You may have heard about The Virus. We are told to self-isolate on our miserable, lonely benches.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/d-illusion/4834774836/ |
Because of The Virus you can't even sit on a bench without being soaked in disinfectant.
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| http://www.jeppehein.net/ |
We need to mask up if we leave our social bubble. I'm all ready.
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| Masked Woman 1920, Boris Grigoriev |
Masks are needed for everyone in the family.
It's not surprising that everyone, everywhere is feeling really low.
It's spring and it's Easter and normally our thoughts would be turning to bunnies right now. And benches, of course.
Here is April, age six, on a bright yellow bench, along with her parallel selves, May and June.
The three girls are thrilled to meet The Easter Bench Bunny. He has brought along quite a few friends; you know how rabbit benches multiply.
Unfortunately though, we are all in quarantine this year. Our benches are strictly off limits while The Virus sorts itself out.
The Virus has gone viral so lots of things are missing frombenches life nowadays.
We can no longer socialise on benches like we usually do.
And so many normal bench activities are not allowed.
We can't even go on tour.
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| Photo from Spanish flu era 1918 |
It's not surprising that everyone, everywhere is feeling really low.
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It's spring and it's Easter and normally our thoughts would be turning to bunnies right now. And benches, of course.
The three girls are thrilled to meet The Easter Bench Bunny. He has brought along quite a few friends; you know how rabbit benches multiply.
Unfortunately though, we are all in quarantine this year. Our benches are strictly off limits while The Virus sorts itself out.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/4325205036/ |
The Virus has gone viral so lots of things are missing from
We can no longer socialise on benches like we usually do.
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| artwork by Jenny Clayden |
And so many normal bench activities are not allowed.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/ |
We can't even go on tour.
Like April, May and June, kids are off school without very much to do.
It is no longer possible for most people to go to their workbench.
Sadly, I have had to lay off Eddie, my Inner Editor, who just happens to be a primate.
And while you're laid off there is nothing to do. You can't visit an art gallery.
All over the world people have abandoned their benches, chairs and barstools.
The Virus is keeping medical hipsters very busy.
It's exhausting.
Keeping well away from the subject of m-e-a-t, let's look at some Easter ducks. Here's Donald on a bench in Helsinki.
April thinks he looks miserable. He's not having a happy Easter.
Well, who is? The Virus is a terrible thing.
We don't know where it's going to strike next.
Some of us are sick in bed . . .
. . . some of us are bored senseless
and so many benches are not available to us.
It's easy to feel despondent.
Alright, what about a pretty little duck to cheer us up?
Well, because he is sitting all on his own on a bench the girls feel sorry for him. April is weeping, May is wailing, and June is sobbing her heart out.
It has all ended in tears.
OK, here we go, girls. Look, I'm not trying to duck out of this.
Here's a nice duck pair. They're together, paddling happily along the back of the bench.
June says this bench is too dull for Easter. She wants to see a nice bright Easter-coloured duck bench.
April and May aren't so bothered. It's water off a duck's back to them.
We hear the rustle of an Easter basket and a very surprising rabbit turns up with a basket of chocolate bunnies.
Thanks, Innocent. You came along just in time.
The girls dive into the basket and feast on chocolate. Before you know it, the little Easter bunnies are nothing but piles of shiny paper.
And Innocent has a new dress with a chocolate ribbon belt.
The fashion forums are unkind, saying things like they hope it will melt away.
Because of the shutdowns, Innocent has had quite a hard time finding a dress this Easter. She has sacked her designer, Joop, from Overbearing in Holland and is creating the designs herself.
Her dress last year was this one, which fashion forums described as The Easter Bunny in drag.
April: Maybe Innocent has become something like the Mad March hare?
May: Queen of Silly Dresses.
June: We dare not speak her name.
But what will she wear this year? Her friends from Easter Island can't wait to find out.
Word has got round that Lady Brassica is going to wear lavender with yellow for Easter.
Tamsin, ever keen to be fashionable, turns up in what can only be described as The Wrong Colour Purple.
While the girls are sitting on a bench by the river I ask them what's the best thing about Easter.
I thought they'd say something like not going to school.
Or dressing up. When I was a child we used to love wearing an Easter hat.
We dressed up for church in our pretty new dresses.
But things have changed and priorities are different.
April says the best thing about Easter is boys.
Apparently a lot of boys come to Paradise Island with their families at Easter.
May says she will go up on Watership Down to look for a boy she met last year. Name of Warren.
And June says she wants to sit on a bench with a nice boy and his rabbits.
I tell her she needs to be careful. Rabbits disguised as bunnies can take advantage of unsuspecting chicks.
A word of advice, girls: don't hesitate to tell a randy rabbit to keeps his grubby paws off you.
Things are going to be different in Fribble-under-Par this year.
Normally people would be making their way to St. Asphyxia's for the Easter service.
On Easter morning Innocent looks around for inspiration and finds the flowers that were delivered to Drizzly Manor.
Rather hurriedly, she wraps herself in the plastic that comes off the flowers. And when I say wrap, you can see what I mean.
Her friends from Easter Island keep smiling but they are not the least bit impressed.
And then Lady Brassica steps out in a dress from her fashion house in County Offhand in Ireland.
Designed by Lady Jess and hand-crocheted by the good parish ladies of Ballyfrumpy, the dress is an instant success.
The animals too are in their Easter hats. Chick has chosen a very nice pink hat whilst Tonks the horse prefers straw; first you wear it, then you eat it.
I know it's lockdown and all that but hey, it's Easter.
Come on now, children. Grab your Easter baskets.
I've hidden lots of Easter eggs in my garden.
April? May? June? Don't you want to hunt for Easter eggs?
They don't. They're self-isolating, like you're supposed to.
That's the old Dunkirk spirit!
But, still, I'm glad to see that at least one bunny girl takes Easter egg hunting seriously.
And now, I hope we can all go home and take our masks off.
Credits
The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was introduced into Britain more than 2,000 years ago during the time of the Romans. Rabbits are thought to bring good luck and indeed rabbits are extremely prolific: in 1859 just 24 animals introduced into one location in Australia resulted in 600 million rabbits a hundred years later. In 1953 the disease myxomatosis wiped out 99% of the UK rabbit population but now in winter there are about 40 million rabbits, rising to as many as 300 million in summer. They are one of the most frequently seen wild mammals in Britain, and one of the most loved. If you doubt it, you should have seen me hopping around through thousands of rabbit and bunny photographs to make this blog.
The Easter bunny made of straw is sitting on the market well in Neckargemund in Germany in 2009. As it happens, Mungo and I have stayed in Neckargemund and have cycled along the lovely Neckar in the area around Heidelberg. The bunny was photographed by Nemracc and can be seen on Wikicommons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_Bunny_made_of_straw.JPG?uselang=en-gb
At Easter 2015 we were eggstatic when we celebrated with some sprightly Spring Chicken benches http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/no-spring-chicken-benches.html
April, age six, lives here in Fribble-under-Par with her parallel selves, May and June. The girls always turn up together to community events and are among the very few children here on Paradise Island. They love Tamsin's baby, Isambard, and they have a pet lemon called Squeezy, who looks a little sinister but maybe he's just a sourpuss.
Lady Jessica Brassica is married to Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly. Innocent is their daughter-in-law. Lady B and Innocent are what you might call competitive in the fashion stakes. For many years Lady Brassica modelled for Studio Joop from Overbearing in Holland but now has her own fashion house in County Offhand in Ireland. See her St Patrick's outfits and more Irish benches at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/st-patricks-top-o-irish-benches.html
Innocent has emerged from her convent nursing dress into something of a fashion icon. But just how innocent is Innocent? Just a couple of weeks ago in the Springy Yellow Bench post she turned up to a party in rabbit ears and ended up dressed as a Mexican flag. Is this a bit of fun or a careful strategy to unnerve the Easter Bunny?
Cora and Dora Boran are twins and life-long residents of Fribble-under-Par, both christened at St. Asphyxia's. If you're new to Benchsite, let Dora and Cora explain who's who and what's what on Paradise Island
Sara lives in Naples, Italy and has a menagerie of very charming creatures, including Milo the dwarf rabbit. Born in 2007, Milo is described as half kitten, half bulldog, and an aspiring actress. Milo and her companions are very willing subjects for photographs; they will wear anything and hold any posture. But Milo does protest that this bench is just a little bit too small, even for a dwarf rabbit. https://www.flickr.com/photos/milorabbit/
The two bunnies on a bench with plants are The Boomerang Bunnies. I found them in Switzerland when Miggy and Mungo and I went bench-hunting last summer. They were in the immaculate toilet block of Camping Boomerang in the gorgeous Poschiavo Valley www.camping-boomerang.ch You can read all about our alpine bench adventures at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/getting-high-on-alpine-benches.html
Shintaro Oda in Japan runs Clayworkshop with his wife Kaori, who makes lovely clay figures like the rabbit couple with their shopping basket. Judging from their photostream, Kaori and Shintaro like gardening, spring blossom, and very nice little clay figures on benches. https://www.flickr.com/photos/clayworkshop/ I thought this well-dressed couple made a perfect pair for Easter.
KingKong911 loves taking pictures and sharing her photos. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sonypic/ She took the photo of the Rabbit and Carrot Benches in the park back in 2008. The park was (is still?) in Kissimmee, FL. KingKong and her daughter and granddaughter went to the Give the Kids the World fair in Kissimmee, and stayed at a house with this rabbit mailbox.
Liz Kearley from Charlotte, North Carolina, loves photography and dachshunds. She used to run the Comment on Cuteness Flickr group, (now disbanded). Heidi (2000-2007) was not just a dog; she was a very convincing Easter rabbit. https://www.flickr.com/photos/doxieone/120929906/
The little white bunny baby is Riley Cole Hinkle at Easter 2009. It was bright and he needed to wear his sunglasses, along with his bunny ears. The photograph was taken by Hinkle.Riley and available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_riley_006_(Medium).jpg?uselang=en-gb
Deepwarren lives in Sydney. The Found Rabbit sign is in Deepwarren's photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzhead/ Deepwarren's photostream includes lots of friends, parties, travel, and a melon wrapped in clingfilm. For a real feast of art, philosophy and general brilliance, see The Daily Warren at http://deepwarren.tumblr.com/
Big Penguin 2000 is an evil genius plotting world domination. He has started this process by photographing nature, flowers, farms, dogs, machinery, landscapes and clouds. Nothing sinister about that. But then there's a set called Robot Life; is this something to worry about? The lovely rabbit under a broken bench was photographed by Big Penguin 2000 in 2008. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7523456@N06/437259241/
The loving rabbit couple are from www.spi-home.com There are lots of cute animal lovers on benches around but this couple are convincingly love-struck. They have appeared on Benchsite before. In fact, they were inspirational when I met my imaginary husband Mungo and we decided to get married in Las Vegas on the spur of the moment. Well, it wasn't a rash judgement: we had met that same morning and had a few hours to consider it.
Gaby is happycat. She lives in Jena in Germany. She loves landscapes, cats and benches: I think she and I might be twins? She has a photoset of 355 benches (I'm in heaven) and the most beautiful photographs of landscapes, animals, blossoms and pretty German houses. https://www.flickr.com/photos/happycat/
The hare bench was made by Paul Sivell, who makes intriguing chainsaw sculptures and is inspired by nature, local traditions, and mythology. His distinctive style is well known around the Isle of Wight though he also works throughout the UK and abroad. The hare bench is one of his many functional sculptures (benches!) which can be seen at http://www.thecarvedtree.co.uk/
You've heard of Mad March hares? It's true that the hare was once the MacBeth of the British animal world: even saying the word hare was considered unlucky. A 13th century verse lists 77 names to avoid saying its name. Now, however, the hare is considered a noble creature and there are around 800,000 of them in the British countryside.
Paul Souders is axoplasm, a web designer living in Portland https://www.flickr.com/photos/axoplasm/ He likes taking pictures of people and pets and little statues like the rabbit holding up all the benches in the park. Axoplasm notes that sadly, most have lost their ears, hats, tails, etc.
Eric Frommer is armadilo60 (that's armadilo with one L). He lives in Everett, Washington and has several different blogs, including a bluegrass one and a Photographer of the Day.http://www.photographeroftheday.com/ His photo sets includes loads of music festivals, landscapes, and even a few armadillos. Also the sturdy concrete rabbit bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/armadilo60/
Georgia Gerber sculpted the beautiful bronze rabbit. Georgia creates bronze sculpture primarily working with life size animal and human figures, often incorporating architectural or abstract elements with an emphasis on creating accessible public art which encourages viewer interaction. She has an amazing studio and garden at Whidbey Island, Washington. Her bronze sculptures can be seen at http://www.georgiagerber.com/
St Mary the Virgin is a church in Cleobury Mortimer, a small market town in Shropshire. It was photographed by Carol Walker for Geograph, at a time when on every pew there was an Easter bonnet made by the children of the local school. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_church_-_geograph.org.uk_-_816791.jpg?uselang=en-gb
JD Gordon is a creative director of an advertising agency in Sioux City, Iowa. http://www.jdgordonadvertising.com/ Among other things, he photographs food, people, trains, and rabbits who smoke asking for a light. https://www.flickr.com/photos/23235029@N02/2994696729/
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is by Beatrix Potter, published in 1902. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14838/14838-h/14838-h.htm In this illustration Mr. McGregor is once again looking for ways to get rid of the clever Peter: 'Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, 'Stop thief!'
Linda lives in the little village of Bürden in Thuringia/Germany. She takes most of her pictures on her daily walks or on short tours by bus or train. Her photos show the stunning landscapes and life of the Thuringian area, including the celebration of holidays like Easter. The log bunnies and beautifully painted Easter eggs are from Bad Koningshofen. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ulri/5614287830/
Mykhaylo Chornyi (b. 1933) is a Ukranian painter and graphic artist who made Painting Easter Eggs, a work of oil and canvas. Its author on Wikicommons is the mysterious Black Milly whose roots I cannot trace. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Painting_Easter_Eggs.jpg?uselang=en-gb
I have used two beautiful images from Victorian1920, an etsy shop featuring creative designs by Colette in Connecticut. Bunnies I Love is a digital collage greeting card featuring a beautiful little boy and his favourite rabbits. Easter Bunny Walking in the Park is another digital collage greeting card featuring a lot of wonderful rabbits and chickens on and around a park bench. The shop is full of delights and the loveliness just goes on and on. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/victorian1920
Jessie Pearl from Yucapia, California is a Boss level photographer. Her website is at http://terwilligerphoto.com/ She has a photostream full of colourful Easter eggs, one of which is the basket of eggs shown in this story. https://www.flickr.com/photos/terwilliger911/
I really did have a hard time finding good chicken benches. Anat and Gila from Israel made the lovely chuks family - rooster, chicken and hen - on a bench together in fellowship and love. Their shop features lovely crocheted stuff - chickens, of course, but also bears and stuffed dolls. According to Anat and Gila, there is nothing like a hen house to say "I really really love you!"
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChukChuks
Sheila Roper from Ipswich runs Severine's Attic, an etsy shop full of vintage postcards and ephemera. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SeverinesAttic There are many beautiful vintage Easter cards, including the newborn chicks playing on a bench. With a purchase from Severine's Attic you can save the image to your computer and print out multiple copies for your own use. They're ideal for scrapbooking, decoupage, altered art, greetings cards etc.
The charming rustic rooster and chicken bench is from www.bellesscape.com in Los Gatos, California. http://belleescape.com/painted-country-rooster-hen-bench.html The bench features a special hand-painted rooster and chicken design on the back rest. The papaya finish has been lightly distressed to add an antique feel. It's available for $2,295.00. Belleescapes has just about every kind of chic furniture you can imagine: farmhouse, industrial, cottage, bohemian, cosmo, Provence, vineyard and even shabby chic. Cottage style? They've got coastal, earthy . . . I'll stop there. You can have a look for yourself.
Jimmy Wayne Emerson lives in Dalton, Georgia. He enjoys travelling and photographing county courthouses and post offices. As a personal mission he has set out to visit all 3,143 counties or county equivalents in the United States. On a visit to Corbin, Kentucky Jimmy also photographed Colonel Sanders on his bench at the Colonel Sanders museum https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/5094669843/ Corbin is where Harland Sanders established his diner in the 1940s, and which became finger lickin' good across the world.
Jeff Turmelle has only 23 photos on his photostream, which include landscapes, a penguin, a puff adder, and the egg yolk bench which he saw on Tallman Mountain in 2009. Well, if you're going to have a very small photostream, one of the pictures ought to be a bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/26615859@N05/
Ron McNeil is an artist based in the Scottish highlands, working in both Pop Surrealist and abstract genres of painting and drawing. He has degrees in fine art printmaking, fine art painting, and photomedia. Bad Egg is one of his wonderful graphite illustrations
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63488526@N07/ His other work can be seen at http://www.spanglefish.com/ronmcneilart
Shawndra and Simon are Scorpions and Centaurs - I'm not sure which is which. Shawndra is from Denver, Simon is from Brighton UK, where they both now live, taking pictures of all kinds of things. Apparently their airplane meals are popular (the pictures, not the meals themselves). They also took the picture of the sheep standing around a bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sshb/
I have a good eye for sheep, lambs, wool, and all things ovine; see Baaaaa Sheep Bench post. After young Lettie was rather critical of my own sheep bench designs and after a lot of tears and Words, I decided I would never again work with children. Now here I am again with April, May and June, getting into another mess. Come to think of it, working with cats is just as bad as working with children. And as for working with monkeys . . . The best luck I've had on Benchsite is working with unicorns.
Kenny Louie from Canada is a software developer, an Apple fanatic, rider of bikes, and a fan of Lego. He took the Easter greeting found on a bench on the Queensborough seawall in Vancouver in 2012. Kennymatic's photostream is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/
Pekka Nikrus fromHelsinki has an eclectic photostream, including benches and Donald Duck on a bench https://www.flickr.com/photos/skrubu/5537103496/ He also has a very interesting photo blog at http://snapshots.skrubu.net/
Jake P Johnson is from Bristol. He took the photo of the lonely little duck on a visit to Bath https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakepjohnson/5526245589/ He also has a great black and white picture of people sitting on a bench overlooking the Clifton Bridge in Bristol. This is a favourite bridge view seen before on the Benchsite Bridges post.
Loren Javier lives in LA and photographed the crying rabbit on a bench. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/ I think it's crying, isn't it? Maybe it's just resting? Loren has an annual pass at Disneyland and he has loads of photos from Universal Studios too, including a whole collection of Norman Bates and the Bates Motel. That's why he's been on Benchsite before; if you want to have the wits scared out of you, see the spine-tingling Halloween post.
Em Dash! took the photo of the wooden duck bench! in 2010. Besides exclamation marks, Em likes parades and parties and weddings and travel to places like New Zealand and New York and Peru. https://www.flickr.com/photos/26659870@N00/
The yellow duck bench is one of the only genuine duck benches I have found. By that I mean it is actually a duck bench, rather than a bench having ducks on, under, or around it. It's a park bench at Ward Park, Bangor, in County Down, Northern Ireland, photographed by Ross for Geograph. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bench,_Ward_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_732306.jpg
The wonderful Wednesday in Easter Bunny School was photographed by Markus Reinhardt, a software engineer from Forchheim in Germany. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tuxxilla/ It uses the blurring Bokah technique in photography; apparently egg bokah is quite popular as a way of creating an abstract image.
Pamela Silin-Palmer is a decorative artist, fine artist, and illustrator who now lives in Ireland. She makes magical paintings, greeting cards, dolls, paper products, and glorious hand-painted fantasy furniture. From renaissance rabbits to royal boars, her website is full of fun and fantasy - a real delight! www.pamelasilinpalmer.com In a previous Benchsite story Pamela's rabbit and sow benches were lucky enough to make it onto Noah's Ark in time for World Animal's Day. Her Bandito Bench features in the long and intriguing story of Mexican Benches.
Watership Down is the title of a well-known book about rabbits by Richard Adams. It's an heroic story about a group of buck rabbits led by Hazel and his brother Fiver. It is also a well-loved film (Watership Down) and a much-loved song (Bright Eyes). And Watership Down is a real place, near Kingsclere in Hampshire. I found several photographs of the same view, claimed by different photographers. I'm going for this 1975 one, from pseudo-librarian Terry Ballard on Wikicommons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Watership_Down.gif
Christian Cooper lives in Manchester. He took the photo at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which is clearly dated 31 July 2010 so we know exactly what that rabbit was up to and when. https://www.flickr.com/photos/chi-ryu/4850661339/ On his website he lists 138 very specific interests http://chi-ryu.livejournal.com/profile
Gary Scott is kingary, a teacher. Among other things, he takes lots of pictures in Poland and lots of pictures of holidays, including Easter. The pretty white Easter baskets on a bench were photographed in Asheville, North Carolina in 2007. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingary/449495455/
This is a picture from my garden at La Casa Perfecta. The garden at La Casa is rather splendid, but it depends on which way you are looking. For the good, the bad and the ugly perspectives on my house and garden, see Welcome to La Casa Perfecta.
Neal Sanche is a software developer living in Calgary. He has a lot of ideas for unique art projects, for which hs is always seeking ambitious people to help. His photo sets show some of the ideas that have come to fruition, and also a bunny butt which came in handy for the very end of this story. Apparently Neal's neighbourhood is just one big rabbit warren. https://www.flickr.com/photos/thorinside/136193352/
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It is no longer possible for most people to go to their workbench.
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Sadly, I have had to lay off Eddie, my Inner Editor, who just happens to be a primate.
And while you're laid off there is nothing to do. You can't visit an art gallery.
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All over the world people have abandoned their benches, chairs and barstools.
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The Virus is keeping medical hipsters very busy.
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It's exhausting.
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| Rest After Duty 1956, Lev Kotlyarov |
Older doctors have been called back to work. This is Dr. Skill, who retired in 1683.
Yes, our benches are in turmoil.
Lord Brassica's horse Tonks was lucky enough to get a hospital bed.
Don't worry, his condition is stable.
Because there aren't enough hospital beds, some patients are sleeping on benches along the street.
Innocent has been working night shifts at St. Smiley's Hospital. Her see-through uniform gives the word I C U a completely new meaning.
But besides nurses and doctors, who else is busy?
The people who make toilet paper.
Oh dear, the fuss there is about getting hold of toilet paper!
People will pay almost anything for it.
Sorry, I haven't forgotten about Easter. There are still plenty of bunnies and benches to come.
Here is a lovely straw bunny on his Easter bench.
These bunnies from Switzerland seem to have found a nice roomy bench of their own. No need to self-isolate; they're keeping their distance.
And here's a lovely rabbit couple on their bench. She's wearing her Easter bonnet and her best green dress.
A pity the stores are shut. Normally they'd be setting out with their shopping basket to get some Easter treats.
Carrots maybe?
April, May and June prefer cupcakes. Here they are in better times hanging out at Miggy's Make a Wish Cafe.
As you can see from the door, the word 'cafe' isn't very accurate since mainly Miggy's Make a Wish is about cake.
I explain to the girls that cake is no treat for rabbits; rabbits prefer carrots.
April is saying there is something odd about this rabbit. Her ears are rather too pink.
And this one is purple.
This one too seems a little unusual. Do many rabbits wear sunglasses?
Indeed it seems they do.
May is pointing out that this little white rabbit isn't on a bench. And in fact the rabbit with the pink ears isn't on a bench either.
June is saying she thought this was meant to be a blog about benches. Rabbits, yes, but benches. She wants to know where the rabbit benches are. They're as hard to find as toilet roll.
But perhaps we can find some.
Well, here's a lovely bunny under a bench.
And here's a romantic bunny couple who have come prepared for rain.
Years pass and the couple get older and not quite so loved up.
The girls are protesting loudly now. They demand to see some rabbit benches.
April: Not rabbits on a bench.
May: Not rabbits under a bench.
June: An actual rabbit bench.
Personally, I think this is just splittinghares.
Did you know that in the past the British hare was the animal that all men scorn? Even saying its name was considered unlucky, which is why there are so many other names for it: dew-beater, grass nibbler, fast traveller, stag of the cabbages.
April: I didn't know that.
May: Me neither.
June: We don't want hares. We want rabbits!
OK, fair enough, girls. I'll hold up my side of the bargain and show you some rabbit benches.
April thinks this bench might be too heavy for this little rabbit. She thinks this bench is rather cruel.
So here's a big strong concrete rabbit. He's a bench that can take plenty of weight.
And here's a beautiful rabbit bench sculpted from stone. No problems there.
I'm rabbiting on here. But of course Easter isn't just about fluffy bunnies and pretty decorations.
It's about the Easter story . . .
and fresh starts . . .
. . . and giving up things for Lent.
Yes, April, I've noticed that this Easter bunny is smoking.
No, May, I don't think we ought to chase him off the bench.
The girls are getting just a tiny bit restless now.They need a cupcake break.
Or how about a white chocolate bunny bench?
June says she doesn't like the snow in this one. No bunny should have to sit out on a snowy bench.
Well, ok. How about a nice warm rabbit-log fire?
The girls are in tears at the thought that these lovely log bunnies would get burned up. Sorry, girls. Sorry. I wasn't thinking. Of course we won't burn the log bunnies.
Gosh, I'm walking on eggshells here.
And speaking of eggs, here are some lovely Ostern eggs from Germany.
The girls are squealing with delight at the beautiful eggs.
Me too. There's something so nice about painting Easter eggs.
Rabbits love them.
But April is saying these rabbits ought to be masked and socially distanced.
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| Dr. Skill from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, 1683 |
Yes, our benches are in turmoil.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/lara604/279938667 |
Don't worry, his condition is stable.
Because there aren't enough hospital beds, some patients are sleeping on benches along the street.
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| http://www.insecurespaces.net/archisuits.html |
Innocent has been working night shifts at St. Smiley's Hospital. Her see-through uniform gives the word I C U a completely new meaning.
But besides nurses and doctors, who else is busy?
The people who make toilet paper.
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/guenther_haas/ |
Oh dear, the fuss there is about getting hold of toilet paper!
People will pay almost anything for it.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/itison/6361426761/ |
Sorry, I haven't forgotten about Easter. There are still plenty of bunnies and benches to come.
Here is a lovely straw bunny on his Easter bench.
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And here are the three girls on a bench at Castle Broccoli where Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly, has promised them an Easter bench hunt.  Lord and Lady Brassica, however, are on their private island in the Caribbean. Who wants to share an island at a time like this? 
The truth is, there's not going to be much going on this Easter. There's no sport.
http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/miggys-good-sport-benches.html
No flights.
 No libraries.  If this plague goes on until winter, things are going to get very grim. I'm planning my winter wardrobe just in case. 
Luckily, it hasn't come to this yet. We still have benches. And bunnies. Milo has found this bench just a bit too small to meet her Easter needs though. Where on earth is she going to put her chocolate bunnies?
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/milorabbit/ |
These bunnies from Switzerland seem to have found a nice roomy bench of their own. No need to self-isolate; they're keeping their distance.
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And here's a lovely rabbit couple on their bench. She's wearing her Easter bonnet and her best green dress.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/clayworkshop/ |
A pity the stores are shut. Normally they'd be setting out with their shopping basket to get some Easter treats.
Carrots maybe?
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/sonypic/ |
April, May and June prefer cupcakes. Here they are in better times hanging out at Miggy's Make a Wish Cafe.
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As you can see from the door, the word 'cafe' isn't very accurate since mainly Miggy's Make a Wish is about cake.
I explain to the girls that cake is no treat for rabbits; rabbits prefer carrots.
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April is saying there is something odd about this rabbit. Her ears are rather too pink.
And this one is purple.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/doxieone/120929906/ |
This one too seems a little unusual. Do many rabbits wear sunglasses?
Indeed it seems they do.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/murk/149780825/ |
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| http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_riley |
May is pointing out that this little white rabbit isn't on a bench. And in fact the rabbit with the pink ears isn't on a bench either.
June is saying she thought this was meant to be a blog about benches. Rabbits, yes, but benches. She wants to know where the rabbit benches are. They're as hard to find as toilet roll.
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But perhaps we can find some.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzhead/ |
Well, here's a lovely bunny under a bench.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/7523456@N06/437259241/ |
And here's a romantic bunny couple who have come prepared for rain.
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| www.spi-home.com |
Years pass and the couple get older and not quite so loved up.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/happycat/ |
The girls are protesting loudly now. They demand to see some rabbit benches.
April: Not rabbits on a bench.
May: Not rabbits under a bench.
June: An actual rabbit bench.
Personally, I think this is just splitting
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| www.thecarvedtree.com |
Did you know that in the past the British hare was the animal that all men scorn? Even saying its name was considered unlucky, which is why there are so many other names for it: dew-beater, grass nibbler, fast traveller, stag of the cabbages.
April: I didn't know that.
May: Me neither.
June: We don't want hares. We want rabbits!
OK, fair enough, girls. I'll hold up my side of the bargain and show you some rabbit benches.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/axoplasm/ |
April thinks this bench might be too heavy for this little rabbit. She thinks this bench is rather cruel.
So here's a big strong concrete rabbit. He's a bench that can take plenty of weight.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/armadilo60/ |
And here's a beautiful rabbit bench sculpted from stone. No problems there.
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| http://www.georgiagerber.com/ |
I'm rabbiting on here. But of course Easter isn't just about fluffy bunnies and pretty decorations.
It's about the Easter story . . .
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| ©Carol Walker @ geograph.org.uk |
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| www.etsy.com/shop/severinesattic |
. . . and giving up things for Lent.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/23235029@N02/2994696729/ |
Yes, April, I've noticed that this Easter bunny is smoking.
No, May, I don't think we ought to chase him off the bench.
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| http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14838/14838-h/14838-h.htm |
The girls are getting just a tiny bit restless now.They need a cupcake break.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/jhard/5653930960/ |
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/jhard/5653930960/ |
Or how about a white chocolate bunny bench?
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June says she doesn't like the snow in this one. No bunny should have to sit out on a snowy bench.
Well, ok. How about a nice warm rabbit-log fire?
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The girls are in tears at the thought that these lovely log bunnies would get burned up. Sorry, girls. Sorry. I wasn't thinking. Of course we won't burn the log bunnies.
Gosh, I'm walking on eggshells here.
And speaking of eggs, here are some lovely Ostern eggs from Germany.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/ulri/5614287830/ |
The girls are squealing with delight at the beautiful eggs.
Me too. There's something so nice about painting Easter eggs.
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| http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Painting_Easter_Eggs |
Rabbits love them.
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| https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/victorian1920 |
But April is saying these rabbits ought to be masked and socially distanced.
And June thinks we ought to look at some other benches associated with Easter.
Chicks for instance. Here is a lovely crocheted chuk family on their very own bench.
April is saying she'd like to see some chicken benches.
May: Not just chickens on benches.
June: Actual chicken benches.
Well, sorry, girls, but chicken benches aren't as plentiful as rabbit benches.
I only found two. This one:
And this one:
Yes, you're right, June; this is Colonel Sanders. He's much associated with chickens, but maybe not for all the right reasons.
The girls are hopping mad.
Sorry. I shouldn't have put The Colonel here.I thought you might like theyolk
I'm a bad egg.
How about we start again with lambs?
The girls don't trust me now; they think they might get fleeced.
I'm no stranger to ovines. I have already done a whole blog about baaaad sheep benches.
Chicks for instance. Here is a lovely crocheted chuk family on their very own bench.
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| https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChukChuks |
April is saying she'd like to see some chicken benches.
May: Not just chickens on benches.
June: Actual chicken benches.
Well, sorry, girls, but chicken benches aren't as plentiful as rabbit benches.
I only found two. This one:
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| www.bellesscape.com |
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Yes, you're right, June; this is Colonel Sanders. He's much associated with chickens, but maybe not for all the right reasons.
The girls are hopping mad.
Sorry. I shouldn't have put The Colonel here.I thought you might like the
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/26615859@N05/ |
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/63488526@N07/ |
How about we start again with lambs?
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/sshb/ |
The girls don't trust me now; they think they might get fleeced.
I'm no stranger to ovines. I have already done a whole blog about baaaad sheep benches.
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| www.samsonaite.co.uk |
Yes, you're right, girls. Lamb is not just for Easter.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/ |
Keeping well away from the subject of m-e-a-t, let's look at some Easter ducks. Here's Donald on a bench in Helsinki.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/skrubu/5537103496/ |
April thinks he looks miserable. He's not having a happy Easter.
Well, who is? The Virus is a terrible thing.
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We don't know where it's going to strike next.
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| nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24190093 |
Some of us are sick in bed . . .
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| Mrs Green 1930, Richard Eurich |
. . . some of us are bored senseless
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| http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/walter-sickert/ennui |
and so many benches are not available to us.
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/gynti/ |
It's easy to feel despondent.
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| Despondency, from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress 1683 |
Alright, what about a pretty little duck to cheer us up?
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakepjohnson/5526245589/ |
Well, because he is sitting all on his own on a bench the girls feel sorry for him. April is weeping, May is wailing, and June is sobbing her heart out.
It has all ended in tears.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/ |
OK, here we go, girls. Look, I'm not trying to duck out of this.
Here's a nice duck pair. They're together, paddling happily along the back of the bench.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/26659870@N00/ |
June says this bench is too dull for Easter. She wants to see a nice bright Easter-coloured duck bench.
April and May aren't so bothered. It's water off a duck's back to them.
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| ©Ross @ geograph.org.uk |
We hear the rustle of an Easter basket and a very surprising rabbit turns up with a basket of chocolate bunnies.
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Thanks, Innocent. You came along just in time.
The girls dive into the basket and feast on chocolate. Before you know it, the little Easter bunnies are nothing but piles of shiny paper.
And Innocent has a new dress with a chocolate ribbon belt.
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The fashion forums are unkind, saying things like they hope it will melt away.
Because of the shutdowns, Innocent has had quite a hard time finding a dress this Easter. She has sacked her designer, Joop, from Overbearing in Holland and is creating the designs herself.
Her dress last year was this one, which fashion forums described as The Easter Bunny in drag.
April: Maybe Innocent has become something like the Mad March hare?
May: Queen of Silly Dresses.
June: We dare not speak her name.
But what will she wear this year? Her friends from Easter Island can't wait to find out.
Word has got round that Lady Brassica is going to wear lavender with yellow for Easter.
Tamsin, ever keen to be fashionable, turns up in what can only be described as The Wrong Colour Purple.
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While the girls are sitting on a bench by the river I ask them what's the best thing about Easter.
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I thought they'd say something like not going to school.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/tuxxilla/ |
Or dressing up. When I was a child we used to love wearing an Easter hat.
We dressed up for church in our pretty new dresses.
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| ©Pamela Silin-Palmer 2013 |
But things have changed and priorities are different.
April says the best thing about Easter is boys.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/555901199/ |
Apparently a lot of boys come to Paradise Island with their families at Easter.
May says she will go up on Watership Down to look for a boy she met last year. Name of Warren.
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| http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Watership_Down.gif |
And June says she wants to sit on a bench with a nice boy and his rabbits.
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| https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/victorian1920 |
I tell her she needs to be careful. Rabbits disguised as bunnies can take advantage of unsuspecting chicks.
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| https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/RomeoLovesRose |
A word of advice, girls: don't hesitate to tell a randy rabbit to keeps his grubby paws off you.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/chi-ryu/4850661339/ |
Things are going to be different in Fribble-under-Par this year.
Normally people would be making their way to St. Asphyxia's for the Easter service.
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On Easter morning Innocent looks around for inspiration and finds the flowers that were delivered to Drizzly Manor.
Rather hurriedly, she wraps herself in the plastic that comes off the flowers. And when I say wrap, you can see what I mean.
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Her friends from Easter Island keep smiling but they are not the least bit impressed.
And then Lady Brassica steps out in a dress from her fashion house in County Offhand in Ireland.
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The animals too are in their Easter hats. Chick has chosen a very nice pink hat whilst Tonks the horse prefers straw; first you wear it, then you eat it.
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Come on now, children. Grab your Easter baskets.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingary/449495455/ |
I've hidden lots of Easter eggs in my garden.
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April? May? June? Don't you want to hunt for Easter eggs?
They don't. They're self-isolating, like you're supposed to.
That's the old Dunkirk spirit!
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| http://www.flickr.com/photos/17033839@N00/ |
But, still, I'm glad to see that at least one bunny girl takes Easter egg hunting seriously.
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Credits
Stay
2010 is
the title of the stuck person who is rooted to the floor and cannot
leave the sofa. I love it. My Spanish isn't brilliant but it's
something to do with financial corruption. The illustrator is
d-illusion, a grafista from Malaga in
Spain. https://www.flickr.com/photos/d-illusion/4834774836/
The
bench
called Smoking (2002) is one
of more than 40 'Modified Social Benches' created by Danish designer
Jeppe Hein (born 1974), who is based in Berlin and
Copenhagen. http://www.jeppehein.net/ He
is widely known for surprising experiential and interactive artworks
positioned at the junction where art, architecture and technical
inventions intersect. For
discussion about social and anti-social benches, and plenty of
inhospitable benches see http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/friend-or-foe-social-and-anti-social.html
The Masked Woman predates Covid19 by 100 years. Also, she has her eyes covered, not her nose and mouth. It's an interesting painting though. The artist is Boris Grigoriev (1886-1939), who was also a well-known illustrator.
They
Are Waiting is
a sculpture by Nnamdi Okonkwo. It's in downtown Mesa, Arizona and it
shows three rather curvy women on a bench, languishing in the
sun. Nnamdi
Okonkwo was born in Eastern Nigeria and now lives in Fayetteville,
Georgia. He creates monumental sculptures and paintings which depict
the vibrance and colour of life. Even without the bench I'd love this
work. http://nnamdiart.com
Mike
Cogh from Adelaide has nearly a thousand bench pictures from his
travels around the world.
The
bench wrapped in tape suggests a crime scene. Mike photographed this
at Henley Beach in
Adelaide. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/4325205036/
The
multicultural people on a bench are from the papier mâché works of
Jenny Clayden, an artist who lived and worked on the Isle of Wight.
From life-size down to thumb-size, she designed and made figures of
all sizes in papier mâché. She previously worked as a theatre
designer in London where she made props, puppets, masks and a
pantomime horse, all in papier mâché. Her approach was dramatic and
colourful but she also developed the more serious aspects of her
themes.
Rest After Duty (1956) is a dedication to doctors by Russian artist Lev Kotlyarov.
Leo Reynolds, from Norwich, has been taking photographs for many years. He photographed the Boys bench in Kensal cemetery in London. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/555901199/ Leo is a geek after my own heart. His photostream is incredibly well organised into labelled and categorised sets. Among them are selfies, stick figures in peril, vintage graphics, and, of course, benches. I'm fascinated by it all, especially 1,141 photos of the letter E. And if this isn't convenient enough, you can get all the letters of the alphabet, and numbers, organised by colour. Oh bliss. Finding a site like this just makes my day.
The
man doing work under a Roman aqueduct is an advertisement for
something I saw in Italy when I was looking for tasty Italian benches. Don't ask me what or where or when. Closest I can get is Milan 2014. But I do know about workbenches. See my two husbands at their workbenches at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/workbench-wonders-two-husbands-lots-of.html
Dr.
Skill is from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). He's well
known in Fribble, where there's someone who fancies him. It's
Ursula, our
Unicorn in Residence. Did he send her that hearty
Valentine bench download? Dr. Skill correctly diagnosed Lady
Brassica's Shopilius Extremis a couple of years ago. There's
a lot of it about. And remember that Shopping
is Not Just for Christmas.
The
pile of wood shown is a photograph by Lara in 2006. Lara is a casual
games artist from Vancouver, who now lives in Seattle. Her albums are
full of photos from Canada, the US, Hong Kong, and
elsewhere. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lara604/279938667
The
male nurse does not wish to be called a murse. Nevertheless, he is
from the International
Nurses Day bench story.
Sarah
Ross is a conceptual artist whose works focus on myths of health,
safety and cleanliness that surface in the physical and visual
structures of everyday spaces. She designed the Archisuit in
2005-2006 as one of four leisure jogging suits made for specific
architectural structures in Los Angeles. The suits include the
negative space of the structures and allow a wearer to fit into, or
onto, structures designed to deny them.
Toilet benches: we've been here before. For a short history of toilet benches and even toilet paper, see http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/a-short-history-of-toilet-benches.html
Guenther Haas took the picture Secondary Roll at the European Juggling
Convention 2011 in Munich in which he participated as a juggler. Guenther describes himself as a hobby photographer, mainly interested in long exposures, light painting and other exceptional or experimental, maybe even artistic, photography. Check out the light paintings and bulb pictures folders in his Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/guenther_haas/
Mark O' Cúlar is from Kilkenny in Ireland, though he now lives in Dublin. He photographed the Euro toilet paper in 2011, when there was apparently a great exchange rate. https://www.flickr.com/photos/itison/6361426761/
Guenther Haas took the picture Secondary Roll at the European Juggling
Convention 2011 in Munich in which he participated as a juggler. Guenther describes himself as a hobby photographer, mainly interested in long exposures, light painting and other exceptional or experimental, maybe even artistic, photography. Check out the light paintings and bulb pictures folders in his Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/guenther_haas/
Mark O' Cúlar is from Kilkenny in Ireland, though he now lives in Dublin. He photographed the Euro toilet paper in 2011, when there was apparently a great exchange rate. https://www.flickr.com/photos/itison/6361426761/
The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was introduced into Britain more than 2,000 years ago during the time of the Romans. Rabbits are thought to bring good luck and indeed rabbits are extremely prolific: in 1859 just 24 animals introduced into one location in Australia resulted in 600 million rabbits a hundred years later. In 1953 the disease myxomatosis wiped out 99% of the UK rabbit population but now in winter there are about 40 million rabbits, rising to as many as 300 million in summer. They are one of the most frequently seen wild mammals in Britain, and one of the most loved. If you doubt it, you should have seen me hopping around through thousands of rabbit and bunny photographs to make this blog.
The Easter bunny made of straw is sitting on the market well in Neckargemund in Germany in 2009. As it happens, Mungo and I have stayed in Neckargemund and have cycled along the lovely Neckar in the area around Heidelberg. The bunny was photographed by Nemracc and can be seen on Wikicommons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_Bunny_made_of_straw.JPG?uselang=en-gb
At Easter 2015 we were eggstatic when we celebrated with some sprightly Spring Chicken benches http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/no-spring-chicken-benches.html
April, age six, lives here in Fribble-under-Par with her parallel selves, May and June. The girls always turn up together to community events and are among the very few children here on Paradise Island. They love Tamsin's baby, Isambard, and they have a pet lemon called Squeezy, who looks a little sinister but maybe he's just a sourpuss.
Lord
Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly, is a gentleman farmer here
on Paradise Island. He loves his horse Tonks, his dog
Pru,and his 1947 Landrover, in that order. He indulges his wife, Lady
Jessica Brassica with a replica mall in the basement of Drizzly
Manor, a beach hut on the Esplanade, and unlimited amounts of cash
for shopping. However, it has emerged that he doesn't know as
much as you'd think about farm animal benches, especially cow
benches or sheep
benches. He knows a bit more about horse
benches, learned from his horse Tonks, and possibly something
about dog
benches from his dog Pru. What he really knows though,
is picnic
benches.
Lady Jessica Brassica is married to Lord Brassica, Fifth Earl of Drizzly. Innocent is their daughter-in-law. Lady B and Innocent are what you might call competitive in the fashion stakes. For many years Lady Brassica modelled for Studio Joop from Overbearing in Holland but now has her own fashion house in County Offhand in Ireland. See her St Patrick's outfits and more Irish benches at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/st-patricks-top-o-irish-benches.html
Cora and Dora Boran are twins and life-long residents of Fribble-under-Par, both christened at St. Asphyxia's. If you're new to Benchsite, let Dora and Cora explain who's who and what's what on Paradise Island
Sara lives in Naples, Italy and has a menagerie of very charming creatures, including Milo the dwarf rabbit. Born in 2007, Milo is described as half kitten, half bulldog, and an aspiring actress. Milo and her companions are very willing subjects for photographs; they will wear anything and hold any posture. But Milo does protest that this bench is just a little bit too small, even for a dwarf rabbit. https://www.flickr.com/photos/milorabbit/
The two bunnies on a bench with plants are The Boomerang Bunnies. I found them in Switzerland when Miggy and Mungo and I went bench-hunting last summer. They were in the immaculate toilet block of Camping Boomerang in the gorgeous Poschiavo Valley www.camping-boomerang.ch You can read all about our alpine bench adventures at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/getting-high-on-alpine-benches.html
Shintaro Oda in Japan runs Clayworkshop with his wife Kaori, who makes lovely clay figures like the rabbit couple with their shopping basket. Judging from their photostream, Kaori and Shintaro like gardening, spring blossom, and very nice little clay figures on benches. https://www.flickr.com/photos/clayworkshop/ I thought this well-dressed couple made a perfect pair for Easter.
KingKong911 loves taking pictures and sharing her photos. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sonypic/ She took the photo of the Rabbit and Carrot Benches in the park back in 2008. The park was (is still?) in Kissimmee, FL. KingKong and her daughter and granddaughter went to the Give the Kids the World fair in Kissimmee, and stayed at a house with this rabbit mailbox.
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| https://www.flickr.com/photos/sonypic/ |
Liz Kearley from Charlotte, North Carolina, loves photography and dachshunds. She used to run the Comment on Cuteness Flickr group, (now disbanded). Heidi (2000-2007) was not just a dog; she was a very convincing Easter rabbit. https://www.flickr.com/photos/doxieone/120929906/
Liz's other dog is Honey Bunny, who also makes a very attractive rabbit. https://www.flickr.com/photos/doxieone/5644086363/
Pod the rabbit is soaking up some UV on his red bench. He was photographed by Murk, who notices that Pod sits in the blazing sun WITHOUT applying any product. Marc needs SPF 26.8, Anti-Midge Spray and Desluggit before he'll even step foot in the garden whereas Pod just puts on his shades. Marc is a technical writer from Brighton UK. He writes The Blog of Murk and also takes photos of stuff. https://www.flickr.com/photos/murk/149780825/
Pod the rabbit is soaking up some UV on his red bench. He was photographed by Murk, who notices that Pod sits in the blazing sun WITHOUT applying any product. Marc needs SPF 26.8, Anti-Midge Spray and Desluggit before he'll even step foot in the garden whereas Pod just puts on his shades. Marc is a technical writer from Brighton UK. He writes The Blog of Murk and also takes photos of stuff. https://www.flickr.com/photos/murk/149780825/
The little white bunny baby is Riley Cole Hinkle at Easter 2009. It was bright and he needed to wear his sunglasses, along with his bunny ears. The photograph was taken by Hinkle.Riley and available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_riley_006_(Medium).jpg?uselang=en-gb
Michael
Beitz, a Fine Arts graduate of the University of Buffalo, exhibits
throughout Europe and the US. He makes all kinds of weird and
wonderful sculptures which have emerged from his years as a furniture
designer. Sofas in knots, upside down tables - it's great to see his
quirky, twisty, mind-bending stuff. The giant toilet roll picnic
tables piece is called Roll,
and it was a feature of Banksy's Dismaland project
ihttp://www.michaelbeitz.com/about.html in
2015.
Deepwarren lives in Sydney. The Found Rabbit sign is in Deepwarren's photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzhead/ Deepwarren's photostream includes lots of friends, parties, travel, and a melon wrapped in clingfilm. For a real feast of art, philosophy and general brilliance, see The Daily Warren at http://deepwarren.tumblr.com/
Big Penguin 2000 is an evil genius plotting world domination. He has started this process by photographing nature, flowers, farms, dogs, machinery, landscapes and clouds. Nothing sinister about that. But then there's a set called Robot Life; is this something to worry about? The lovely rabbit under a broken bench was photographed by Big Penguin 2000 in 2008. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7523456@N06/437259241/
The loving rabbit couple are from www.spi-home.com There are lots of cute animal lovers on benches around but this couple are convincingly love-struck. They have appeared on Benchsite before. In fact, they were inspirational when I met my imaginary husband Mungo and we decided to get married in Las Vegas on the spur of the moment. Well, it wasn't a rash judgement: we had met that same morning and had a few hours to consider it.
Gaby is happycat. She lives in Jena in Germany. She loves landscapes, cats and benches: I think she and I might be twins? She has a photoset of 355 benches (I'm in heaven) and the most beautiful photographs of landscapes, animals, blossoms and pretty German houses. https://www.flickr.com/photos/happycat/
The hare bench was made by Paul Sivell, who makes intriguing chainsaw sculptures and is inspired by nature, local traditions, and mythology. His distinctive style is well known around the Isle of Wight though he also works throughout the UK and abroad. The hare bench is one of his many functional sculptures (benches!) which can be seen at http://www.thecarvedtree.co.uk/
You've heard of Mad March hares? It's true that the hare was once the MacBeth of the British animal world: even saying the word hare was considered unlucky. A 13th century verse lists 77 names to avoid saying its name. Now, however, the hare is considered a noble creature and there are around 800,000 of them in the British countryside.
Paul Souders is axoplasm, a web designer living in Portland https://www.flickr.com/photos/axoplasm/ He likes taking pictures of people and pets and little statues like the rabbit holding up all the benches in the park. Axoplasm notes that sadly, most have lost their ears, hats, tails, etc.
Eric Frommer is armadilo60 (that's armadilo with one L). He lives in Everett, Washington and has several different blogs, including a bluegrass one and a Photographer of the Day.http://www.photographeroftheday.com/ His photo sets includes loads of music festivals, landscapes, and even a few armadillos. Also the sturdy concrete rabbit bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/armadilo60/
Georgia Gerber sculpted the beautiful bronze rabbit. Georgia creates bronze sculpture primarily working with life size animal and human figures, often incorporating architectural or abstract elements with an emphasis on creating accessible public art which encourages viewer interaction. She has an amazing studio and garden at Whidbey Island, Washington. Her bronze sculptures can be seen at http://www.georgiagerber.com/
St Mary the Virgin is a church in Cleobury Mortimer, a small market town in Shropshire. It was photographed by Carol Walker for Geograph, at a time when on every pew there was an Easter bonnet made by the children of the local school. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_church_-_geograph.org.uk_-_816791.jpg?uselang=en-gb
JD Gordon is a creative director of an advertising agency in Sioux City, Iowa. http://www.jdgordonadvertising.com/ Among other things, he photographs food, people, trains, and rabbits who smoke asking for a light. https://www.flickr.com/photos/23235029@N02/2994696729/
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is by Beatrix Potter, published in 1902. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14838/14838-h/14838-h.htm In this illustration Mr. McGregor is once again looking for ways to get rid of the clever Peter: 'Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, 'Stop thief!'
The image comes from the Project Gutenberg ebook of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
There are soooooo many gorgeous Easter cupcake photos around! I pasted in one after the other, finding it impossible to decide. I consulted my imaginary best friend Miggy, who is something of a Cupcake Tsar. She eventually chose these glorious creations from Joana Petrova in Sofia, Bulgaria. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jhard/5653930960/ Even then, Miggy and I couldn't choose which picture, so I put in both. Joana Petrova's culinary blog, including recipes, is at http://www.kulinarno-joana.com/
Patrick Scholl is a cartographer living in Wismar in Germany. He specialises in photographing the German autobahn network but on this occasion he has made a photomontage of a rather delicious-looking chocolate rabbit on a snowy bench. http://www.autobahnatlas-online.de/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickscholl/8604617848/ Frohe Ostern! If this isn't enough snow for you, have a look at the Snowvenian benches we had this winter; they're Frozen.
Mykhaylo Chornyi (b. 1933) is a Ukranian painter and graphic artist who made Painting Easter Eggs, a work of oil and canvas. Its author on Wikicommons is the mysterious Black Milly whose roots I cannot trace. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Painting_Easter_Eggs.jpg?uselang=en-gb
I have used two beautiful images from Victorian1920, an etsy shop featuring creative designs by Colette in Connecticut. Bunnies I Love is a digital collage greeting card featuring a beautiful little boy and his favourite rabbits. Easter Bunny Walking in the Park is another digital collage greeting card featuring a lot of wonderful rabbits and chickens on and around a park bench. The shop is full of delights and the loveliness just goes on and on. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/victorian1920
Jessie Pearl from Yucapia, California is a Boss level photographer. Her website is at http://terwilligerphoto.com/ She has a photostream full of colourful Easter eggs, one of which is the basket of eggs shown in this story. https://www.flickr.com/photos/terwilliger911/
I really did have a hard time finding good chicken benches. Anat and Gila from Israel made the lovely chuks family - rooster, chicken and hen - on a bench together in fellowship and love. Their shop features lovely crocheted stuff - chickens, of course, but also bears and stuffed dolls. According to Anat and Gila, there is nothing like a hen house to say "I really really love you!"
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChukChuks
Sheila Roper from Ipswich runs Severine's Attic, an etsy shop full of vintage postcards and ephemera. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SeverinesAttic There are many beautiful vintage Easter cards, including the newborn chicks playing on a bench. With a purchase from Severine's Attic you can save the image to your computer and print out multiple copies for your own use. They're ideal for scrapbooking, decoupage, altered art, greetings cards etc.
The charming rustic rooster and chicken bench is from www.bellesscape.com in Los Gatos, California. http://belleescape.com/painted-country-rooster-hen-bench.html The bench features a special hand-painted rooster and chicken design on the back rest. The papaya finish has been lightly distressed to add an antique feel. It's available for $2,295.00. Belleescapes has just about every kind of chic furniture you can imagine: farmhouse, industrial, cottage, bohemian, cosmo, Provence, vineyard and even shabby chic. Cottage style? They've got coastal, earthy . . . I'll stop there. You can have a look for yourself.
Jimmy Wayne Emerson lives in Dalton, Georgia. He enjoys travelling and photographing county courthouses and post offices. As a personal mission he has set out to visit all 3,143 counties or county equivalents in the United States. On a visit to Corbin, Kentucky Jimmy also photographed Colonel Sanders on his bench at the Colonel Sanders museum https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/5094669843/ Corbin is where Harland Sanders established his diner in the 1940s, and which became finger lickin' good across the world.
Jeff Turmelle has only 23 photos on his photostream, which include landscapes, a penguin, a puff adder, and the egg yolk bench which he saw on Tallman Mountain in 2009. Well, if you're going to have a very small photostream, one of the pictures ought to be a bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/26615859@N05/
Ron McNeil is an artist based in the Scottish highlands, working in both Pop Surrealist and abstract genres of painting and drawing. He has degrees in fine art printmaking, fine art painting, and photomedia. Bad Egg is one of his wonderful graphite illustrations
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63488526@N07/ His other work can be seen at http://www.spanglefish.com/ronmcneilart
Shawndra and Simon are Scorpions and Centaurs - I'm not sure which is which. Shawndra is from Denver, Simon is from Brighton UK, where they both now live, taking pictures of all kinds of things. Apparently their airplane meals are popular (the pictures, not the meals themselves). They also took the picture of the sheep standing around a bench. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sshb/
Rimgaile
Samsonite specialises in interior furniture and product design.
Originally from Lithuania, she graduated from Ingvar Kamprad Design Center at Lund University in Sweden.
Her sheep bench won an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Green Furniture
Design Awards in Sweden http://www.greenfurniture.se She
now runs her own design company in London
at www.samsonaite.co.uk where
you
can buy both Sheep
and Baby Sheep.
I have a good eye for sheep, lambs, wool, and all things ovine; see Baaaaa Sheep Bench post. After young Lettie was rather critical of my own sheep bench designs and after a lot of tears and Words, I decided I would never again work with children. Now here I am again with April, May and June, getting into another mess. Come to think of it, working with cats is just as bad as working with children. And as for working with monkeys . . . The best luck I've had on Benchsite is working with unicorns.
Kenny Louie from Canada is a software developer, an Apple fanatic, rider of bikes, and a fan of Lego. He took the Easter greeting found on a bench on the Queensborough seawall in Vancouver in 2012. Kennymatic's photostream is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/
Vincent
Van Gogh's paintings and sketches are in the public domain because
the artist has been dead more than 70 years. It's just brilliant
looking at Wiki Paintings and they're so well organised and
informative. Van Gogh did many sketches and paintings of people,
including At Eternity's Gate, 1890.
The
man pointing to a map is William J. Young of Drouin, Victoria
in a photo taken in 1944. He's pointing to a map in
Australia. The photo comes from the National Library of Australia on
the glorious Flickr Commons site at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/national_library_of_australia_commons/6174070848
nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24190093
The
intriguing painting of a woman in bed is one I saw at the Southampton
Art Gallery many years ago. I admired it so much that I neglected to make proper
notes about it.
Ennui is a very famous post-impressionist painting. Doesn't it just capture the spirit of mid-January? Ennui is by English painter Walter Sickert (1860-1942). It was painted about 1913 and is now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It is in the public domain due to its age, available at the marvelous http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/walter-sickert/ennui
Despondency is one of the many intriguing characters from Paul Bunyan's book The Pilgrim's Progress, published way back in 1683. Illustrations from this book appear throughout Benchsite and it's always a joy to see them even if you are feeling, um, despondent.
Ennui is a very famous post-impressionist painting. Doesn't it just capture the spirit of mid-January? Ennui is by English painter Walter Sickert (1860-1942). It was painted about 1913 and is now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It is in the public domain due to its age, available at the marvelous http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/walter-sickert/ennui
Despondency is one of the many intriguing characters from Paul Bunyan's book The Pilgrim's Progress, published way back in 1683. Illustrations from this book appear throughout Benchsite and it's always a joy to see them even if you are feeling, um, despondent.
The
vandal-proof bench with nails and the bench with no back or seat are
two photos taken by gynti46 from Magdeburg in Germany. gynti has
a varied photostream which includes quite a few benches, not all of
them hospitable
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gynti/ For more social and anti-social benches see the erudite discussion at http://benchsite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/friend-or-foe-social-and-anti-social.html
Pekka Nikrus from
Jake P Johnson is from Bristol. He took the photo of the lonely little duck on a visit to Bath https://www.flickr.com/photos/jakepjohnson/5526245589/ He also has a great black and white picture of people sitting on a bench overlooking the Clifton Bridge in Bristol. This is a favourite bridge view seen before on the Benchsite Bridges post.
Em Dash! took the photo of the wooden duck bench! in 2010. Besides exclamation marks, Em likes parades and parties and weddings and travel to places like New Zealand and New York and Peru. https://www.flickr.com/photos/26659870@N00/
The yellow duck bench is one of the only genuine duck benches I have found. By that I mean it is actually a duck bench, rather than a bench having ducks on, under, or around it. It's a park bench at Ward Park, Bangor, in County Down, Northern Ireland, photographed by Ross for Geograph. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bench,_Ward_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_732306.jpg
The wonderful Wednesday in Easter Bunny School was photographed by Markus Reinhardt, a software engineer from Forchheim in Germany. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tuxxilla/ It uses the blurring Bokah technique in photography; apparently egg bokah is quite popular as a way of creating an abstract image.
Pamela Silin-Palmer is a decorative artist, fine artist, and illustrator who now lives in Ireland. She makes magical paintings, greeting cards, dolls, paper products, and glorious hand-painted fantasy furniture. From renaissance rabbits to royal boars, her website is full of fun and fantasy - a real delight! www.pamelasilinpalmer.com In a previous Benchsite story Pamela's rabbit and sow benches were lucky enough to make it onto Noah's Ark in time for World Animal's Day. Her Bandito Bench features in the long and intriguing story of Mexican Benches.
Watership Down is the title of a well-known book about rabbits by Richard Adams. It's an heroic story about a group of buck rabbits led by Hazel and his brother Fiver. It is also a well-loved film (Watership Down) and a much-loved song (Bright Eyes). And Watership Down is a real place, near Kingsclere in Hampshire. I found several photographs of the same view, claimed by different photographers. I'm going for this 1975 one, from pseudo-librarian Terry Ballard on Wikicommons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Watership_Down.gif
Sandra from Hemet runs Romeo Loves Rose, an etsy shop with many vintage art and illustrations that can be used for scrapbook work, decoupage, or printed out to make signs, gift and note cards, totes, or even add a printed square to a baby quilt. One of her greeting cards is the suspicious-looking rabbit who is sitting on a bench beside a rather vulnerable-looking young chick. Sandra has loads of cards for Easter, plus vintage frogs and dogs.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/RomeoLovesRoseChristian Cooper lives in Manchester. He took the photo at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which is clearly dated 31 July 2010 so we know exactly what that rabbit was up to and when. https://www.flickr.com/photos/chi-ryu/4850661339/ On his website he lists 138 very specific interests http://chi-ryu.livejournal.com/profile
This is a picture from my garden at La Casa Perfecta. The garden at La Casa is rather splendid, but it depends on which way you are looking. For the good, the bad and the ugly perspectives on my house and garden, see Welcome to La Casa Perfecta.
The Dunkirk
bench depicts The Spirit of Dunkirk, when thousands of small boats
were mustered to rescue more than 300,000 troops from the shores of
France in May and June 1940. This photograph is from Greg Duce, who
saw the bench at the National Arboretum in Alrewas, England, in 2010.
Greg has toured many of the battlefields of Europe and has an
extensive collection of military, battle, and memorial photographs on
his photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/17033839@N00/
Neal Sanche is a software developer living in Calgary. He has a lot of ideas for unique art projects, for which hs is always seeking ambitious people to help. His photo sets show some of the ideas that have come to fruition, and also a bunny butt which came in handy for the very end of this story. Apparently Neal's neighbourhood is just one big rabbit warren. https://www.flickr.com/photos/thorinside/136193352/
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