Close ups and the house

A few close ups from around the garden

Wildlife and nature

Been a while since I have had a chance to post anything, been busy with visitors and away in Germany for a few days - working unfortunatly - but hey ho, not to worry.








Going to just post some pictures this time, first some from around the garden.









Giant black bees, took ages to get one decent shot and doesnt quite show of the Indigo blue that covers the body and the beautiful wings look like oil on water, with multiple swirling colours



Managed to bag one in flight though!

Blue Tits in flight

The toad that won the swimming competition!








The cherries have been amazing and it is really difficult to eat them quick enough. Even with the birds helping themselves to the high branches there are kilos of cherries to be had

Wow - 90 in the shade

Wow, what a day, peaked at about 90 in the shade and the thermometer refused to give a reading in the sun - displayed HHH, when brought in it started showing 120 after about 5 minutes...

Great morning wandering around a local garden centre, bought some fabulous geraniums - Anti-Mosquito's don't you know - and some black eye susans for along the balcony railings. A few other bits and pieces - somehow managed to get in the line that had the woman with a problem - whilst all around managed to get through we were stuck waiting for the problem to be sorted, she was very apologetic though and the young girl on the register was very good humoured.

So on the way back home we thought we would grab some lunch stuff and some BBQ stuff from the supermarket, Mum again picked the line and arggghhhh, we had to wait about 15 minutes whilst they tried to swipe her individual savings vouchers into the system - it wasn't playing and the woman wasn't bothered, with all the stuff on the conveyer it was a gamble whether to move - baring in mind we had left my Dad in the car - with the window open a crack of course - it was getting to be a little tedious. Eventually escaped and got home tout sweet to spend the afternoon by the pool.

Had a great afternoon in and around the pool, reading, chatting and generally having a very laid back time. Dad seems to have forgotten how to swim and apart from the grimaces as the "cold" (26c) water reached those delicate lower parts, it was very amusing watching the half drowning half doggy paddle that then ensued.

After a failed attempt at a BBQ the previous evening - totally the useless charcoals fault...- and having bought a 10kg real "restaurant quality" charcoal from the garden centre was determined not to be defeated again!!! Not sure exactly what "restaurant quality" means, apart from bloody good! You could see that it used to be wood and wasnt some compressed lump of coal dust.

Had some Toulouse sausages, fantastic steak, salad and roast (in duck fat) potatatoes.

Finished off by watering the plants new and old and hosing down the poolside ready for tomorrow.

Off to Toulouse tomorrow to visit a couple of "fabric" based markets so Mum will be happy - I guess Dad and I will have to find a Coffee shop (bar) to wait in.

One other thing that did happen in the last few days is that the "Garden elves" have been, and have done wonders for the Roses, borders and driveway. They also collected 5lb of cherries of the tree!

New discovery today is the mulberry tree in the garden, small black mulberries that are so sweet, the ground is black in places where they have fallen.

Todays Wildlife count...

2x Lesser spotted woodpeckers - although may have been Middle spotted as seemed small

2x Jays

2x Green woodpeckers

2x Nuthcatch

Flycatchers; Swifts

many blue and great tits.

Black Kite

Buzzard or maybe even a short toed eagle, and then this evening bats and an owl of some description but in silhouette so not sure what it was.