stocking filla

wishing everyone a very
hoppy -- sorry, happy --
christmas

photo © brian sibley

xmas fan mail

it's always lovely to get fan mail - especially at christmas time and today i got a very sweet message from hippolyta hippo who i got to know through sheila and roger with whom she lives...

hippolyta wrote (i copied and pasted which is why there are big letters as well as small)...

Hi Buttons,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from your No.1 Fan!

I thought you would like to see me getting ready to drink your health in Grappa:


Lucky you, having a holiday in Venice.

It's going to be Really Boring here. She is finishing an essay on the main factors in the development of the Anglo-Catholic revival in the 19th Century (whatever that means) and He always has his nose in a book, when he's not sneaking into the kitchen for another mince pie.

Have a good one & don't forget the Hippolyta motto:

PARTY - PARTY - PARTY!!

Love,

Hippolyta
xxx

i wonder if there could be some future in this relationship -- beyond the usual friendship existing between rabbits and hippos, I mean...?

'abbottonatura'

in case you wondered that's buttons --- in italian!

so, why am i writing in italian, you ask?

well, i'll come to that, but, first, i have to say that i never thought i'd get to blog again! brian has been so busy (he says) that he's monopolised the computer and I've not been able to get even near the keyboard...

anyway, right now, he's in the kitchen making himself a lemsip - like all humans he gets those strange sneezy-coughy-runny-nose cold things - so i'm grabbing the chance to send a quick missive just to tell you that in three days we'll be in venice which will be fun because i get to be photographed in neat places like here...


and here...


as you can tell the photos were taken in the days before gill kindly knitted me my nice red scarf which i will obviously taking with me.

just wondering whether, this year, i'll need a bunny-sized pair of wellies, too...

you can see more of my venice-ventures here.

photos © brian sibley & david weeks

size matters

this is me on my recent trip to the british museum...


i just want to make it perfectly clear that i'm not that small --- this thing is very big!

photo © david weeks

roman in the gloamin'

another day, another outing...

where am i?

italy?



er... no!

i'm at that place where england and scotland used to meet, marked by what's known as hadrian's wall and here i am sitting on top of it...


oh, all right...

i suppose the line down the middle is a bit of a give away! the truth is i was killing time outside the british museum, while brian and david went round the hadrian exhibition.


personally i wondered, once they'd gone in, whether someone as old as brian would ever be allowed out again! but guess what....?

photos © brian sibley

wet behind the ears

i like brighton. everybody does. it's fun ------ when it's nice! i mean, when you can laze about on the beach in the sun...


there can be the odd disappointment: such as when you don't quite measure up as being tall enough to go on one of the rides on the pier...


...but there's still the good old merry-go-round...


...the opportunity to have your photo taken with an odd-looking mermaid...


...or a chance to take a spin with noddy and tessie bear.


but this is my one souvenir snap from my trip to brighton last weekend - playing gooseberry on the boys' anniversary day out. they may have found it romantic, I just found it damp...


frankly, i'd have had more fun staying at home playing i-spy with bodge and the gang - which, by the way (being a bright - as opposed to a brighton - bunny) i always, win!

photos © brian sibley & david weeks

keeping my cool

i've been getting pretty steamed up over the fact that brian has been 'too busy' to help me blogs some of my holiday snaps, especially since - as you may have noticed - he finds time to blog his own silly photos of goats and donkeys...

anyway, i'm trying to keep my cool by reminding myself how i did just that in the afternoon heat of athens...

nice, if a little damp behind the ears!

video © brian sibley

fossil remains

this is me with a lot of very old shell fish.


brian said they are fossils and that they are probably the oldest thing i'll ever be photographed with...

i said i didn't think that was possible, because i'd already been photographed with brian!

photo © brian sibley

see you

before we went off to greece, i had my strangest encounter yet - with the invisible man...


funny chap. saw right through him...

photo © david weeks

greeced up

holiday time!

yes, this is where - once a year - the hard-working bunny goes to put his paws up, unwind and r - e - l - a - x !

photo © brian sibley

wedding jests

here i am at the wedding of brian and david's friends, mandy and rob...


in case you wondered, i'm the one front right held by the groom (in an anxious, vice-like grip) while mandy is holding their special pal (and my good chum), albert the bear.

in case the press gets hold of this, i want to make it clear that, whilst i like albert a lot, this wasn't a double ceremony...

there was lots of nosh - especially yummy stuff like cream meringues - which made a change from my usual boring carrot-diet.


and here's david with another bunny - though it's probably best not to ask what exactly was was going on! after all it was the magic circle...



photos © david weeks & brian sibley

i eye

brian made a lot of fuss the other day about going on the london eye and being brave enough to stand up!! ha ha ha!

i don't understand why it's such a big deal - i sat on the window sill and i looked down and, do you know, i realised that i was almost as big as big ben!



photo © david weeks

monstrous outing

brian took me to the park the other afternoon saying we were going to look at the wild life --- which is exactly what it was...

give me squirrels every time!



photo © brian sibley & david weeks

easter greekings

happy easter
(again!)

this time it's easter wishes to all my greek friends and friends in greece - like sue and andy who sent me this lovely card with a bunny who looks not unlike me before i went on the diet!

talking of diets, i'd like to hope that brian will remember to give me an easter egg (it doesn't have to be greek) but i bet he won't. in fact, i'll think myself lucky if i get so much as an extra carrot!



photo © brian sibley

where there's a will

happy birthday, bill...


i took his bardship a sprig of rosemary for remembrance, but he was dead to the world and i couldn't help but think, to quote his own words...

we have seen better days!

photo © brian sibley

just fooling!

as i expect you all guessed, that wasn't really me on yesterday's blog - but it was all fool's day and you forgot to say "white rabbits"!!

the buttons-impersonator was, in fact, my very good friend whizzo, who is a trainee magician's apprentice and accidentally made me disappear! fortunately, he's just remembered the magic words to make me appear again!



photo © brian sibley

unbuttoned

there've been some strange comments going back and forth on one of my blog postings which have led lisah to to suppose that something sinister has happened to me...

she wrote:

Perhaps Buttons fell down one of the cracks after all and Brian is not admitting it. David is aware of this and his conscience is bothering him.

The only way to set minds at ease is a personal appearance by Buttons which includes proof that he is safe and well.

so, to dispel lisah's anxieties, here i am making the requested personal appearance to prove, beyond doubt, that buttons is safe and well...

hope that's put your mind at ease, lisah...



photo © brian sibley

easter bunnies

hoppy easter!

i had to be pretty quick in getting this photo taken before brian and david gobbled up poor little bunny buddies!

photo © brian sibley

cracking day out

it started out so promising, when brian and david offered me the chance to feature in a photo essay about that crack in the floor of the tate modern art gallery...

i explored...


...straddled the gap, using my tail as a crampon...



...did a bit of balancing relying on the strength in my ears for essential support...



...had a closer look-see...



...tripped, lost my balance...



...and... ow!!



personally, i don't think the warning notices were adequate...



...i mean, falling, yes, but that stick man could never get stuck!

photos: © david weeks & brian sibley, 2008

rats!

when we went to the globe theatre the other week, i didn't mind posing with these two characters (even though they looked nothing like ralph fiennes and cate blanchett) because - goodness knows - i am not a snob...


...but i did not take kindly to having to cosy up with a lot of -- well, i have to say it... vermin!

brian said they were only puppets and, to prove it, he stuck his hand......... but, no, you really don't need to hear it!


just hope i didn't catch anything nasty...

photo © brian sibley

best rabbit award...

today's obviously the day to confess to an embarrassing gaf that I made when i was last in hollywood...

you see, i thought this was c3po...


...and kept waiting for r2d2 to show up!

photo © brian sibley

rabbiting about venice

brian isn't the only one who can bang on about venice! here a few snaps from my christmas photo album that show some of the things i got up to while we were there.

here i am posing in front of the glass christmas tree - well in venice they make just about anything they can out of glass.


and here i am beside the mark on the base of the campanile showing the record high tide level reached in november 1966...


after which i warmed myself up with a very expensive coffee outside quadri grande caffe in san marco...


look closely and you'll see the photographer reflected in my silver scarf badge.

unfortunately, quadri didn't serve carrot cake, but later on i got stuck into some scrummy italian christmas cake instead...


one of my favourite games is swinging on the typical venetian door handles...


this one was on the doors to the museum of naval history. inside they have peggy guggenheim's gondola...


...and outside stand a couple of ginormous anchors. they are so big you can only just about make me out, sitting there on the right...


it was pretty cold so i checked the temperature and tide levels every daily...


...but, to be honest, if i hadn't had gill's scarf, i doubt i'd have ventured out as often as i did.

still, it was fun and, sadly, it was eventually time to say farewell to venice for another year...



photos © brian sibley & david weeks

'ear, 'ear

when i first showed off my new scarf which gill very kindly knitted for me, lisah commented that maybe i could also do with ear-protectors.

however, when gill read this she said - not unreasonably - that ear-protectors might be a bit of a challenge. but, as you see from this picture of me in venice, the really great thing about gill's scarf is you can wear it as a scarf...


...or as an ear-warmer!

thanks again, gill!

more photos of me in venice soon...

photo © david weeks