Hellloooooo, everyone! Get your thinking caps on, because here I am with another little puzzle for you!

Well. I say ‘little’, but of course I’m very bad at guessing which will be easy and which will drive you all nuts. And also, though it is indeed a macro photo (meaning it’s life size or bigger than life size) it is a part of a fairly large object this time.

Now, your average grandmother would almost certainly not have had one of these, and though many of you will have one, few of them will look like this. However, looking closely, you should have enough clues in the picture to have a decent guess at what it is, and what it does. And I must say, mine does its job very well and very elegantly.

This – to me, at least – is a Rolls Royce of … whajamacallits. It is a veritable Prince among thingumajigs. A Queen of Wossnames.

I’ve actually been kind, and used a picture taken at the correct angle. It is just as it would appear as you approached it to … um … take advantage of its function.

So take your best shot, and leave your answer in the comments below, and I’ll be back as usual tomorrow evening (Tuesday) around 10pm UK time to give you a picture link containing the answer!

Have fun! I’m convinced that some will find it a doddle and some will still be scratching their heads when the answer arrives, but we’ll see.

Tee hee.

Yesterday we drove over to Spalding where OH dropped me off for a little shopping at the outlet centre, while he drove on to buy a small box trailer.  The plan is to sell the big motorhome, which we don’t use anymore, and still be able to get stuff to shows and things.

Anyway.  Springfields is a nice little shopping centre.  It has ducks!  They are always wandering around among the feet of shoppers, and yesterday one pair had brought their young family to show them where the best crumbs were to be found.

Not that the ducks are interested, but there a couple of art and craft shops and a Marks & Spencer outlet – oh, there are shoe shops and other stuff too, but those were the ones I was interested in.   I failed to buy the glue I wanted for my photo cards, but I did buy a lovely pair of yellow jeans, so I was happy.   And OH bought the trailer, which is going to be ready sooner than we thought, so he was happy, too.

On the way home, we chatted, as we usually do.  Suddenly, OH said:

‘Bloody fly!’

I looked, and there was one small and solitary fly, bashing itself frantically against the windscreen, and completely failing to understand why it couldn’t get anywhere.

OH: ‘It’s driving me nuts!’

Me: ‘I hadn’t noticed it, until you said!’

OH: ‘It’s been there this whole trip.  It won’t stop flying around!’

Me: ‘It’s a Spalding fly’.

OH: ‘Oh yeah – it’s probably trying to get home’

Me: ‘Yes – it’s saying ‘Help!  Help! I’m being kidnapped!’

OH: ‘Take me back to Spalding!’

Me: ‘That dance it’s doing probably isn’t a dance, it’s writing on the windscreen in Flyspeak: ‘Help – I’m being held prisoner!  I’m being kidnapped!  I need to get back to Spalding!”

OH: ‘I left my wife and children there .. and I’ve got the door key!’

Me: ‘Oh, now you’re just being silly!’

And of course, we both ended up choking with laughter, as we normally do

I don’t know what happened to the fly.  Apparently he managed to get out of the car, because we couldn’t find him.  I hope he managed to get home, but it’s a long, long way for a small insect.

Still, the by-pass is only half a mile away.  Maybe he managed to hitch a lift.

I’m sure the duck family would be happy to see him!

A couple of things have made me happy this week!  Well.  As usual, the more you think about it, the more things you find that have pleased you, warmed your heart or made you smile, don’t you find?

The first is that I picked up my new specs.  I’ve been bold this time, and gone far, far away from the awful ‘letterbox’ fashion of the day to a pair by Savile Row of London.  They are big and round (most unlike me!) and have tortoiseshell veneers.  The veneers are plastic and come off to reveal plain gold, if I should want to do that, but the happiest thing – apart from the fact that I can now see better, which as the optician said is always a bonus – is that they kind of match my hair and I’ve already had one compliment on that.  What do you think?

Next is the massager.

No, it’s not for me, it’s for Sid!  When I took him swimming last, I talked to Ross of Newborough Dogs Hydrotherapy about Sid’s stiffness and he got someone to dig out this massager for me to borrow. It’s made for greyhounds, and it has a kind of dog-brush attachment which runs through the hair nicely.  It has two settings, and at the moment I’m using the low one just to get Sid used to the vibration.  He wasn’t too sure at first, but now he thinks it’s pretty good and it does seem to help, judging by the way he went up the road today!

Jeffie tries to hijack it every time I go to use it on Sid.  He puts himself in front of me and lifts his nose as if to say ‘go on then – I’m ready!’  He looooves it!

And finally, to do with the garden, I have a little windowsill propagator in which I sowed radicchio, which I need for Risotto Paola ed Umberto.  There is only one place here I know of which sells heads of radicchio, and that’s the Italian supermarket which is about ten miles away, so I’m really pleased that the radicchio in my little propagator is sprouting nicely!

And look!  The wisteria is nearly in bloom. And that makes me happy, because it only needs one frost at this time of year and all the blossom dies and falls off.  I think we might be lucky this time.

If you’d like to join in with ‘How to be Happy’, simply post about something that did it for you this week, and link back here.  You can use this little badge if you like -

Happy ‘Happy’ hunting!

Aaaand for today’s Macro Monday puzzle, I bring you this neat little object which I’m pretty sure you’re all familiar with, even if you don’t own one!

Some people use them in their professional work, and some use them for their leisure activities, and in some cases they are absolutely necessary.

Me? I use one simply for convenience, I use it probably about 75% of the time, and I take it everywhere … well. Actually that’s not strictly true, because there are a few situations where I have to lay it aside, according to the rules of the place I’m in (partly because of what I use it with). Anyway, I find it extremely useful!

Now, remember it’s a macro. This means that it’s either life-size or larger than life.

How many of you will have one? I can’t tell you. I know a lot of dog people who use them, and I know more people without dogs who use them – without really thinking about it – in all kinds of places, from shops to offices to home, in cars, on bikes, and pretty much anywhere you can name. They’re relatively cheap, really, but you do have to go to a more specialist kind of shop to get them. At least, you do here!

So, take your guess and write it in the comments, and as usual, I’ll be back tomorrow evening (that’s Tuesday, UK time, probably around 10pm) to give you the answer in the form of a picture link.

Have fun – and happy guessing!

UPDATE!! At last … Sorry, OH decided to transfer our sites to a new server and it took far longer than it should have done.

Anyway. DING DING! We have a WINNER!! Let’s have a big hand for Herman Turnip, the only blogger to guess correctly this week! Carol, of Wanderings of an Elusive Mind also deserves a mention for describing it pretty well without actually telling me its name, so second place goes to her. I’m pretty sure she meant one of this type, since I know many people do use them for dog leashes. Well done, Herman T and Carol!

For the rest of you – some of whom were very close – here’s the answer. Click the link to find out what it is a part of.

Thanks so much for playing, everyone – it makes Mondays so much more fun! See you next week?