Weekend

 

How was your weekend?  We had the grandchildren, which is always fun. 

I managed a solitary walk yesterday. No one wanted to venture out with me and I was getting a bit stir crazy so I took a walk alone.  When I say alone, there were plenty of other people about enjoying the river walk, even though it was very breezy. 

The children had a party to go to at lunchtime today so it was a case of dropping them off and collecting them. In between times we visited the garden centre for some plants for a new planter for the front of the house.  

We’ve seen a fair bit of the children this week.  Always the way, feast or famine, still not complaining they are no bother, but the house does seem very quiet……and tidy!!

Walking into autumn

What a glorious day it's been today.  We had planned to work in the garden again but decided a good walk was a better idea.

Nature's bounty was much in evidence

Blackberries

Sloes

Rosehips

Haws

 New life in the fields

Colour in the hedgerows still and peaceful river scenes

woodpecker hole

dandelion clock

verbascum

bramble flowers

busy bee

Hops

A great day to be alive

my weekend

Whilst feeling marginally better, my weekend took on a slow pace, though we did manage a short walk (for us) on Sunday lunchtime

the very last tomatoes from the greenhouse - not bad for the end of November

On Friday I found we had had a visitor to my overflow dry goods drawer. I knew there was a reason I like it all in glass jars. I cleaned it out only to find on Saturday it had been back and that it had also been in all the utensil/saucepan drawers.  As you can imagine the last thing I felt like doing was sorting and cleaning this lot out, but we did.  The mouse has been caught.  The cat has had stern words

Saturday afternoon craft session with Rachel.  I made this stocking using an old polo shirt

And finally - a few last flowers gleaned from the garden.  I felt in need of a vase of prettiness

Nature in the raw

Picture the scene -

Sun lifting in the bright blue early morning sky, swans drifting on the lake, herons in search of fish, cows chewing the cud, rabbits hopping back and forth in the roadway in front of us.  Then suddenly from the undergrowth a black dart, and the air is filled with the sound of screaming from a baby rabbit.  A black ferret or polecat is rolling around with its catch.  I don't think I have heard anything like it, Rachel had her fingers in her ears, luckily the ferret dragged the stricken bunny into the undergrowth but we could still hear its cries as we rounded the corner.  I know its only nature doing what nature does, but not a good start to the day.  I hope Mr Ferret enjoyed his breakfast

Rufus 20 weeks or never to young to wear a poppy

Yesterday we got to spend the day looking after Rufus whilst his mummy and daddy decorated their bathroom. We had a lovely day; we spent the morning walking around Stamford, Rufus slept most of the time. Back home for lunch, then out again after a bit of a play. We walked over to Burghley Park to see the deer, Rufus managed to stay awake, in fact decided that he no longer wanted to sit in his pushchair so we took it in turns to carry him, Pops taking the lions share, good bonding time I say. Its amazing how heavy a wriggly little boy can been, we should have taken his sling, log that for next time.

As you can see Rufus is wearing his poppy with pride, a cute addition to his hat

Spending time with Rufus

Yesterday we went to visit, it was hot so we went on the Harley, gave our new helmets an airing, realised it doesn't have a visor and my old one doesn't fit, need to rectify that before going to France.

Anyhow you want to hear about Rufus not Harley's. He was being fed when we arrived so I patiently waited for him to finish so I could get my hands on him. As you can see he is filling out nicely, he now weigh 8lbs 11.5oz. It was suggested that Tim and Rebecca might like to go out for some lunch and leave us to mind the baby.  We could see the look of panic on Rebecca's face! What will they do to my baby, I've only had him a short while, can they cope.... you know the kind of thoughts that go through your head.  Anway she reluctantly went leaving us in charge. 

Out came the camera and here are some of the resulting pictures.

After about 15 minutes of this he started to get grizzly, so we popped him in his pram and decided to take him for a walk.  As Peter wanted a pork pie - the butchers in Stamford do a really good pork pie, we headed down into town.  Over the recreation ground we went, volume getting louder so I finally relented and gave him his dummy (pacifier) and like magic he quieten down and went to sleep - see above and this is how he stayed.  We bumped into his parents on the market, and once Rebecca saw he was sleeping peacefully went off much the happier. Pork Pie and some cakes bought we picked up some lunch and headed back to the park where we sat in the shade while our little man slept on peacefully. Returning him home around 2:30.  It was such fun to be allowed sole charge of Rufus for a short while, so thank you Rebecca and Tim, be rest assured we would never let anything happen to him.  Hoping this is the first of many such outings. 

Being a grandparent is so wonderful, all the joy and non of the anxiety

Nourishment for my garden..

Yesterday we had an 8yd skip of recycled material compost delivered, they dropped it in our courtyard and we had to barrow it the 300 feet to the bottom of the garden! This was the pile after we had been working for an hour and a half.  Light finally beat us before our backs gave out, so guess what, we've more to move when we get home today.  Its a bit on the smelly side too, but having it delivered this way beats having to make lots of trips in the car with bags and shovels.  They charge £50 +vat for a skip load, and this way you don't get a really stinky car.  So as you can see we are doing our bit to be green and who knows some of this may have come from our green bins anyway.

and after all this exercise I was still up for my morning walk

Mis-guided bus?

This is the maintenance road/bridleway/cycle/foot path of the St Ives to Cambridge Guided busway, as you can see the swans are enjoying it!  From the village through to St Ives it is underwater in 6 places.  Whilst we await the first bus to use the busway the track makes a good cycle/foot path, bit expensive for this use only though!!  We walked into St Ives this morning, around a 7 mile round trip, it was such a lovely day, sat outside the tea rooms by the river and had coffee and scones in the sunshine.  This afternoon we spent another 4 hours in the garden, clearing up is going well, though still lots more to do, but at least we are looking a bit tidier.

Is Spring on its way?

I don’t know if you have noticed but the mornings are getting lighter. I lay there yesterday with the light peeping through the curtains thinking, must be time to start those early morning walks. Got into work to find an email from the youngest saying that she thought we should start walking again. Obviously a case of great minds… this morning at 6:30 found us wrapped up warm, there was a frost to embark on our first morning walk of the year. It was lovely, good to be out bright and early, only draw back was that part of our normal route was flooded so we had to back track. The normal dog walkers were nowhere in sight so obviously the local dogs have been getting a later walk/or no walk whilst the mornings have been dark.

My garden is showing signs of new growth, lots of snowdrops and the hellebores are budding up nicely. We have a large amount of bird life, in particular pheasants, 2 cocks and 7 hens taking refuge from the local farmer who breeds them for the shoot. Someone should tell them that shooting season is over and to give my borders a rest. They seem very partial to the bulbs that are coming through especially the bluebells! They also scare the life out of you when you are walking in the garden, rather than keep quiet they fly up making one hell of a noise, don’t know who is more frightened them or me.

So all in all it looks like spring is finally on the way, more of this sunshine please. We’ve had our fair share of wet stuff in one form or another this winter. Though what’s the betting there will be a hose-pipe ban this summer….

I do like to be beside the seaside....

we had a lovely day today at the coast - Heacham/Hunstanton, despite the A10 in Norfolk not being gritted! We had a good walk in the sunshine, poked about in the rock pools, had fish and chips for lunch and generally had a good time, its back to work tomorrow for me and Peter.

I really must change the date on my camera, if only I knew how.

A New Year and a new look

Happy New Year- I hope that 2010 brings you good luck and good health something we shouldn't take for granted.

With the new year I decided to give my blog a new look too, hoping that you like it, all comments welcome.

I never make resolutions, what's the point, we break them by the end of January anyway. I have however, lots of hopes and plans for this coming year and I'm hoping that I can make some of them happen, so watch this space.

We've had another light covering of snow today which has made everywhere look tidy again, I just hate that neglected winter garden look. We took ourselves off for a lovely but cold walk and I'm now trying to decide whether to remove christmas from the house. I always feel once new year is here that christmas should be gone!

Once again I wish you all a Happy New Year x