Where have I been?

"Catch up" number one!
Okay, okay ... sorry about the absence from blogging ... it has been two days only!  Two days!
The trouble is ... in two days there are an awful lot of photographs so I'll begin with the turtles!
Hessian and sand filled from Brazil meets carved wood from Thailand on a hairy woolly rug.

Both of them were brought by friends who were visiting the respective countries!  The couple who brought the sand one must have been mad!  It is a heavy door stop.
Yesterday's turtle was quite different ... but equally special.  It was an ordination gift!  Yes, I know people usually get books or fancy pens or even book tokens ... but I received a turtle!  It's a "Beanie Babies" edition from 2000 called Peekaboo ... no hyphens ... though I'd like to put in a couple of them.

To vary the background from the usual white paper this one was put in the bed of thyme and now smells delightful!  Originally my friend had given him a paper clerical collar but that has fallen off somewhere in all the moving around.  He's lived in a curatage in Bangor, and rectories in Magherally and Belfast.  Maybe not terribly well travelled ... but he's among my favourites.
Tuesday's offering was different again.

The plastic pencil sharpener and the ceramic cruet have practical applications ... not that either has been used in the intended way!  It looks as if the green salt has something of an attitude although the red pepper appears to be gazing in amused awe at the tossing of the head!  Too much imagination perhaps!
All the turtle pictures are snapped early in the morning, usually in natural light, around seven o'clock!  I've got into the habit of bringing my camera out with the first coffee of the day and, when the weather photograph has been taken, it is time then for Eliot and the turtle collection.  I'm thinking that a few more turtle pictures will suffice and the 365Project can return to random shots of normal life!