Attack Of The Flies.

The weather has been a complete mixture today. Pouring rain first thing, then cloudy and cold. It warmed up in the afternoon with a few sunny spells for long enough for me to get the lawns cut. There were a lot of persistent flies around so being one of those unfortunate people that gets bitten & then itches like mad, I covered up with a long sleeved man's shirt from the rag bag and a headscarf worn like an old babushka. To complete the ensemble I wore my shorts (well it is summer) teamed with a pair of steel toe-capped wellies (just in case I suddenly have the urge to run the mower over my feet). Not one of my more flattering outfits. I finally dug out the ailing trailing rosemary from the wall by the scree garden. In its place I've planted some blue grass that had seeded itself in the stones.

The butterflies were busily taking advantage of the dry spell and the buddleia was covered with feeding butterflies. This view of the comma butterfly shows the distinctive white mark on the underwing which gives it its name. The group of swallows could been seen and heard swirling around high in the sky but at least one of the yougsters was back in the outbuilding this afternoon.

Apart from some gardening I've been doing more tidying up in the conservatory,( one window leads to another and another), and other bits of tidying around the place.

Peter went off to do some rifle shooting at a local range today, something he hasn't done for a long time, and did very well so he's a happy bunny. Target shooting has always been his passion and he was devastated when the government cut down on private ownership (after Dunblane) and he had to hand in his guns.

Not A Diet Day.

No luck with the Perseids last night, I went out at 11.30 and saw lots of clouds rushing across the sky but the high cloud blocked out any views. I even looked out of the window in the early hours of the morning but it was no better. I'll have to wait until next year. More conservatory cleaning this morning and then I popped into town to meet up with a friend. It was the perfect excuse to try out a patisserie type place that I've had my eye on for a while. Diet forgotten we maxed out on cappuccinos and Bailey's cheesecake with maltesers in, mmm. Later I was tempted by the ringing of a handbell announcing that all the pasties at Pasty Prezzo were £1. I gave in and bought 2 standard Cornish pasties (steak and veg) for our supper but resisted the offer of 6 pasties for £5. The pasty was very tasty but the pastry is sitting a bit heavily in my stomach which is unused to any fat so I've balanced it with a mug of mint tea. Grass and stones by the scree garden.

I'm not sure why this multicoloured cow is sitting over Banbury's door but it did look fun. I went into a few shops to try on more clothes and ended up buying 4! long vests. Once I find a shape I like I buy several colours especially when they are in sale (today - black, white, light khaki & a peachy orange).

A typical side street leading off the High Street. Long ago the High Street had a street market down the length of it with 40 household pigs rootling around in the refuse. When disease hit the town (typhoid I think), a representative of the king came to assess the situation with the result being that a warren of tiny lanes was demolished to make way for the indoor Pannier market we have today.
PS An update on the bread maker. Even with value flour and old yeast the bread turned out well. Peter said it tasted like the bread I normally bake but the texture was much better. Tescos do cheap strong flour so I've bought a few bags of that for my next efforts.

Pain Free Worming.

Right now there are 4 very contented cats licking their lips after a special treat of tinned cat food (it's normally dry cat food). What they didn't notice were the granules of wormer mixed into each portion. It has always been a bit of a struggle to pop worm tablets into their mouths and make sure they didn't spit them back out again so a while ago I was relieved to discover some chewable meaty cubes containing wormers. The cats loved them, even purred as they ate them but sadly after a few years these cubes were discontinued. So it was back to the dreaded tablets until I was ordering stuff from my on-line pet pharmacy & spotted these sachets of granules (Panacur) that you can mix into their food. Easy worming once more.Some of the different astilbes in the bog garden.

It has been dry but much cooler today. Today I made a start on tidying the conservatory. In theory this should be my favourite room of the house, lots of light, views of the garden and shelter from the wind and rain. Unfortunately the poor house construction has left us with major problems that so far we have been unable to solve. First the main wall of the house is faced with stone which just happens to be porous. Heavy rain drives into the stone and comes out over the wooden lintels into the conservatory and causes damage. Also the concrete floor is not completely damp proofed and the damp rises in wet weather, oh and the nasty plastic roof leaks a bit. We have tried various solutions over the years but it would take major building work to sort. Then my dear family have seen fit to use the conservatory as a workshop, cutting wood, repairing guns, mending & storing bikes (including Linas' scooter) and all their model making activities. It was so disheartening to see each mess made and then left. I suppose the fact that it is not fit to be a proper room made them think they could use it as a shed (never mind the patio doors from the sitting room). Well, it's a bit tidier now and I'll see what else can be done to make it more habitable. I've also made one last run to the dump and done a big shop at Tescos.

I had been hoping to get a good view of the Perseids tonight but currently it's 95% cloud cover so I don't think I'll have much success this year.

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.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Oh joy, it has been raining for most of the day again. So back I went to my cleaning. It was the turn of the sitting room today after spending some time going through old photo files for a 2009 photo book I want to make. If I was organised I would have files already made up so that I could put in my best pictures for each month so that I would have them all ready to sort out at the end of the year. Peter and I re-hung the door this morning, confirming my view that we do not work well together . I mean, just giving directions without a qualifier is bound to lead to misunderstandings when you're facing in different directions. This afternoon when Peter went off to the gym I took down our bedroom door and took off 1/2cm from the top because it had been sticking and I'd been meaning to do it for a long time.
Yesterday evening Peter went out for his first row with the gig club and he loved it. The gig is being kept down at Appledore at the moment and they had to walk it right along the front to get to an available slipway. There was some sort of festival/ crab catching competition going on and spectators were lined 4 deep all along the sea wall. When they got the gig in the water they rowed up towards Bideford Bridge past all the people who for some reason gave them a clap. I'll give it a go once I've had my back surgery but I will wear a life jacket (no-one did yesterday) as I'm not a strong swimmer.

Wet And Miserable.

Apart from a few brief minutes it has been raining heavily all day. Matches my mood as I had an unsuccessful phone call this morning from the hospital. Basically I've no chance of an operation during the holidays. The surgeon has been on his holidays which he so needs because he spends a whole 2 days a months doing operations and (probably) the same doing clinics and for half of that time he is doing trauma and not orthopaedics anyway. Bad luck for me, I'll just have to hold on for a few more months. It's so miserable outside I thought I'd post a few pictures of the crocosmia that I took yesterday.
'Lucifer' contrasts really well with the foliage of the white buddleia which though battered did pull through the harsh winter.

I think there must be a limit to the amount of washing and cleaning anyone can bear in a single day. (I know, if I did housework a little more frequently it wouldn't be such a job.) Today I was back in the kitchen and one of my tasks was this cupboard with my rabbit collection and a rather nice bone china tea set. It was an even nicer tea set before the day that the boys decided to throw objects around the kitchen which resulted in 4 of the pieces of the set being seriously broken! I was not a happy mum. To liven up the housework I've just taken one of the bedroom doors off its hinges, sawn a section from the bottom so it doesn't keep catching on the carpet and repositioned one of the hinges. I'll need Peter to help me re-hang the door as I need to cut out a new rebate for the hinge in the frame and put in new screws and that's really a 2 person job.

I was pleased to find I'd lost another 3lbs this morning but I did declare today a non-diet day and had some extra chocolate this afternoon. As long as I stay on my diet for most days I should be able to stop in a few weeks. Then comes the hard part of maintaining my weight.

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?