Some post-garden-party (knitted) monkey abuse

Following the strange goings on at our recent garden party, we decided to have more fun with the party hats. .... ok .... I decided to have more fun with the party hats ....

.... must you? ....

.... *sigh* ....

..... are you done yet? ....





Nope.

.... just kill me now ....

I can't show you where I positioned the red shiny hat for the final shot as this is a family blog, but let's just say that 007 didn't complain .....

.... on the other hand ....

And then there was more.


Imagine the scene ....


.... you're a cool monkee about town ....


.... you share your name with the most suave secret agent the world has ever seen ....


.... men want to be you and women want to be with you .... (mm, yeah, I thought I'd gone one step too far with that one too ....)


.... you spot an unattended box of Thorntons ....

.... you move in for the kill ....

.... and you get a baby's bib whipped over your head .... oh, the humiliation!

When I was de-bibbing 007, I remembered that I used to do this with my poncho when I was young. Weird, I know, but being short haired, I wanted to know how it would feel to have long, flowing (albeit orange and turquoise granny squared) hair ....

.... or to help me make up my mind whether or not to become a Nun.


(.... I didn't, just in case you were wondering ....)

Something strange happened in the garden ....

But before I tell you about that, I must quickly thank you for all your thoughts on photo editing on my last post. I've studied them intently, and I think the overall message is .... I'm right. Hurrah!


Anyway, on with the story .....

It was such a lovely day on Wednesday and 007 was feeling a bit grumpy, what with his latest bessie mate having been eaten (by me), that I decided to throw him a bit of a party in the garden.

There were party hats ....







.... and homemade cupcakes ....







.... and even a lovely heart-shaped balloon (kindly provided by Alice when I bought this gorgeous bag) ....

(oh yeah .... I've really over-edited this picture .... where are my shades?)

007 was one happy monkee ....

.... but that's when the something strange happened ....

.... what the ....??? 007 looked around for the scoundrel who had sabotaged his garden party but could see no one.


.... and then he spotted the blue party hat ....

.... and looked underneath it. And who did he find there?

Greg.

(Note to Dotty Cookie if she's looking .... told you my two neglected pots aren't as pretty as yours!)

.... Greg, looking like butter wouldn't melt in his little crocheted mouth .....

.... Greg, who insisted he had nothing to do with it ....

.... I had nothing to do with it ....








.... I didn't do it!.....

.... No, really .... it wasn't me!! ....

.... mmfffppfffffhh! ....

So Greg protested his innocence until the bitter end. And really, he was under the hat the whole time, so how could he have done it?

It's a mystery .....

Possibly more photos than you can be bothered to look at ....

.... and not a single one of them a monkee. Shocking.

If you're only here for the monkees you may want to skip this and come back next time, when normal monkee service will resume. But, if like me, you like looking at other people's photographs (I'm a freak, I know .... or possibly just very nosey), and could maybe spare a few minutes at the end to help settle an argument, I'd be grateful.

I like to take photos and then I like to edit photos to (hopefully) enhance them. But it seems that what I see on my laptop screen may not be entirely accurate. When we went to Prague last year I took 200+ pictures, then edited them, and then spent around twenty quid having them all printed out .... wanna come see my holiday photos??

They turned out a tad on the gare-ish side ....




.... mind you, sometimes gare-ish is good ....

Since that unfortunate incident, RGH thinks I shouldn't edit my photos, and thinks I should just leave them in their original, straight-out-of-the-camera form.

But I disagree. Surely all pictures are edited? Imagine picking up the latest celebrity magazine and seeing un-airbrushed celebs, or the Sunday supplements having un-doctored pictures. Wouldn't it be a bit .... dull?

Anyway. Since I've discovered Picasa I've tried to be a bit more subtle in my photo editing, sometimes just using the "I feel lucky" tool to automatically adjust them, but often using other effects.

Here are some before (or I feel luckied) shots, followed by the - sometimes heavily - edited ones ....

.... and here are a few lots more, Picasa'd to within an inch of their lives ....

(you see? I told you there were a lot ....)

RGH asked me not to edit his photos. So I didn't ....

.... for about five minutes ....

(better, no?)

I may have accidentally done one ....

.... or two more ....

So. What do you think? Am I right, or is he wrong? Any advice would be gratefully accepted and acted upon .... unless you're agreeing with him .....

* * * * * * * *

Despite both girls being at the same school and only one year apart, RBD1 is staying home today due to the teacher's strike, but RBD2 has to go in. You can imagine how RBD2 feels about that ....

I feel sick ....

Look what happened. Look what I did ....

.... bite marks ....

I tried and tried to resist .... but the lure of the Lindt was too great ....

.... sorry bunny ....

007 wasn't best pleased .....

.... and vowed to take revenge ....








I ignored his idle threat and got on with making the tea. And before you say it .... yes, chocolate does make an excellent starter. And breakfast, as we've already discussed.


I was so engrossed with the task in hand, I didn't notice this going on ....

007 had only bundled the latest batch of stunt monkees into a bag and was making off with them!

Down the hall ....

.... and out the front door ....

.... whoa, whoa, whoa!! Back up there a second! I took these photos These photos were taken yesterday afternoon. The first day back to school for the RBD's ....

.... so how do you explain THIS .....

.... Exhibit A : school uniform .... grrrrr ....

(I left it there .... and I won't be re-ironing it before school today. So there!)

Anyway .... as I was saying .... out through the door ....

.... and up some precariously placed steps ....

.... to the bin .... !

.... can you see where this is going? Or more to the point, where they're going??

Well ....





.... it could have ended like that, if I hadn't rescued them in the nick of time ....

And do you know what? Those brave little stunt monkees just kept on smiling through the whole traumatic incident ....

* * * * * * * * *


Update :
Many thanks to everyone who stopped by my shop tonight to reserve these monkees and bag .... once again the virtual shelves were cleared out in a flash, and slowly but surely the quest for world domination by monkees made of knit continues ....