Collective nouns - imput required!

If any of you have read my entire blog you will know that i have a thing about collective nouns and their unusual names. It all started when i was lucky enough to witness a "murmuring or a murmuration" of 
starlings See the blog here.  on a trip in Somerset. A murmuration is a large flock or flocks of starlings that contains literally thousands of birds. When they fly together before roosting time they look like a constantly moving swirling cloud producing a myriad of fantastic shapes in the sky.

Other collective nouns have been for a group of blondes. The suggestions so far are a "peroxide" or a "dither" of blondes.Apologies to any blonde ladies reading my blog! Just a bit of harmless fun.

A dither of blondes? Or a peroxide of blondes?

Other collective nouns requested have been for a group of lifeguards for which a "lush" of lifeguards has been suggested. I quite like this. Lush in this instance is English/Welsh slang for attractive or fanciable.

A "lush of lifeguards.

The final collective noun sought is for a load of bicycles which i photographed after a triathlon in Wales. So far nobody has come up with a suggestion for this one. The only one i can think of is a "spoke" of bicycles. Not really any good!

A "spoke" of bicycles.

If you have any suggestions for any of the above collective nouns leave your ideas in the message section.

Winter Wonderland!

Living in England, particularly in the south as i do, snow is not too common. It usually snows a few times during the winter, settling probably only a couple of times and is almost always gone after a couple of days. This year we have had heavy snowfalls and frozen temperatures that have now been with us for almost two weeks. As usual the snow caused traffic chaos with many people, including myself, unable to get into work. The snow was so dense i couldn't even get out of my cul-de-sac.The authorities gritted the main roads which immediately got clogged up with traffic as nobody could use the side roads. Absolute gridlock!

The scene from my front door. Notice the uncollected refuse bins!

The upside to all the mayhem was stunning scenery along my usual walks and a welcome silence with fewer vehicles on the roads. It was also nice to see loads of children outside playing in the snow and listening to their laughter, when usually they are all indoors using the playstation or watching television.

Snow and blue sky along the canal towpath near to where i live.

Today the temperatures have gone above freezing and a big thaw has begun. There is slush on all the roads and huge puddles everywhere. No doubt there will be floods as a result bringing more mayhem to parts of the country. That's the trouble with our climate - one extreme to the other and difficult to predict.

The frozen canal. Notice the trees on the opposite bank weighted with snow drooping into the ice.

A slippery walk up to one of the locks.

 

A snowy treescape.

The Snow Car.

We were out for a walk in the snow last week (more photos and a separate blog to follow) when by chance I came across this really clever snow sculpture of a Mini in one of the streets near my home. Although it was beginning to thaw the amazing detail was still discernable. For some reason it made me smile and feel uplifted. I just had to take a photograph and share the moment with all of you.

Let this be a lesson to you.

Between Christmas and New Year my computer somehow got a virus. Not your normal spyware or adware, but a really malicious Trojan Horse. It affected my internet explorer and ability to get on the internet.

But the worst it did was to target my photographs which i had stored purposely on a second hard drive in my computer. It has completely wiped out over 2500 of my digital photos and destroyed that drive to such an extent that it needs replacing.

I had been lulled into a false sense of security as i had not had any trouble from viruses or their like for a few years. Consequently i had not been backing up my files as often as i should have and am now suffering.

Let this be a lesson to us all. Learn from my mistake. Back up your data as often as you can!!