venetian buttons

i never thought you'd get to see these pix! they were taken months ago when we were in venice, but brian has taken so long to sort out his photos, making lame excuses (as always) about work - which, as we all know is a joke because he's hardly ever got any work, at least not to write home about - I mean, personally speaking, i don't call poncing about on tv talking about the adventures of stuffed bear, work! well, do you?

anyway, i've also got some photos to share from our recent trip to greece, but they are going to have to wait until i've put up some of my venice snaps, so here goes...

we went in july for brian's 60th - i know, it's amazing he's still capable of rememebring when his birthday is, isn't it? - and arrived at festival time, hence the paper lanterns hanging outside our hotel which, touchingly, brian thought were here in his honour...

normally we go to venice when it's freezing cold (don't forget those promised ear-muffs, gill) but this time we went in the summer which was lovely as there were lots of flowers alongside the canals. here i am, for example, up to my armpits in geraniums....

we also went - as you may have seen - to an every-other-year-art-festival-thingy where i found this rather comfy chair. of course, i'd absolutely no idea that there was a rather naughty picture hanging on the wall behind...

a rather less comfortable experience was my attempt at be-post sitting in our bedroom at hotel ala which was pretty eye-watering, i can tell you...

i also hung out for a while on this extraordinary knocker on the front door of the police headquarters in saint mark's square...

which reminds me of some goats i saw in greece... you may get to see my greek photos sometime within the next five years depending how many more tv interviews brian does about teddy-bears!

images: brian sibley and david weeks © 2009 uploaded by flickr.

in at the deep end

i was telling you the other day about our trip to the venice biennale arty-thing... well, i got bored halfway round the russian pavilion and went outside for a breath of air and noticed something absolutely terrible going on outside the nordic pavilion...

not a policeman in sight! just a load of people, taking photographs and discussing the meaningfulness of its post-modernist expressionism or something.

naturally, I hopped over to see if i could lend a paw, but it turned out to be art...

still, say what you like, it's pretty damn clever: he was in there for ages and there's certainly an art to holding your breath that long.

i asked brian whether, if he took a picture of david in the bath, that would be art and he said (rather enigmatically, i thought), "it depends..."

image: david weeks © 2009

sunny bunny

here i am in greece and, yes, it's time to chill out on the beach once more!

so, if you'll excuse me, i'll be getting on with it...

image: brian sibley © 2009

dottiness

i'm no art expert - naturally, i know what i like, but paintings of lettuces are, i've discovered, pretty far and few between - anyway we went to a thing called the venice biennale when we were in venice (obviously) and brian and david hauled me around a load of house-type places that didn't have anything in them but art or what (if you'll pardon my cynicism) passed for art...

At lunchtime we popped into the cafe for a spot of lunch and discovered more spots than i'd thought possible in one room.

it quite put me off my carrot cake...

image: brian sibley © 2009

on plinthable

when i heard that the artist antony gormley was asking people to take part in an event entitled one & other and stand on a plinth in trafalgar square as living statues for an hour every hour of the day and night for 100 days, i told brian to put me up for it.

of course, being a b.o.f. (work it out!), he said rabbits couldn't apply.

then, yesterday, what do i see on that plinth but a rabbit!!!



and not just a rabbit on a plinth but a rabbit on a plinth on a plinth!


as it turned out, it didn't do very much and i don't know how he managed to breath under that dome thing for almost an hour, but he was definitely up there!

you can see the film of the whole thing - if you have an hour of life to waste - but i doubt if you'll be much wiser at the end!

naturally, i confronted brian about the whole thing and guess what he said? he said the rabbit was stuffed!

as if!

a piece of cake

did i mention i went to brian's 60th birthday party last week?

well i had to, didn't i? after all, when you're that old you need all the support you can get - and, apart from any other considerations, there was chocolate cake on the menu...

round and round the garden

brian and david took out in the garden the other week - not their garden of course which is filled up with the playhouse of the people downstairs and populated not only by occasional children, but - worse - frequent foxes!

no, we went to a place called marle place gardens (funny that, a place called 'place'!) and while there i had a bit of swing...

met some strange birds...

and had a chat with humpty dumpty who, i'm glad to report, is back on his wall...

i also found myself on the horns of a dilemma...

...at least that's what brian said it was and he ought to know because he's been on them often enough!

the photos are by brian - he insists i put that in, he says for copyright reasons, but we all know its just feeding his vanity! - and you can see more of his and david's garden snaps (though i've no idea why you'd want to!) on his flickr album, up the garden path.

who's zoo

here i am on a trip to the zoo.

this way....

when i got there i went a bit ape...

 

and then did a bit of tiger-wrangling...

kewing for a look

brian said they'd be a lot of big things in the palm house at kew gardens - he wasn't wrong...


as for the thing in the lid of the box, i'm really surprised they were allowed to show it in public - especially with children, old people and impressionable rabbits about!

disappearing bunny

i went to the magic circle the other day.

one minute i was there...


...the next minute---

all mine!

look!
my very own personalised easter egg!


oh, yum!

happy easter!

eggsclusive

spot the hidden easter bunny...

hippopotanews

there was a knock at the door last week - well, more of an almighty great bang - and when i opened it, there, on the doorstep, was a hippopotamus who announced that he was my long lost cousin from africa...


personally, i thought this was unlikely as i didn't think rabbits and hippos were related, but he said his name was buttons hippo and, sure enough, he had his name written on the bottom of his feet which struck me as a very practical way of introducing yourself...


anyway, buttons hippo was soon going on and on about living beside the nile and about the beauty of the pyramids at sunrise and how surprising it was that a "world traveller like you hasn't ever been to egypt".

and, as if that wasn't bad enough, he was soon eating me out of house and home! it didn't take me long, therefore, to come to the conclusion that one of us had to go - and that it wasn't about to be me!

i decided to pack him off to live with brian and david's friends, sheila and roger, who have a kind of hippo sanctuary that is home to (among others) hippolyta hippo about whom i have written before.

so, happily, it looks like we've seen the back of him and apparently he's settling down ok in his new home in ascot.

ascot? you ask! well, yes, i know what you mean and I have to say if sheila and roger are thinking of trying to race him, they're probably in for a bit of a disappointment!

expressing myself

it's been ages since i blogged and i might not have got round to it this time but sheila sent me this cartoon by giles from the daily express on 24 july 1969 and asked if that was me on the right paw side of the picture?


me? 1969? just how old do you think i am, sheila?

in point of fact, it was my great-grandfather who used to moonlight as an artist's model.

i'm snow fool...

...but i like fooling around in the snow!




Images: Brian Sibley & David Weeks © 2009

bunny bravery

as my fans and followers well know --- i am fearless!



photos: © brian sibley 2009

snow where to go

first venice, now new york! here i am freezing my tail off in central park...


good job gill knitted me that scarf... a tail-warmer next time, please, gill!

photos: © brian sibley 2009

funny folk

it's almost time to go home, which is a pity because although i'll be pleased to see bodge, waterloo, fraser and the rest of the gang, there are things here that are not like anywhere else...

for example, i could have sworn these statues moved...


odd place, venice!

but nice odd, if you know what i mean...

by the way, i did - finally - get to sit in the sun while brian and david had one of the smallest and most expensive sandwiches in the history of snackdom...



photos: © david weeks & brian sibley 2008/9

ear-warmers

when you're a rabbit it gets a bit chilly round the ears - those being the longest and most vulnerable bits of bunny anatomy.

fortunately i can now borrow brian and david's mr funny and mr grumpy hand-warmers and defrost the extremities...

thanks men...!

photo: © brian sibley

misplaced hop-timism

when i chose a picture (from my extensive photo library) for my new year's day greeting i expected to be sitting in the sun...

...not in the
snow!

photo © brian sibley

pinch, punch, first of the month...

yes, it's january 1st and, after all last night's jollifications, it'll be time for a sit in the sunshine with a little light lunch - carrot and lettuce ciabatta, natch - and to wish all my readers...

a truly, really wonderful
new year!

photo © david weeks

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