Squawk!

The air in the garden is filled with the fluffy white seeds of the willow trees and there are plenty in the house as well.

A much calmer day today, helped by the fact that on Wednesday afternoons I'm on ppa time. In the morning the children had their first practice SATs test under test conditions, ie in silence and sitting widely spaced around the room. It was a spelling test which I marked in the afternoon and they didn't do too badly. Unlike our weekly spelling test when they are given a list of words to write, one side of the test paper has pictures of the things I ask them to spell and the other side has a story with gaps. The story is read through first and then a second time when they are asked to write the missing words.

There are simply not enough hours in the day to do all the things that need doing. I didn't get home until 6.30 so didn't have that much time in the garden. Still every bit helps and I have started work on the path from the drive up to the chickens' run, skimming off the soil and filling it up with stones instead.

When I first got home I was greeted by the familiar sound of jackdaw chicks ....... coming from the roof space. Those pesky birds must have found a way in somehow and now we will be serenaded by the hungry squawking of their brood. I'll have to go back up in the loft at the end of the summer and really make sure all the holes are made bird proof.

A tropical flower that was the size of a grapefruit.

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Yikes!

We came across not 1 but 2 full grown adders on our walk this afternoon. I didn't see the first one which rushed across the path in front of Peter as we walked down the coombe but the second one was on the path on the north side of the Point. Peter stopped suddenly so that I nearly bumped into him, then I shrieked and reached for my camera at the same time but it was slithering away too quickly into the grass for a photo. I was grateful for the fact that I was wearing walking boots but I did have bare legs so I was glad that Peter usually walks in front of me (that way he can set a pace that is comfortable for his joints and he doesn't have to keep stopping for my photo moments). Maybe that's the reason that the man always walks in front in so many cultures, to be the first to encounter danger! We did get our first sighting of a single grey seal a few paces later. It was a beautiful day and once again there were many people out enjoying the beautiful scenery. (The spring flowers are flowering in abundance, dandelions, celandines, violets, bluebells, primroses, white campion, thrift and vetch to name a few.) People usually say Hello as they pass you but some are too deep in conversation or too rude to even say thank you as you stand aside to let them pass. I had been quizzing Peter about who he had been playing golf with the day before and coming to the conclusion that one of the men who had a slightly unusual surname was probably married to a supply teacher who I have met in various schools over the years when lo and behold, said golfing friend, supply teacher wife and mother-in-law came walking around the corner on a Sunday stroll. As is the way of inhabitants of the area we stopped for a chat (this often happens when shopping) and laughed at the coincidence. Our walk today took us along the coast path and up these steps. These are the easiest of the several sets of steps in the area being only 66 steps to climb while the others have more than 80 but I must be getting fitter as I didn't feel at all puffed out when I reached the top and didn't need 'a moment to look at the view'.

Our choice of lunch spot is dictated by the direction of the wind and if somebody is already on our chosen bench. Today the best shelter was at the Point sitting on the rocks. (Peter is trying to see the screen of his phone in the shade of his hat.) Our lunch of smoked salmon (half a packet of cheap ends) in onion and poppy seed bagels followed by home made apple cake with coffee was to my mind every bit as enjoyable as last week's roast dinner and yet cost less than my one glass of fruit juice.

The day stayed sunny and fairly warm so while I mowed the lawns Peter barbecued some marinaded pork which he served up with salads and pitta bread. This corner of the scree garden is where we often end up eating in the evenings as it catches the last of the setting sun. As we ate we once again marvelled at how fortunate we are to be able to enjoy such a beautiful setting with just the sound of the birds in our ears. A far cry from the days we lived in London when all around would have been the sound of traffic, car alarms and music being 'shared' from the pub or community minded neighbours.

This picture is for Elora who wanted to see what the arch looks like denuded of branches. Although turning those 2 trunks into an arch covered in honeysuckle is a possibility it would be a somewhat pointless grand feature and more importantly would reduce the size of what is going to be a small veg patch so I'm going to see if I can dig/cut off the roots and remove at least one of those trunks. Wish me luck with that!

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A Lovely Day.

The glorious weather continues and as I sat in the garden enjoying an al fresco breakfast I had not one jot of envy for those 'on holiday' in some exotic location. The sun was shining and the only sounds were those of bird song with the occasional undertone of buzzing bees. Not until my neighbour came down the hill with Jack on one of the ponies was there any human sound to break the symphony of natural sounds.

So once more we set off to Morte Point for a walk. The good weather and the start of the school holidays meant that there were an awful lot of people and their dogs out too but we do have to share our beautiful countryside with those not fortunate enough to live in such lovely surroundings and only able to visit as holiday makers. Walking back up this stretch we saw one family looking at something in the grass and being ever nosey we wandered over to see what had caught their attention. It was a small (8") adder, our only poisonous snake, sunning itself on the grass. Eventually it got fed up with the attention and made its way towards the undergrowth.

We ended our walk at this pub where we treated ourselves to their Sunday roast, a very good meal, all the vegetables freshly cooked, nothing frozen and tender roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes with plenty of gravy. We have often looked at the chalked up menu as we pass by and I thought it would be a nice treat. However I still enjoy a flask of coffee and a picnic just as much particularly if I am sitting looking at a beautiful view.

Back home I did more gardening, weeding and cutting back stuff interspersed with some sitting and reading. It was during one of my reading moments that I saw Jack, aged 7, come driving up on his child-sized yellow quad bike, clad in jeans but no top in deference to this unaccustomed good weather. He then left his quad bike on the road and climbed through to the field where he went up to one of the ponies and simply stood there hugging her around the neck. What a lovely childhood Jack is having. We had our usual little chat and then he went off and got a curry comb to brush off some of Coral's winter coat before she got fed up and wandered off. Meanwhile Peter was back at his barbecue again, cooking up some of his home-made sausages this time for a leisurely outdoor supper.

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Tired PC.

Should this blog suddenly fail to appear it's not that I'm lying slumped over my PC clutching files of children's assessments (though that is a real possibility), but that my PC has given up the ghost. Yesterday, as I came to the end of many hours spent on those blasted reports, my poor PC began to go slow on even the simplest of Word tasks making me wait for what seemed like ages before anything at all happened. I'm nearing the end of the reports (first draft at least) so I hope I can get through them this morning before going off to the dental hygienist. The weather yesterday matched my cheery mood being rainy for most of the day. The oil man came with a delivery (so that's £860 of oil used up since 13th Dec) and he wasn't very happy with the stand the oil tank is on telling me dire tales of £30,000 fines for a small oil leak into a waterway. We'll have to wait until the tank is nearly empty before we can do that job.
I was looking at the bird feeders from the stairway window when I spotted a fox slinking along the stream bank. I'm not too happy to have a fox around the place so I banged on the window to get him to clear off. When I went outside to make sure he'd gone my sympathies changed as across the fields I could hear the hated sound of the hunt. The baying of the hounds and the stupid tootling of the huntsman's horn. My thoughts about people who kill animals for pleasure are not printable. Luckily the hunt was up on the road by Ron's farm and could not get down directly to our place. Ron used to hunt but ever since we've been here he has not allowed the hunt on his land.The other field that backs onto our garden was planted up as deciduous woodland some years ago and the hunt can't go there either. I could hear the hunt up on the other hill so just in case they decided to head down onto our property I got one of the boys' guns and had it loaded in the kitchen ready to deter any dogs. (The hunt dogs have been known to rip people's cats to pieces.)
So yesterday did not improve my mood. Back now to the reports.

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Happy Valentine's Day.

While I try to fight against the rampant commercialism of all our traditions I would have been very disappointed not to have any tokens of appreciation this morning. And bless his socks (I've trained him well), card, chocolate (bar not box) and roses brightened up my morning. In the UK the exchange of Valentine's cards is very much a romantic declaration. However I did cut out little hearts from pink post-its, added smiley stickers and stuck them on each child's tray this morning (from the tooth fairy?) We then encouraged the children to write compliments on pink paper to give to their friends as a sign of friendship.

In general it has been a good day in school. The sun shone and it was so warm in the afternoon that we even had the classroom windows open to let some fresh air in. This week the children are making books about castles, something they are all interested in so I am expecting a good standard of work and motivation.

Back to last Saturday. The frogs have been very busy in the pond which is already a third full of frog spawn. This happened last year, then we had a cold spell, the pond froze over and so did most of the frog spawn.
Click on the above picture to enlarge it and check out how many frogs can be seen in the water. I have to creep up the steps to the terrace to catch a view of the frogs because as soon as they see me coming they dive down frantically leaving only a few ripples and an awful lot of frog spawn. Also on Saturday we watched the jackdaws gathered in the trees viewing the new chimney cages. They took turns to fly down to the chimney and inspect our defences, hopefully now they'll clear off and we wont have to worry about a chimney full of sticks and mess.

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Silly Birds.

My journey into school this morning was punctuated by suicidal birds. First there were the magpies playing 'chicken' with the the car, then a fat and stupid pheasant which waited until I'd screeched to a halt before deciding that it might be a good idea to fly off from the road and finally several small birds which flew across the road at such a low level I can only hope I missed them.

Not such an exciting day at school, maths for the first half of the morning followed by some art, making cardboard and newspaper elephants to be covered with modroc (plaster cloth) and decorated. My afternoon was spent in the staffroom assessing my class' writing levels. They have all made progress so I'm satisfied. I stopped on the way home to take some pictures of the sunset ,
and the evening light on the trees. It's getting quite cold now so we have been putting the heating on in the evenings.

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PC Problems.

Today has gone by in the usual blur. I thought I was all organised but not quite. First I hadn't noticed that I was supposed to be doing PE at 9.30 so I had a quick mental reschedule, got my class down to the hall only to find it being occupied by some visitors so that was back to plan A. Then there was the visit of students from the local secondary school to talk to my class about what kind of stories they liked. That was another thing I had forgotten about so my maths lesson got compressed and then after school I enlisted the help of some of the other teachers to help me locate some computer programs that should have been on my desk top or at least on my pc. I had thought I was being especially dense in not being able to find them but actually they had disappeared into the ether. It's a complex computer system at school, you can log in as an administrator, yourself or any of the 6 different classes. We had a partial system rebuild last year so lots of things are in the wrong place on the network and we simply do not have the time to sort things out ourselves. It drives us all mad and we actually have a house brick on the desk next to the staffroom pc for that final solution. We so need an IT technician not just the occasional outside help that we get. Today has been mostly dry and completely grey so instead I'm posting some pictures from yesterday afternoon.
When I went up to the scree garden in the late afternoon it was almost like walking in a butterfly house. At each step a cloud of butterflies flew up around me. There were also plenty of dragonflies and although I didn't see the actual capture I did see a dragonfly flying along clutching a poor butterfly.

At the very centre of this picture is a humming bird hawk moth. I took so many similar pictures I couldn't remember which one it was in and forgot to do a close-up picture before I deleted them from my camera. While I was watching the butterflies every now and then I would get a strong waft of the sweet smell of the sedum, no wonder the butterflies were going mad. Lots of rain forecast for the rest of the week - wonderful!

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Poor Postie.

The weather has been fantastic today and we finally found time to go out for a walk to Morte Point. The summer has been so hectic and the weather so rotten that this is the first time we've gone for a walk since returning from our holiday on Lundy 8 weeks ago! Yesterday we were watching 'Countryfile' on tv and they had an item about rambling on the North Devon coast which featured Morte Point. So often I've seen film of beautiful coastline and thought how wonderful it would be to visit those areas and here was our very own walking spot.
There were 5 seals down in the water at their usual place. (Zoom in to see one between the outermost 2 rock outcrops.) A little less exciting after my Lundy seal encounter.

There were a number of these large parasol mushrooms about. It wasn't until I checked them out in my wildlife book at home that I discovered they are 'edible and tasty'. If we don't wait another 8 weeks before going for another walk perhaps we can bring 1 or 2 home to add to our supper. We were both pleased to note that our fitness has improved and we were able to chat comfortably all the way up the big slopes that used to have us gently puffing as we neared the summits.

When we did get home we found our postman in our yard. Nothing unusual in that until we spotted the large puddle of oil. A rock had bounced up while he was driving along a farmers' track and when he got to our place he realised that it had smashed the oil sump. It was his further bad luck that there was nobody at our place and very unusually everybody was out at the stables next door. He was just about to start walking the 6 miles back to town when we turned up. After a cup of tea and a few phone calls (mobile phone coverage is not very good in our valley) he took a lift back into town with Peter and later a guy came with a flat bed lorry and took the van away.

Thank you for the kind comments about my struggle with the old diet this week. They have made me feel more positive. Romas took this photo of me last week which I think is a bit more flattering than last week's group shot. I am determined to lose those few pounds and stay near to my 'weight aged 16'.

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A Gathering Of Dragonflies.

I have been back in work mode and took advantage of the dry weather to make a start on cutting back the leylandii hedge and arch. I had hoped to persuade the boys to do that last week but the wet weather wasn't conducive to outdoor work. Peter did send Romas out to give me a hand which was helpful even if I did have to give a further trim to the section of the hedge he did. I also did most of the mowing as the forecast is for yet more heavy rain coming in from the Atlantic. I had to leave the bottom lawn as it was still very wet. Astilbes in the bog garden.
The strong autumnal winds will soon be blowing the apples off the trees before they get a chance to ripen. This is what usually happens but the apple trees are growing in the chickens' run so they get the windfalls.

As I walked through the garden I was surprised to see a group of dragon flies that had taken up station on a plank bridge over a rill. It is the first time I've seen a group together like that, they kept circling away and then landing back on the wood. Either it was a courtship group or the the warmth and dryness of the wood was attracting them.

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Too Many Flies.

Very cold this morning but not a cloud in the sky. It got hazy later then cleared again with a strong breeze. I simply had to start the day with some garden work in the sun, there is always weeding to be done. Then it was back indoors for a final sort through of the conservatory. One of the disadvantages of getting rid of all those cobwebs is that there is no natural fly control. I left the outside door open for less than half an hour and then had to chase 30 assorted flies/bugs around the ceiling with the hoover nozzle. Then I got worried that all the flies would be buzzing around inside the hoover emerging when I wasn't looking so I emptied the hoover bag (it's a vax for which I have a cloth reusable bag.) Plenty of butterflies again, here a couple of small tortoiseshell butterflies are sharing some buddleia with a rather tatty peacock butterfly. While I was out in the garden early this morning I had a chat with my neighbours' boy. He has a new 'toy', a full sized old fashioned push mower. He had dragged it halfway up the hill to show me. One of his 6 new call ducks is floating dead in the middle of the lake. That's a bit of a mystery. I hope it wasn't disease.

Main group of guests are arriving tomorrow so I'll stop with the cleaning and get into cooking mode. Tonight I'm experimenting with the bread maker, I've added sugar, butter, sultanas and spices to hopefully make a fruit loaf.

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Hot And Cold.

Blowing hot and cold is just how it has been today. No rain but blazing hot one moment and then back to cold when the sun goes behind the clouds. Sorted out another cupboard before going through more photos to pick out some for my photo book. I was looking at last summer's pictures and it was sad to see how many wet or grey days there were. At least it has been a bit better this year.

I did quite a bit of weeding and cutting back in the garden. Might as well enjoy the sunny spells. The butterflies were out in force again, some of them were catching the sun on the wall of the outbuildings just like those garden ornaments people buy.

I noticed the swallow fledgelings making a few tentative flights in the outbuildings.

They then decided that the only way out of the place was through a closed window. They were panicking so much I quickly opened the window so that they could tumble out. They've spent the rest of the day flying above the garden with their parents. As I sat enjoying the late sunshine I noticed them make several abortive sorties back to their nest. The route is under the shelter and through a doorway and they didn't quite get there. An adult then tried going first but they wouldn't follow. I expect they'll have have managed it before nightfall.

The dragonflies have been around for the past 2 weeks. There were plenty of the smaller 1" damselflies around earlier whizzing round the garden like flashes of red or neon blue but the big boys have just started to patrol. This golden ringed dragonfly was following a regular patrol around the garden. At 4 1/2"long it is one of our bigger dragonflies.

Finally, the kitchen is full of the smell of baking bread. I used to bake bread in the rayburn but it is a bit of a chore especially as my wrists aren't fantastic so I bought a bread maker on eBay. Being me it was the cheapest one I could find and didn't come with any instructions. I'm trying a recipe I found on line but not expecting too much because 1- I've used value flour not strong bread flour and 2- I used some old dried yeast that was lurking in the cupboard. Will let you know how it turns out tomorrow.

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Sun!

Woke up this morning and the sun was actually shinning, Hooray! It stayed dry all day though later on the blue skies were interspersed with ominous grey clouds and I kept wondering if I should bring in the washing. Not wishing to waste the good weather, after a leisurely start I got on with some weeding and later in the afternoon I made a point of taking time to sit and read in the sun. I've done so much rushing around recently that I'm in danger of not enjoying the things we do have here, peace and quiet and beautiful surroundings.
The butterflies were out in force, so many of them that I moved on to looking for interesting shots of several butterflies in each picture.

I think the subtle marbling and the bright colours on the underside of the wings of the red admiral are even prettier than the top colours.

A new butterfly, a small copper. I did take some pictures of a pair of them in a courtship dance but this was my favourite. It is only a small butterfly and was feeding on the lavender flowers.

This was another first for the year, a Comma. It took me quite a while to identify it in my wildlife book because the photo in the book is of the underwings but no other brown and orange butterfly has this distinctive notching. While I was weeding one of the flower beds I disturbed a humming bird hawk moth. It was resting on the leaves under the bush where I had seen one last year. Maybe it had been hibernating there since last year?

While I was enjoying my reading time up in the scree garden (and being distracted by butterflies) there was an awful lot of twittering coming from the swallows' nest. Even when the adult was flying outside the minute it gave a chirp the noises began anew. I crept into the outbuilding with my camera and hopefully didn't shock the fledglings too much as I used the flash several times to get a couple of pictures of them. Only 2 little heads were peeping over the edge, I wonder if that's all there are this year?

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Lots Of Shopping.

The weather has been very similar to yesterday, overcast in the morning but sunnier in the afternoon. Peter's foot is playing up so he decided not to go to the gym & pool today but I had things to do so I had a leisurely few hours shopping in town once I'd been to the bank, post office and library. I bought some more pjs/slopping around clothes (all in sale of course), I think one more pair of pjs are going to get the chop and be turned into shorts. I do like those sort of clothes and though I should only be in hospital for 1 or 2 days when I do eventually have my op it will be nice to have new clothes to wear. Still on the hunt for new bras (due to changing down a few sizes), I ended up in Banbury's (a posh-ish dept store) and eventually found a plain white bra that fitted, went to pay and found out it was £37!!! 'No Thanks' I said and went to BHS where I bought 2 for less than half that price. Also bought another long t-shirt, on sale and 20% extra off. While in Banbury's I bought another stainless steel saucepan (on sale) to match a bigger one I bought in sale there last year. This is all part of my plan to move from my heavy cast iron Le Creusot pans, mostly given to Vytas now, that I had been buying since I was married. I might even go and get the smallest pan to complete the set as I had earmarked the money I made from selling some old chairs for good kitchen equipment. Final purchase of the day was 4 big bath towels reduced to £2 each in Primark. A very satisfying shopping day. Back home the weather had brightened up and I did some work in the garden. Pulling up a few brambles, moving some of the grasses from the path and yet more weeding. Now I can enjoy the scree garden without stressing over the work that needs doing. The colour palate of the scree garden is changing from subtle pinks and greys to its more vibrant late summer colours of purples and oranges. Not normally 2 colours I would have close together but I do love all the different crocosmias (and slugs don't). The first of the crocosmias to flower is Lucifer which makes a showy display against the Pampas grass. The pampas grass looks magnificent in a shady corner and does a good job of screening the building at the edge of the garden. Sadly the same cannot be said for the cynara (ornamental artichoke) which normally made another focal point with its architectural spiky grey leaves and flower heads 5 or 6ft high. This year either due to the weather or simply age there is just one stem less than 3 ft high with a couple of small flower heads. What a shame.

This peacock butterfly was enjoying the sun after its long winter hibernation. Some of the buddlieas have begun to flower and all the different sedum plants are covered with flower buds ready to provide a feast for the butterflies and bees. Maybe we'll have some sun later on in the holidays so that I can simply sit and enjoy watching the butterflies. Right now the garden is full of tiny froglets (toadlets?) but they are too quick to photograph.


Only 1 pound lost last week, frustrating but understandable with all the end of term treats. And too much snacking on walnuts and dates. Definitely need to tone up as well.

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A Wildlife Day.

It's been a day of some sun mixed with very heavy showers. During one of the sunny spells I had a good go at the hanging baskets, all the recent heavy rain had prevented me from daily dead heading of the surfinias and the flowers had also had a good battering as well. When I finished my hands were sticky so I turned the tap on to wash my hands. I looked down to see something fluttering in the plug hole. My first thought was that it was a leaf that had dropped from my arm, then it was 'Euch' as I thought a small brown frog was in the sink. Only then did I realise that it was a tiny bat which had somehow fallen into the sink and down the plug hole. I carefully scooped it onto a tea towel and took it outside to see what the situation was.
At this point I was pretty sure that it was dead, I mean it doesn't look good does it? The sun went in at this point and it started to get cold again so I put the bat in a container in the spare room. After an hour there were some signs of life but when I put the bat in my hand it felt pretty cold. Bat and box were put in the warm airing cupboard and after another hour or so there was a definite improvement.

The sun had made a reappearance and it was hot outside so out went bat, camera and myself to bask in the heat.

After a little crawling around and a few yawns to boost the oxygen,

the little pipistrelle bat spread its wings and flew off. Hooray! A happy ending.

Having posted many pictures of Lundy I thought I would finish with a few more of the wildlife. These small birds, linnets? would sing loudly from a bush only a few feet away.

There were a couples of ponies and foals in a field near us but this small herd roamed free over the rest of the island.

Soay sheep, one of many types of animals introduced by a previous owner of Lundy.

I think the wild goats were a much earlier introduction. There was one cream coloured ram with a magnificent spread of horns at least 3ft across that I saw several times.

And that's the end of Lundy folks, at least until we go there again.

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