And just in case you thought only the French did the love locks thing, here's proof they are not alone:

In France, the locks made the fence of the bridges so heavy, they were in danger of falling over and into the water of the Seine.  So mostly they are seriously discouraged. Not sure if this is a new love locks area in Lonson, or if earlier ones had been cut off and people were starting again. 

As I looked at these again while planning this post, I thought of a lot of things.  Why spend money on something that will just get cut off or destroyed?  In my mind, memorialize your love by telling your sweetheart or hugging and kissing them.  But perhaps that's just me!

We did have a wonderful visit to London.  And we walked our dogs off!  Four, five, six hours each day.  Well worth it, but it did mean we didn't do any late night sightseeing or theater.  Truthfully, we aren't really theater people.  But we did enjoy our visit, very much.