Giant bonsai (and other giants)

It was a shorter walk that usual today. Somebody stole the sun (I suspect the Doctor), and I wasn't feeling too great after five hours at the library. But I did realise I'd been walking past this every day for nearly a year and never noticed how much it looked like a giant bonsai tree:

 

 I know a bonsai isn't actually a particular plant, but there's something artful about this one and it looks like maybe a giant spent a few decades pruning it in a small tray to make it so square and pretty.

Speaking of giants...

 

This statue is about ten feet tall. I suspect it was a stone giantess who fell into a pit of invisible lava and then her bottom half melted but she saved her baby by holding him out of the water, but then he looked directly at the lighthouse monster and turnes to stone anyway, so that was a shame. But then some passing architect who appreciated the sacrifice decided to build a university around her so that everybody would know, except that he didn't give her a plaque or anything so only people with extreme insight (like me) will ever know the true story of the so-called 'statue'.

I'm finding it very difficult to go a whole post without mentioning lava.

Lists, lists everywhere

Regarding yesterday's post, I now know that an allergist is someone who specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies. Darnit, I thought I was onto something.

I'm writing this paragraph before my walk, since I'm a morning person but, rather like a lizard, I'm waiting for what BBC weather promises will be the hottest part of the day before I go out and find a rock to sleep on. Today I'm setting myself a challenge. I shall try my hardest not to write about any of these things:

• Lava
• Miniature person colonies
• Wars
• Monsters
• Ninjas
• Swans

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what that leaves me with. We shall see!

Later that day...

This flower is pale. Why on earth is this flower pale?  Considering it is in a tiny cluster of flowers in the middle of a field, appears to be a daffodil and had many other flowers in the cluster that weren't pale, I can only think of these reasons:

• The flower is wearing heavy make-up
• The flower sunburns easily and so makes a habit of wearing p-60 suncream and is therefore doomed to remain white for all eternity
• The flower has a skin disorder that drains its pigment
• The flower is a ghost
• The Queen of Hearts changed her mind about red roses and decided to get white ones instead, but the poor cards who had to paint the roses white got carried away and painted all the flowers they could find.
• The flower has recently recovered from a severe illness or injury, and has not been outside in a very long time.

After the oddness of the pale flower I came across one of my favourite things:

 I love when paths wiggle for no apparent reason! Since I've been in a listing mood today, here are some of the reasons I think could explain why this path randomly wiggles here:

• The man who drew up the plans for the path misplaced his ruler
• The man who drew up the plans for the path sneezed
• The man who drew up the plans for the path enjoyed confusing people
• There are invisible trees that the path needs to navigate
• Something important is buried off to the side and the path wiggles a little to cover it up so that its secret may remain hidden in the earth for all eternity
• It had to swerve to avoid invisible springs of lava, since it is near the lava bridge.

Rats, I nearly managed to not mention lava for the whole post. Ah, well, no use trying to change yourself. Your energy is better spent being the very best at what you are! Unless you are an axe-wielding bank robber. Then you should probably do something about that.

Grass cities and lava lakes

Today, feeling revolutionary, I headed North to the hills instead of South to town and the harbour! I also got myself a blister. I did have more comfortable shoes in my bag but I was feeling stubborn so I just kept on going. Today's walk has a distinctly summery feel!

Remember building grass piles on the school field in the summer? I do. I also remember the amazement upon entering secondary school that nobody cared if you wanted to go onto the field any more! There wasn't any real purpose to grass piles, it was just something to do and the perfect activity for a very self-destructive hayfever victim / bug-bite allergist. Is 'allergist' a word?

It is now.

Such is my power. At any rate, this is like what happens when you've come back after the weekend and nobody built grass piles so the grass went all shrivelly. That's another new word, I think. At any rate, when I look at this image, I see this:

That's right, those little solid grass lumps are like thatch rooves, the grass is like walls and the whole thing is actually a little mud-hut village for tiny people! But then we have a problem. The whole field was covered in these things, so the question is, it it a sprawling mini-person mud-grass-hut metropolis or a vicious inter-tribal war going on right beneath our noses in our own parks? Truly this is something to consider. Especially since these little villages do tend to occur in clusters. Evidence!

I saw something else of interest:


Why build a bridge over plain old dirt? Well, remember that when we were little and we knew absolutely that in any place with enough climbing frames or stepping stones (I use both terms very loosely. My favourite climbing frame was my brother's bunk bed) there was one, and only one, irrefutible law:

The floor is lava.

It doesn't need to look like lava, sound like lava or burn like lava in order to be lava. Therefore, I draw the conclusion that the reason this bridge was built was that what appears at first sight to be a plain old patch of dirt is actually lava. Hot, deadly molten lava. Thank goodness for the thoughtful man who built that bridge so that we could safely continue to explore the park.

The signs have plans

Had a blood test then a really exhausting battle of wills this morning so I was feeling a bit too light-headed to cycle so I went for a walk! Along a new route. I saw a number of rather surreal things on my walk. Among them was this:

WHY THE HELL WAS THE NO ENTRY SIGN SMILING?* This is what I think: remember the lighthouse monster? If not, read it! Well, this smiling sign bears a similar red and white theme. Why? Because they are colleagues! They work together towards one common goal: the destruction of the city! The no entry sign was smiling because it was in the middle of some diabolical plan to grind the city to a halt, one road at a time, just waiting for the lighthouse monster to break free of its prison and then, with no transport in motion, the lighthouse monster would destroy the whole city!

Then I saw this:
There are a number of things wrong with that situation. I'll list them, because lists are right in my comfort zone:

• This is a rooster, not a hen. Roosters do not lay eggs.
• If roosters did lay eggs, they wouldn't be about 1/4 the size of the actual bird
• Nor would they be golden
• Why would a rooster be in a clothes shop window?
• Silly rooster. You shouldn't be in a window. You're not a fashionable garment. You're a rooster.
• Unless this is Lady Gaga's latest hat.
  

I also saw the slender man on a suitcase. Yeah, that was weird:


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*I'd just like to take a moment to express my joy that this newish laptop actually has a light ON the caps lock button to let you know when it's active. It's genius.

The lighthouse monster

Yesterday's foray left me with a sunburn. Seriously, if I had my skin removed and replaced with clingfilm I'd be much better protected against burns, cuts etc. Having said that, it may cause other problems...

Anyway, on to today's walk! I went by the same route as yesterday but I noticed different things. This, for example:
To the untrained eye, a lighthouse in scaffolding. But I don't think so. I think of it more as a monster. That's no scaffold! It's the monster's cage, designed to trap it in so that it can't go on a rampage and start eating people, crushing buildings beneath its enormous lighthouse food, guiding ships onto the rocks to their doom, terrorising the city, then the whole coast, then the region, the country, until eventually it takes over the world!

Here's how I see it, with my epic photo editing skills:
It's a bit like Cloverfield, but with better effects. And instead of a deep-sea monster, a lighthouse! But now that the City Council has trapped this monster inside a cage, how do we deal with it? Is there any weapon that can take down such a beast?

That's what I think this is for:

I mean, they say it's an anchor but how many anchors do you see on a plinth on land, really? That's just silly. I think it's actually a weapon to take down the lighthouse monster. Look at the size, the weight, the armour-piercing hooks! I think it's just sitting there waiting for the right hero to come, strong enough to wield it, and defeat the red and white threat once and for all! Like the Sword in the Stone. I refer to the Master Sword in the Temple of Time, of course. Or Theseus' bow in ancient legend. Or those really wierd clothes you see in high fashion shops that suit maybe one person in the whole of the human population.

At any rate, avoid the lighthouse monster at all costs. It has long spindly arms and even caged it might be able to grab you.

The swan war

I took the bike for a ride, though it was more like taking it for walk since very few people in this city are capable of making any room at all. There were a good many atheletes around. You'd think they'd be pentatheletes, but I actually think they were in training for an assault on the swan army I saw at the harbour. Look at them all!
I think they in turn were developing an army to attack the human population. Due to their lack of thumbs it was always doomed to failure, but some of them are developing some rather cool karate moves. Like this one, which was practising its high kick:
So I decided to show my appreciation for their futile efforts by feeding them bread. I was amazed at how vicious they could be with each other when I was feeding them. First they'd be all peaceful and like "omnomnom" but then another one would be like "that's my bread, biatch!" and then they'd bite each other in the neck and at one point I was worried I was going to witness some swan murder, but I gave away all my bread without anybody killing anybody else, so then I went home.

I also saw a ninja but he wasn't very good: