Sunny Sunday.

Today was one of those days when the sun sparkled in the dew drops,

and the outlines of the trees began to be softened by the opening buds.


In the garden more flowers are ready to burst into life.


The hedgerows are sprinkled with tiny flowers ,

and the bracken fronds begin to unfurl.

Young men dance in country lanes,

and everyone flocks to the car boot sale.

Today's sale was back to it's usual size, probably 300 sellers with all sorts of goods. Lots of children's clothes and toys, a few antiques and a wide range of household goods. Most unusual item seen - a child sized penny farthing bike, most tempting item - the boxed set of Return of The King with a model of Minas Tirith (I have already got this so I resisted), yukkiest item - a pair of blow up ladies breasts. My purchases included a band new mat to replace the grubby mat in front of the rayburn, shorts for me and Romas, more wind chimes, Irish whistle and instruction book and various other bits and pieces, everything less than £1.

I spotted this kit car in the car park, very unsual.

It took 20 minutes to get out of the car park field which wasn't fun in the heat.

We celebrated the lovely weather by eating our supper outside by the scree garden, very civilsed. Oh well back to work tomorrow.

Time Out In The Sun.

Romas was off to MIA for an Airsoft game today so here we were at 8.30 in the car park of the Williams Arms to meet up with his lift for the day. It was rather grey and raining slightly so I abandoned my plans to drive down to the Velator Great Field for a photo walk.

I had the house to myself as Peter had left early for his 2 hour drive to Cambourne for his study day for the CCNA course he is doing at the moment. I did more paperwork and then painted round 2 of the upstairs windows by leaning out from the inside. By the afternoon it was hot and sunny so I took some time out to carry on with reading The Sons of Hurin by Tolkien. I've had the book for a while but it needs concentration even though I've read The Silmarillion and some of the Middle-earth histories. I find that I have to make notes as I go along , part of the challenge of reading Tolkien is that most characters (& places) have a given name, a family name and a descriptive name often in several different languages. I'm not a linguist so it takes me a while to sort out who's related to who and which group of men or elves they belong to. It was so lovely to sit in the sun with just the sounds of birdsong around and read and make notes in peace. I have deliberately not been to the library this holiday because library books are like chocolate, once started I can't stop, literally.

I also had a wander around the garden with my trusty camera looking for signs of spring.
The Japanese acers are beginning to unfurl their leaves.

While the same dark red can be seen in the water lily leaves.

The blackcurrants are showing the first green berries, good news for the resident blackbird who tucks into the berries when they are ripe.

A couple of years ago I experimented with planting rubus spectabilis as a boundary hedge and it seems to be doing well. It has these magenta flowers in spring, grows no higher than 5ft, is slightly prickly and has good autumn colour. It spreads by runners and has all come from 1 plant that I bought at an Open Garden day many years ago.

Last day of the holiday tomorrow. Let's hope that the weather is just as nice.

Painting Continues.

Romas has been doing more painting today making the place look a lot neater. We haven't painted the brickwork since we moved in 15 years ago so the original job must have been quite well done. We're still working out how to get to the upstairs windows above the porch. It'll probably be a combination of painting as far as he can reach from the ladder, paint brush on a stick? and then finishing off from inside. It is possible to climb out of our windows but it would be quite awkward to do the painting that way. That will be the only possibility for the windows above the conservatory.

While Romas was painting and Peter studying I carried on with the weeding and the garden is almost all done. This is the first time I've had such a quiet Easter but I've certainly been able to get on with a lot of spring cleaning and still have some rest before going back to work.

This was the rock slope the summer after we moved here. Just to the right of the picture was a hole in the slope which had been used as a builders' dump. I talked a couple of council workmen to deliver 2 lorry loads of ditch clearings - soil & rotten leaves which they had been spreading on the road verge up at the top. We barrowed these over the builders' rubble to provide some sort of growing medium.

And this is how it looks today, 15 years later. This isn't a very good picture but it does show a garden rather than a building site. Everything has been done by hand and in a few weeks after the winter heathers have finished flowering, the rock slope will be completely covered with hardy geranium flowers, purples, blues, pinks and white.

One Swallow Doesn't Make A Summer......

......... but what about 2? The pair of swallows that nest in one of the outbuildings returned today. They nest under some very low eaves and the cats take a great interest in the birds swooping in through the doorways. I've done my best to stop the cats climbing up to the nests by filling up the gaps with wire netting so that they can't sneak along the rafters. Soon the house martins will return to build their mud nests under the eaves of the house by the bedroom windows. Today I held the bottom of the ladder while Romas cleaned and repainted the fascia boards and the brickwork around the upstairs windows ( we like to have things neat and tidy for the birds - only joking, it's part of my spring cleaning). Hopefully he'll get the downstairs windows done tomorrow.

Peter saw the rheumatologist today and the x-rays show it's not arthritis and is probably a tendon problem. He's now got to wait for an MRI scan before they can decide on the correct treatment.

They're not easy to photograph but that speck on the right is a swallow, honest.
To make up for the 'cute' pictures I'm posting a few more recent SK pictures, (courtesy of Kate B.)

A typical battlefield scene, the regiments getting into position before the action starts. I remember at this point there was usually a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of mounted messengers and groups of 'horse' (the cavalry) galloping across the field with maybe a mounted skirmish (a sedate one) with swords.

Then the fun would begin with pike blocks from opposing sides trying to push each other to gain position (that's with the pikes upright) or more restrained maneuvering with the pikes lowered until the pikes get dropped and there's more pushing. I used to go on as a water carrier, a vital role when there's all that activity in woollen jackets, armour and helmets.

I was going to call this photo - How to have a rest without dropping your pike demonstrated by Earl Rivers Regiment of Foote but Romas assures me that they were practising bracing themselves for the onslaught of another pike block. Vytas is centre front and Romas is leg sticking out to side on the left.

I'm not sure they were all very enthusiastic in this bit of pike drill.

And here are my 2 lads, eating as usual, Romas I believe is munching a large piece of the chocolate chunk cake I made for him to take.

A Eventful Day.

I sat down at the pc this morning with my morning coffee all set to catch up on e-mails etc when there was an loud bang on the window. I looked up to see a pair of willow warblers falling to the ground in a flurry of flailing wings. I rushed outside, not even stopping to pick up my camera, and found 2 prone bodies lying comatose on the concrete. I picked them up and as they were still breathing I put them in a shoe box with some newspaper.

They didn't look good but at least they could die in peace and not be eaten by a cat or jackdaw.

After half an hour I took the box outside but even though they were looking much better, ie sitting up instead of lying on their sides, they weren't ready to fly away. I closed up the box and left them in a quiet room for a few more hours.

This time when we opened the box one flew away immediately and perched in a rose bush. The other one stayed in the box for a while ............

............ then fluttered up and landed on Romas' shoulder.

It stayed there for quite a while giving plenty of opportunity for photos and only flew off when I tried to get it to sit on my finger. It flew into the same rose bush as the first bird, stayed there for a few moments and then flew away.

In the meantime the first bird stayed in the rosebush still panting and obviously panicking so after making sure that the cats couldn't get out of the house I kept an eye on it with the binoculars till eventually it calmed down, hopped about in the bush for a while and then flew away. An unexpected but happy ending to this little tale.

It's been funny weather today, cold at first and grey but bright with rain threatening. There was a severe weather warning at lunchtime for heavy rain and thunderstorms but the worst must have passed us by as we only had one round of thunder and a short spell of heavy rain. I spent the morning weeding and in the afternoon I went to the doctor for some steroid injections in my hips for my bursitis. Unlike my usual doctor today's doctor wouldn't do both hips at the same time but put a series of injections in the first one. Luckily having the injections in the hips hardly hurts at all unlike having them in other joints which I've been told are very painful.

Sealed Knot Memories.

As part of the general tidying up this holidays I repainted the porch woodwork and cleaned and painted the rusty brackets. I love having hanging baskets around the front door, even this winter selection of plants is nice and cheerful. Because it's so windy I have to have solid plastic baskets with a reservoir at the bottom but they're so old the plastic is stained and looks messy.

My idea was to slot my baskets into something a little newer looking. I found these cones on ebay and once the summer plants are in and growing well over the rims I hope they will make the place look smarter.

I had to collect Romas from the train station late last night on his return from the SK Muster at Basingstoke. He had a great time with Vytas in the Rivers regt pike block. It was meant to be a just a skirmish with about 100 out on the field but over 400 turned up and everyone got plenty of action. Sometimes in the very big battles with several thousand on the field you spend a lot of time getting into position and waiting around. He returned with various battle scars, bruises, and plenty of tales from the battle field and camp ground. Before my 6ft pikeman becomes too macho I thought I'd post these photos from the days when we went as a family.

Romas is the sweet one looking at the camera. This was in 1992 while we were waiting in a park before a grand march through Nottingham to the castle.

This was the same year in Ledbury. Note Vytas' authentic wellies though my version of toddler reins were made from string to look authentic. In the 17th C boys wore dresses until they were about 8 years old. I compromised and had the boys in dresses until they were about 4. Well when else would I get the chance to make bonnets and dresses.

Satisfaction.

I set off to Tescos armed with receipt, packaging and the lamb joint determined to get some compensation for that rotten meal. (I don't like confrontation.) The customer services lady was very sympathetic and immediately offered me £10 as well as a refund which I thought was fair enough. I accepted with a sigh of relief that I didn't have to start making a fuss, threatening to speak to the local paper etc. Maybe I could have got more compensation but that would have been greedy. On my way home I dropped in at the car boot sale at Pottington. It was the first of the season so there were only about 100 sellers, the field looked rather empty as usually there are 3 or 4 times that number. I bought a couple of army kit bags, big black holdalls that the seller, a squaddie from the local base I presume, assured me you could fit an adult in. Don't ask how he knew. Romas is always lugging drum kit stuff around, stands, cymbals etc so I thought they'd come in useful. I like the fact that as well as the usual handles they have straps to carry them like back packs. Cost for the 2 - £7 which I thought was reasonable.

Looking out over Crow Point across Bideford Bay towards Clovelly.

It's been a grey day with the rain arriving about an hour ago. I had several sessions in the garden and the following photos were part of an exercise called 'Things I can take photos of without moving off this chair.'

It's a challenging exercise especially when a fat black cat, (Patch), wants to come and sit on your lap.