Today was the dreaded day for all pets but especially for rabbits George and Jeremy. This evening they had to go to the vets for their annual injections. They were not impressed!

The two jabs that they need each year are for Myxomatosis and another less well known rabbit disease VHD (so the vet said).  Both of these are lethal and therefore we thought that they really ought to have both.

The rabbits were actually really good but could tell they were not particularly impressed!  George was kicking and it took me and the vet to keep him still.  Anyway that is it for another year know, so you can rest easy boys!

I was trawling through my hard drive last night throwing out stuff that I no longer need when I came across these two images. Where they are from I do not know, but they are terrific satellite images on the earth, going from day to night.

Just proves what a magnificent world we live on. Petty we don’t often treat it that way!

We all love it and drink it every day of the week, I know I do and many of us grab a cup or two when out and about around town in stopping at a services for a break.  But do you know the real cost of the coffee that you are drinking in these large chain store coffee houses?

It has been in the news this week all about the coffee’s that are now house hold names.  Examples include double white mocha choca, Caramel Macchiato and Venti Cafe Mocha with whipped cream.  I mean come on these names are just ridiculous!  Caramel in coffee?  But do we know how man calories are in these rather stupidly named drinks?  Probably not.  Yes you are probably thinking that they have a few more calories than a normal white coffee but are you aware of the real amount of calories in them?  Maybe, maybe not.

It was revealed on the BBC News site this week that a Whole Milk [Venti] White Chocolate Mocha with Whipped Cream has a massive 619 calories in it if bought from Starbucks.  For a women that is around one third of her total calorie intake for the day.  Like I said you probably thought more than 20 calories (what is in a normal cup) but 619.  That is outrageous.   That around 13 calories for every letter in the name!!

Now don’t get me wrong if you want to drink coffee (and everything else that they bung into that plastic cup) that contains this many calories then that is great.  However there are two things to mention here.  Firstly we should be told as consumers what these drinks contain.  No where prominent does it tell you in these stores or on the drinks themselves how many calories they contain.  This is probably because they wouldn’t sell!  Secondly going into these cafe’s can one order a simply coffee.  By that I mean just a plain standard filter coffee with milk without having to be asked which type you want and whether you want whole, skimmed, semi skimmed or cream in it.  When I was younger you asked for a coffee in a cafe and you knew exactly what you were going to get.  A cup of filter coffee, not too strong and not to weak with a small jug of semi-skimmed milk to add yourself.  I don’t think you could have this confidence any more?

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BBC News -  Morning coffee is ‘meal in a cup’

Well this week has not been a good one in terms of our birds. We have unfortunately lost two of our birds. Billy the Cockatiel died on Thursday evening or Friday morning and Harry flew away on Tuesday.

When we went down to the aviary in the morning of Friday Billy was found dead in his cage. He was brought from his cage at my mother-in-laws to be allowed to be a little more free in the aviary. Maybe the move was too much for him as he was a old bird. Still at least he died in the freedom of the aviary, rather than inside his cage. I don’t think he suffered as I am sure that he would have just fallen asleep.

As I write this article there is still no sign of Harry the budgie. He escaped on Tuesday evening and has not shown up since. I am sure that someone will find him and probably give him a new home. Or maybe they will take him to the local vet and we may yet see him again.

On a lighter note we have had a new arrival on Wednesday evening in the aviary. Sky, a small blue and white coloured male budgie joined us as he was in need of a new home. He does look a little nervous and angry but already he seems to have settled in well making good friends with Carlos, the other male. I have not yet been able to get a photograph of Sky as he, and the other budgies are inside at the moment with all the poor weather. I will post one in due course, but he is the same colours as Christina, one of our female budgies.

ADDITIONAL

Today we now have another Budgie arrival. Stanley is a baby budgie, really tiny that we have picked up from the pet shop. He was found and brought to the pet shop and there were going to give him to the RSPCA as they couldn’t sell him.  Therefore we said that we would take him.  He will have to stay inside in his cage for a while before he goes into the aviary. He is really quite cute.

Yesterday we had an unfortunate event outside in the aviary. After feeding the birds and the rabbits Harry the budgie spent several minutes sat on my wife’s finger pecking seed out of her hand. When finished the light was turned off and at this point Harry was startled and made for the small gap in the door. Unfortunately he made it out.

Now don’t get me wrong if this is what Harry wanted then so be it and we wish him well. However we can’t help thinking that Harry was a very happy little budgie with 3 other budgie friends and Billy the new arrival for company. They had been in the aviary a few times and been in their on a permanent basis for 2 days, so he was used to the surroundings. As he shot out of the aviary he managed to get over the garden wall (he has always been a strong flyer) and then he was off. As it was night time we expected that after running round the other side of the wall that he would be on the floor squaking his head off wanting to get back, but not be able to see properly. Budgies really can see very well in the dark and so they just tend to land on the nearest thing (often you when in doors!). However this was not to be and we couldn’t see or hear him anywhere.

So we decided to put the cage that they used to be in on top of the garden wall in the hope that he may see this and then decided to fly back into it. Also as the other birds were still squaking then we thought he may hear them and return.

The sad news is that as I write this post there is still no sign of little Harry. It is funny because there will be many reading this and saying “he is only a budgie” but even so you feel a sense of parental responsibility and it is quite upsetting to think we may never see him again. In the campaign to find Harry I have put flyers through the letterboxes of the houses nearby in the hope that he will land in a garden for the food in the bird tables etc. Hopefully this will enable us to find him. I just hope that wherever he is and whatever he is doing he is OK and that he is not missing his friends in the aviary.

I was doing some research on the Internet yesterday evening trying to get some tips on what to do to try and attract him back and came across a lovely story that made me smile. One commenter on a budgie forum was saying that there is actually a large flock of budgies that are roaming around the country. This is because all birds that have escaped from their owners have managed to find each other and now stick together. A lovely story, and whether it is true or not I don’t now, but maybe Harry will find them and live happily ever after.

Whatever you doing Harry and wherever you are, enjoy the rest of your life and if you ever find your way back to Leyland then please land on the aviary and you are welcome to go in! Good luck.

We have another new arrival today. We are welcoming Billy the Cockatiel into the family to join our other birds Harry, Christina, Goldie and Carlos. All five of the birds are now in the Aviary.

Billy has come from my mother and father in laws house. They have an aviary in the back garden similar to ours however there has been trouble with the aviary over the last 12 months. There used to be 3 or 4 birds kept in the aviary including a small quail however some sort of rodent, presumed to be a rat, had started digging underneath their aviary and taking birds for lunch at will. Therefore Billy was removed to his large cage (I hate that word for them, makes them sound like their in prison or something) hung in the kitchen. This was really done to spare his life from the rat.

Anyway now that we have our aviary up and running and as yet no rodents in their then we decided to take him. It will also give him so other bird company with the four budgies as mates.

We think that Billy is around 10 years old although we are not sure. He does look old in that he seems frail but doing some research on the net it turns out that they can live for up to 20 years or so. Maybe he is older than 10, who knows?

Lets hope that all the birds settle into their new home with the rabbits in the garden and live happily ever after!!!!

It’s simple really. We need more energy. Energy to feed our ever growing lifestyles and the need for power. Today the government gave the green light for the provision of that energy. Trouble is, it is Nuclear Power.

It is quite clear that in the next 10 - 15 years we are going to need more and more energy. Energy that we currently do not have the provision for. This, coupled with the fact that the supplies of much of our energy are running out everyday (fossil fuels are non-renewable) means that we need to find alternatives. The government have today given the go ahead for these alternatives to be nuclear power. But is this such as good idea?

Probably around 90 years ago someone (a Google search didn’t provide an immediate answer) decided that coal, oil and gas would be the fuel of choice to fuel the world’s power stations in order to produce electricity, the stuff that powers our ever-growing high tech lives. At the time it was a great idea. It produced electricity and all the benefits that electricity could provide at the time. However what they were not aware of was the problem that all the pollution from the power station emissions was doing. It is only now that we find ourselves in a global crisis with global warming and climate change a constant topic of discussion in the news and on the internet, for very good reason. At the time we were not able to look into the future and see the damage that might be caused by burning all these fossil fuels. I fear that we are doing the same now with nuclear power.

Sure, nuclear has tremendous benefits and the physics behind how it works is truly brilliant. The amount of power you can produce for a tiny piece of uranium is amazing and the fact that there are no greenhouse gas emissions is another added bonus. But it is not all good news. First of all there is the threat of a nuclear accident. I can still remember the day that the Chenobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded back in April 1986 and the European, if not global chaos that caused. Not to mention the number of deaths in the years gone by since. If this happened in our country the consequences could be disastrous for the whole nation. As well as the threat of explosion there is the problem of nuclear waste. No-one really knows what to do with it. A solution on its disposal has not really been found. Reading an article in the National Geographic magazine a few years ago proved that although governments and energy companies tell you that it is disposed of safely, this is just not true. It needs looking after for centuries to come and this becomes nearly impossible. And all this looking after nuclear waste will be costing the tax payer money, according to Greenpeace.

Surely we are falling into the wrong trap again. Going for a solution that has short term gains but does not make long term environmental sense. We have got many different renewable, environmentally friendly options, that OK, will cost more in the short term, but in the long term surely the costs are not that great.

That’s my opinion on the whole matter. We know what the government thinks about this. What do you think?

My photograph site has been one of those sites that I have fiddled with and messed around with for ages now. It has had more than 5 different looks in the 18 months that it has been around but I think I have finally got it right. Yes I have changed it again and I wanted to let you all know!

I decided to change it not because I disliked the other look. In fact as you will see the design is very similar to the other however I wanted to add some new features to it and therefore decided to give it a mini overhaul at the same time. For the last few weeks I have been playing around with the Wordpress code as I was certain that Wordpress could be used as a content management system. I was right. This will allow me, and others for other systems, to update pages far more easily than using HTML and Dreamweaver. Therefore Mark Wilkinson Photographs is now powered by this content management system.

Adapting Wordpress in order to power the pages took a while but really was not that difficult. The first thing to do is to work out what page layout you want and then choose a ready-made theme that is a close as possible to this. You then need to get rid of all the bits that make Wordpress act like a blog. For example I found and removed the code that displays the author and time that a post was written and also removed the commenting sections of the pages and posts and these are not needed for a normal website layout. Once this was done it was then down to altering the style sheet that belongs to the theme that you have chosen in order to get the look of the website correct e.g. colours and links etc.

The end product I am rather happy with and it means that updating pages is much easier than having to use Dreamweaver every time in order to a new pages. What do you think of the new site?

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Mark Wilkinson Photographs
Wordpress (Blogging Software)