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The wildlife has been busy in the garden with the bird feeder being visited by blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long-tailed tits, chaffinches, gold finches, robins, starlings and the lovely woodpecker in this (not very good) photo. We’ve also had yellowhammers and a green woodpecker mooching around the lawn and this morning a kestrel was sitting on the fence post.
The Barn Owl was back this morning searching for a bit of breakfast. I tried to get a photo but didn’t do too well. Believe it or not this blur is a Barn Owl. If you want to see a good picture of one try these fantastic photos by Nigel Pye on flickr.
I might have better luck getting a snap of the buzzard or one of the garden birds, at least they are around in full daylight which helps.
I think I’ve either got a bad camera or a bad owl.
It started with fireworks, which we weren’t too sure how the little one was going to cope with. We were all prepared for howling and making a swift exit, as it happened he loved them, and the bigger the better.
With Anna and Chrissy down to stay for the weekend I got out for my first full day’s walk in Dorset. The weather wasn’t great and the walk instructions were dismal but we have a good, if eventful walk around Bishop’s Caundle. We came across a friendly gamekeeper who suggested we wear bright clothes all winter to make sure we don’t get mistaken for a deer and shot (showing us the bullets for full effect). After a lovely lunch at the Trooper Inn in Stourton Caundle we had a run in with a herd of rather frisky cows. For the first time ever I pegged it over a fence, jumped a river and limbo’d under some barbed wire to get away from cows, who were a bit too interested (in a ‘what you doing in my field’) in our route. A slightly damp three trudged back into Bishop’s Caundle just as it was starting to get dark.
The rain came down so plans for a second night of fireworks were abandoned in favour of a big dinner followed by a soporific evening in front of the woodburner – which has too modes; either not lit or blasting out enough heat a cathedral.
We were rewarded for our early get up this morning with a virtually deserted Stourhead and good weather. The autumn colours on the estate are just getting better and better. As we were on the way home the rain started and hasn’t really stopped. So after roast dinner we had a perfect Sunday afternoon, warmed by the burner, surrounded by the Sunday paper, watching Singin’ in the Rain.
Sunday 8pm and all now suitably restored for the week ahead.
I have been getting out to our local park everyday, and yesterday even managed two parks in a day with a visit to wonderful Greenwich Park in the afternoon. However, as someone who used to get a lot of walking in before baby, this just isn’t enough greenery for me. There are plans to get a baby backpack, but he’s a little too little at the moment so we need walks that the pushchair can cope with. It’s actually really tricky to find information on good walks in green places that are accessible.
Pushchair walks is a lovely site with the walks listed being of quite a reasonable distance, lots of added extras in addition to the walks, product reviews, shop and more.
Walks with buggies is a great idea but the site is sadly very empty of walks at the moment.
A book of pushchair accessible walks in Kent is also rumoured to have been recently published but I’m struggling to track it down. I think we’ll end up planning our own routes along paths and bridleways and keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t get stuck with stiles.
I’ve sen red kites in the Chilterns before but today, when we were out walking around Henley, we saw four different groups of kites. The first group were actually on the outskirts of the town, hovering over suburban gardens. Then, as we walked further into the country we came across more groups, circling over trees and hovering over fields. G spotted this one, on the top of a tree in a churchyard, just watching.
It’s the first time I’ve had the chance to have a close look at a red kite, not flying around. If only I’d had some binoculars with me.
Lovely weekend in Dorset with friends and our goddaughter. We went walking by the incredible Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. It’s one of those areas that I’ve been quite close to a number of times and never gotten round to going to. It lived up to all expectations and was made all the more impressive by the looming clouds.
Its a long way to Northumberland but it was worth it. Just had a lovely weekend in the Cheviots. A bad weather forecast turned out to be wrong and we had a good days walking, including a stop over in Scotland for lunch. Moors in the morning, mushroom-laden woods in the afternoon.
It has been a favourite piece of graffiti of mine for years, I must have passed it hundreds of times on the train from London Bridge. Now In the Aquarium has solved one of London’s great mysteries, and even corresponded with Big Dave himself. Here is the story behind Big Dave’s Gusset.
And it did.
We’re just back from a week in the Lake District. It was lovely and it rained, which is to be expected in October. We were camping and managed to stay dry all week until the final night when water started to rise up into the tent. The walking was good, we got in the Mosedale Horeshoe. Illgill Head was an alternative on the day when the weather was so bad it would have been a bit silly to go up Scafell Pike as originally planned. Over the top of Illgill was good, the route back round the base was a bit tricky, involving lots of boulder scrambling. Slimy, spikey boulders in the rain aren’t ideal and I ended up tearing my jacket and waterproof trousers, gashing my boots and smacking my knee. All of which was more than enough battle scarring for one day.
I’m now sat on the sofa with that horrible constricted feeling you get when you’re back in a building after spending a lot of time outside. It feels too stuffy and quiet.
