I’ve somehow lost half the photographs I took today, including a beautiful one of Vesla jumping over a stream. They’ve just disappeared into thin air. There will now be a short pause while I consolidate my remaining shots, and I leave you with this picture of a bowl of some sort of ranunculæ on our dining table. As you see they’re past their best, and that’s when we like them best …
A Bad Guide 
Superb colours! I wish I could put this picture on my wall (a real wall, not the internet).
Yes, it would look good big.
I hope you’ll do your best to show us Vesla-loup-the-burn.
Sadly, dearie, I cannot recognise your reference; however, I would be delighted to do whatever it is you’re asking if you’ll just rephrase it.
Oh, it’s just that I’d like to see Vesla leaping across the stream.
“cuddy-loup-the-dyke” (literally ‘donkey leap over the wall’) is the game of leap-frog. But though “dyke” is usually said to mean wall, my memory is that it could also refer to the ditch at the foot of a wall. Anyway, to “loup the dyke” is also metaphorically to make a dash for freedom, or to escape restraint.
I’ve never heard that before. And a burn is a brook, bec, bekk or Bach.
It was a brilliant and lucky snap. We’ll probably never be able to repeat it. It leaked out of my camera, I don’t know how.
Believe me, I know how you feel: I had a digital photo once of Ruskin (the dog, not the dead sideboards) leaping over a perfectly still puddle in full reflexion. I was so annoyed. I wanted to send it to a photographer friend who had absolutely no patience or even potential tolerance for non-pellicular photos. On that occasion she was right (but of course she never knew) because it “disappeared”. Later I sent her a photo she claims is the most beautiful photograph she has ever seen (she exaggerates). Losing data is too often heartbreaking. I try to remember Magaret Meade’s reflexions when her flat burnt. We must detach ourselves from [even virtual] possessions…maybe.
Sorry – I haven’t said anything to anybody for ages, and am possibly escaping Eyjafjallajökull {touch wood} simply by having flown TO Bristol [urgent errand of in-law mercy] on Monday the 12th with a return flight booked Friday the 23rd. I hope easyJet keeps flying. Sorry. Frazzled. HOW RESTORATIVE TO SEE THE LOVELY GOATS!! AND ALEX AND TOPSY. I also miss my dogs. Love to Blogger and all Commenters.
Is “non-pellicular” for digital photos just your own usage or is it a common term? I’m going to try it out, you may see it used here later. I can see your photographer friend getting some funny looks if she tells people she’s into pellicular photos.
My physics teacher made everyone write “reflexion” instead of using an S or T, and I did it for years, but in the end I gave up because, like my spelling checker is doing now, everybody questioned it. Anyway, well done for not giving in.
Poor Margaret Meade. I didn’t know about her fire.
Gee, tough questions. Maybe as a reader of English books (fiction and non-fiction) forever, when I married an Englishman who winces at words like “cookie”, and toe-may-toe, I just adopted English ways. (I also often put the apostrophe before ‘phone…). He makes little movies. They are made on a digital camera. They aren’t films. They’re non pellicular. We cannot talk about “footage”. I dunno. We are each pedantic in our way. So that’s how it comes out. A Catalan slang word for a film is “una pel·li” short for pel·licula: film. How else could I say it? I have no intuitive feeling for how far the word “analog” goes… Please advise!
Something in the inter-tubes don’t like the apostrophe before ‘phone.
I’ve just realised that “inter-tubes” on many American tongues would be “inner tubes”: how tiresome.
Puny, eh?