Rosy Red Cheeks

Why do English children always have such rosy red cheeks? Or do they?

In China we saw kids with bright red cheeks - they were the beggars, living it rough on the cold streets.

We have seen some kids here with those round appley cheeks, but not many.

Red cheeks are pretty much a winter thing, I would think, and this is summer. That's why the daytime temperature has been soaring to 14 degrees some days. And after our first week here of blue skies and sunshine - and the occasional threatening cloud, the clouds have finally made good their threats and we've had misty rain on and off all week.

Yep. We are definitely in England. Not that it has been unpleasant. It was 'orrible 'ot in Istanbul, and this is quite pleasant. We bought ourselves a couple of cheap little black brolleys - 2 pound each - and mine lasted a few minutes until a gust of wind turned it inside out and broke one of its little wires.

Beautiful Sheffield

Many people (like me) have (or had) an image of Sheffield as an ugly industrial city - an idea reinforced by the popular movie "The Full Monty".

Well, it ain't, not any more.



These are a couple of rather unusual flower displays in the city centre - the people are made of succulent type plants. All over town there are hanging pots, and stands of extravagant flower displays. It really is quite delightful.



And there are fountains - this one is rather fun, with the water coming up out of the ground and returning quickly into drains. We saw one like this in Zhengzhou, but with water shortages it was rarely working. Of course, as it's summer, there were little kids playing in the fountain - and it was so cold!



Where we live, a ways out of the city centre, there are the Botanical Gardens close by our place - great for an evening amble while we wait for our clothes to finish their cycle in the University Residences Laundry.




One of the fun things about wandering out and about in the evening is the squirrels chasing each other hither and thither and scrabbling around for - nuts ...? They are really fast, twitchy little critters ... but I did manage to pull my phone out quickly and catch this one.



So now it's the weekend, and we've no TV. There's nothing to do except sit here at the computer or get out there and chase squirrels. There's parts of Sheffield we haven't been near yet - I see a "boating lake" and all sorts of interesting stuff on the top left of my map. Time to fire up "Shanks's Pony" and go see ... when Peter wakes up.

Lions and Tigers and ... Squirrels, oh my!

English Wildlife.

We haven't actually seen any lions and tigers. But where we are living it certainly seems possible that they are here.

Even though we are living in the city of Sheffield, we are surrounded by gardens - thick bushes and extensive lawns.



This is part of our drive - it's about 100m long. If I was a kid I would be unable to resist building cubbies in the deep dark hollows under and behind those bushy hedges on the left. On the right there is a beautiful sloping lawn - perfect for rolling down. A stern sign on the wall announces "no ball games".

But that doesn't stop the grey squirrels from frolicking. They pause in their nervous jumping and chasing and twitch as we go by. We did see a cat - one cat, after the millions of cats in Istanbul - and I guess he was hunting for squirrel ...



The sound of "clopping" brought me to the window the other day to see a couple of mounted police arrive in the courtyard outside our flat window. But, of course, they are hardly "wild"animals.

The other night we lay in bed and listened to an owl hooting outside as it flew from tree to tree.

We are not exactly in the British Outback here, but there is lots of "green", and if I was a little furry animal I would love it here.



This isn't our garden. The Sheffield Botanical Gardens are just opposite the end of our driveway. Great place to stroll, and relax.