Bluebells

I set off early on Friday morning to visit some friends in Kent. Since it was the start of the Easter Weekend I was worried about traffic on the roads, so I started at 6 am. By 8 am I was about half an hour away from my destination, and decided to stop at a picnic area and give myself and Hooli a break. As I sat at a picnic table drinking coffee from my flask, I noticed a path going into a wooded area, followed it, and got a very pleasant surprise.

A bluebell wood!

Baby Hummingbird video

I can't believe that it's almost two months since I posted on this blog. Time definitely flies.

Here is a link to a lovely video about a baby hummingbird that was recued.

http://www.wimp.com/babyhummingbird/

The Brain Line

Recently I was moaning about having to spend half an hour wiping the mud off Hooli every time we went for a walk and someone suggested we walk along the disused railway line nearby. It was an inspired suggestion, and life has been much easier (and quite interesting) since we started taking walks there.

This is what used to be Swanbourne Railway Station. It is now a private residence, but the platforms and railway line are still there, although the line is rather overgrown.

This used to be known as the Varsity Line, because it was the link between Oxford and Cambridge. And sometimes it would be called the Brain Line, (Main Line/Brain Line). It was closed in 1967 during what was called the Beeching Axe.

Here's a section of the line near the old Station.
This bridge seems to connect the two sides of a farm that must have been split when the railway was built.

Here's Hooli trying to get into a badger's sett. Luckily he's too big, and badgers are nocturnal, or he might have got his nose scratched.
A line of trees on the horizon, broken up by that strange helicopter-like tree.
It's sad to see it overgrown and disused, and in places the rails have been removed completely, but it's a really nice place to walk.

Senior Moment #1

A day out in London

I had a nice day out in London on Saturday, and met up with friends for lunch. On the journey home the man sitting in front of me on the train had an interesting tattoo.

I have to apologize for the fuzzy photo, the train was moving. This tattoo made me chuckle.

Free Hugs

This one speaks for itself:

Spinach and things

This afternoon someone was coming to do a couple of hours' digging in my vegetable patch (I'm such a fair weather gardener), so after ignoring it for the last couple of months, I went out there to see what I wanted dug up.

To my utter amazement quite a lot was still growing. The spinach was really thick and tall, the parsley was doing great, the strawberries had full circles of leaves, the leeks I planted last spring are still growing, and the rhubarb was pushing up through the ground.

I was totally impressed that the spinach and parsley had survived the cold and snow that we'd experienced, and since we've been told there's more icy weather on the way, I picked as much spinach as I could.

I've made my favourite spinach curry, which is bubbling on the cooker right now, and I'm cooking some rice to go with it. I eat it with natural yoghurt on the side. I would take a picture of it to show here, but it actually tastes much better than it looks.

My vegetable patch now looks neat and tidy again. The forecast icy weather should break up the earth that's been dug and destroy any weeds.

While I was picking the spinach I came across quite a few ladybirds that appeared to be dead. I left them alone, but when I put the spinach in the kitchen, I found a ladybird wandering around. I realised that maybe it had been asleep, so I took it back outside and put it in the spinach patch so it could carry on sleeping till spring. I've since checked online, and apparently what I should have done is put it in a glass jar and leave it in my shed to hibernate safely through the winter.

Bath and Breakfast

Good Grief! We've all heard of people reading in the bath, having a snooze, or unwinding with a nice glass of wine surrounded by the flickering light of scented candles. But eating breakfast in the bath? Perhaps it's a timesaving trick for people who have to rush in the mornings? Someone trying to save on washing up?

It's none of the above. These are soaps that one of my daughters gave me a couple of years ago.

They were so cute and quirky that I kept them on display in the bathroom still wrapped in their see-through wrapping. Today I decided that it's time to put them to their proper use.

When I'm given a present like this I find it really hard to let go. Using a soap ultimately destroys it, and so I tend to hang on to something like this bacon, eggs and waffle soap as long as possible.

I decided that if I can't keep the soap forever, at least I can record it for posterity in a post. So here it is.

And as I delay our daily walk, because it's raining and I hope it will let up, Hooli says: "Let Me Out!"

Old Tyme Music Hall

We're doing an Old Tyme Music Hall in our village in March. We had the first rehearsal a couple of days ago, and I discovered that I didn't know any of the songs. One or two sounded familiar, but I didn't know any of the words, so today I decided to look online for them. I had a great time watching different performances on You Tube, while flicking over to a web page with the words. I only need to learn the Choruses because I won't be singing any solos.

Some of the songs are really quite funny. I can't decide which is my favourite. There's "Oh! Oh! Antonio", Burlington Bertie, or "My old man said follow the van" a version of which I've added below:

Hooli Gets Scrubbed Up......

.... and he smells so nice.

Hooli got a visit from the lady in the Mobile Dog Grooming van today.

As you can see from this first picture, he was a muddy mess by the end of our walk earlier on this morning. He'd been smelling pretty ripe for a while, and no matter how much I wiped him down and brushed his coat, he was still dropping hair all over the house and there were underlying matted areas in his coat that I just couldn't cope with.

So that was Hooli before his Grooming Session.

He disappeared into the van for about an hour, and then came out looking like this:
I reckon he scrubbed up quite well.

A rat outside Number 10

Last night I was watching the BBC News, and a reporter was standing outside the Prime Minister's residence and talking about the NHS, when I noticed there was a rat running across the front of the doorstep behind him. I didn't know how to save the clip, but it seems others do, and today I found this on YouTube. So here is what I saw:

A New Spring

A new spring has sprung up just a few yards below the bottom of our road. I'm told it's been checked by the water company to make sure it's not a broken pipe, and they've confirmed it's a spring. There used to be one about fifty yards higher up on the same road, and one on our road, a couple of years ago. The roads have been resurfaced since then, and I suppose they must have been pushed underground.

This spring is quite fast, although this doesn't show in the picture, and it's formed it's own little well on the side of the road. This looks like a puddle in the picture but there's actually water bubbling out of it. The water is clear and clean, and Hooli enjoys drinking it.

First all the snow melted, and since then there's been so much rain that there is water sitting on the surface in patches on the fields, and even a few new little ponds dotted about here and there. Hooli enjoys splashing through them and having a drink when he's thirsty. He does get very muddy, though.

11 months

I can't believe that it's almost a year since I last posted on this blog. Quite a lot has happened.

Natalie and Nick are still in South Korea, and still loving it. We've all been to visit them at one time or another, and can recommend it as a great travel destination!

Christina has moved to Sydney in Australia in October, where she's landed a job doing pretty much what she was doing in London. I've got her Australian Shepherd dog Hooli staying here until she sends for him.

Dan finished university, and has a job working in London as a web developer.

I went on my first ever cruise, which was truly enjoyable. Such a nice way to see the world. It was a seven day cruise around the Med.

I also visited Malta and South Korea.

Now I've had to put all travelling on hold while I have Hooli here, but it's giving me a chance to catch up on stuff I've neglected while I've been travelling.

I've also taken a couple of courses in jewellery making - silver clay jewellery, and also basic silversmithing - and I love working with silver.

A somewhat belated Happy New Year to you all!