I know, tedious, isn’t it?  Even on ABC Wednesday, I have to set you these little puzzles!  So. Where is the ‘O‘ in this picture?  Don’t worry, I won’t make you wait until tomorrow to find out!  I’ll tell you right now – the ‘O‘ is for ostrich!

Yes, that plaited thing young Sid is eating is an Ostrich Twister!  See?

These rather expensive dog chews are made of pure ostrich sinew for maximum flossing effect on the old teeth, and Sid LOVES them!   And, of course, if it keeps him off the operating table for a dental cleaning under general anaesthetic, then it’s worth every penny.   It makes it easier on the olfactory senses when his mouth is clean, too!

Now if there’s one thing Sid loves more than eating, it’s Going Out.  So this morning we did just that (as we do every day, of course), and we took a drive to a lovely little park nearby, called Cuckoo Hollow.  Well, most of it’s lovely. As you see here -

The litter bins were full to overflowing!  I suppose we should be pleased that people are using them, should we not?

When Sid isn’t walking or eating (or sleeping, of course!) he likes to play.  Now Sid has a quite outrageous number of toys.  Here are a few of them:

As you can see, they include a fluffy orange pumpkin, and …. what is that tangle of green and black?

It’s an octopus!

Both the octopus and the pumpkin were originally given to Renie and Jack, but Sid loves playing with them so much that poor Mr Octopus is feeling a little off-colour.  Yes, Sid has bitten one of his legs right off, and another is hanging by a thread!  No wonder if he looks a trifle offended.

Oh well.  Time perhaps for another outing?  Here’s Sid, with OH on the other end of the leash.

And we’re off. See you later!

Did I promise you a doozy for this week’s Macro Monday? I think I did, didn’t I? But perhaps it’s not fair, since you found last week’s difficult enough. And I thought it was so easy, too!

Well. Have a go at this one and see what you think. To me it looks obvious, but I did take the photo. Tee hee. I think most of you will struggle. But struggle on, valiant bloggers! Just think how proud you’ll be if you guess correctly!

This fairly commonplace object was photographed in the garden, as you see, and it was out there for good reason, but quite a lot of the time it lives in the house. It’s old now, and a little rusted, but still works just as well as it did when it was brand new.

Don’t forget that you can click to enlarge it, but you’ll have to click again on the next page to get the full sized version. And since I can’t think of any other clues to give you that wouldn’t be a dead giveaway, off you go now. You’re on your own.

The answer will appear on Tuesday evening, as usual, in the form of a picture link at the bottom of this post. I’ll write in the comments then, too. I don’t want to answer people till then, because I might say something which will help you guess, and that would be unfair to those who join in late.

Good luck!

Ha! Well, I did say it would be really difficult this week, and so it has proved. Once again not one of you guessed correctly, and this is only the second time this has happened. Nobody was really close on this one, although if I have to pick the best guess it would be Jama with the very vague ‘some kind of tool’. Also, Margaret was ‘slightly warm’ with her guess which included the phrase ‘at the end of a handle’, and Annelie scores a point or two also for mentioning ‘handle’. Now you’re really intrigued, aren’t you? Tee hee.

Go here, and all will become clear! This thing hasn’t changed in my lifetime, and was probably designed early last century!

Once again, thanks for being such good sports and taking part in my puzzle! Next week will seem like a doddle in comparison! Now there’s something to look forward to!

And a nightingale sang – not in Berkeley Square, but in the middle of our village, on the main road, and among all the houses. That picture up there was taken on another evening – a little further along the road and before the street lights were lit – but it will give you an idea of how ‘townie’ this village is.

So, you can imagine a road with fairly constant traffic, even after dark, and suffocated with the sickly orange glow of sodium street lighting.  Imagine the usual clutter of dustbins outside houses, cars parked where they have no right to be parked and then imagine us, setting out on our evening dog walk at about ten o’clock and hearing a sweet, sweet song in the quiet pause between vehicles.

If you click on the link above, you can listen, too.

Famous throughout history for the liquid beauty of their song, nightingales only perform for a few short weeks each year, between April and early June.  You’ll seldom see them because they’re unobtrusive birds, not much bigger than a robin and a  nondescript brown apart from a reddish rump.   They’ll often sing from a thicket, usually on the edge of woodland, but I guess that with their natural habitat being reduced they’ve learned to accept thin strips or clumps of trees on the edge of civilisation.

Anyway, whatever the reason for this songster being here last night, it was a little bit of unexpected beauty at the end of a long and stressful day.

Claudia’s blog ‘Dipity Road‘ is under construction at the moment, but since this was perfect for Friday Finding Beauty, I thought I’d post it anyway. She’ll be back on May 1st, so let’s keep it going for her!

Spotted the ABC Wednesday connection yet?  It’s ‘N‘ this week, isn’t it? Which means you can discount the brick wall, the grass, the pots, the tree, and even the rain butt.  And Sid is Sid, and he doesn’t begin with an ‘N‘, even if there is an ‘N‘ in his ear!

This was Sid’s first day with us, and I’d taken him out to show him the garden and he was being nosy.  Our next door neighbours have a dog – a noisy labradoodle called Buddy – and Sid could hear him, but couldn’t see him, so he was being a Peeping Sid.

It used to be said that nosy people had a ‘long nose‘, and there are few longer in the dog world than greyhound noses.

No wonder we call greyhounds ‘Needle Noses‘!  There is even a greyhound collar shop called ‘Needlenose Apparel‘, where you can buy some really nice coats and pyjamas, as well as that all-important neckwear!

Sid doesn’t look quite so needle-like here, does he?  But it’s all a matter of perspective!

And he seems to like giving us a close-up view of his nostrils.  Is that normal?  I guess it is for a dog.

Greyhounds have long necks, too.

Usually, a dog’s collar would sit up closer to his ears, wouldn’t it?  But that’s exactly why greyhounds need special collars like martingales, or those leather ‘fishtail’ ones – their necks are so strong, and their heads are so narrow that normal collars slip right off.  I prefer martingales myself, because to get a leather collar fitted correctly, it tends to bite into the angle of the jaw, and surely must be uncomfortable?

Wherever they sit, a dog’s collar will invariably cause Itchy Neck Syndrome from time to time.

No, he doesn’t have fleas.  That’s all taken care of, along with the neutering, before a greyhound is adopted.

Talking of necks, how can this be comfortable?

It would surely give me a crick in mine!  But Sid often curls his neck into strange looking positions and leans his head on impossible things.  I suppose that if I could ask him ‘Aren’t you uncomfortable like that?’ the answer would be ‘no‘!

One thing I do have to take care of regularly for Sid is his nails.  When he arrived, they were just a little bit too long, and that will never be good for a tripod.

They weren’t causing him any trouble, but I keep them a bit shorter now.  He’s actually eating a chew treat in that picture. If only I could train him to nibble on his nails, it would save me some time!

Here’s another reason we should keep our dogs’ nails short.

Dogs love to put their feet on people. Mostly it’s affectionate, but it sometimes doesn’t feel like it.  Long dog nails can leave nasty scratches, even through jeans!

Oh, there he goes …

… being nosy again!  We were at a show and someone had brought something nice for the dogs.  And Sid knew exactly where it was and made a real nuisance of himself.

Nobody minded, though!