r1Pped.com

I was intending posting this blog over the weekend, then I decided to do it on Monday, but I just keep getting side-tracked. Time seems to be flying past frightening quickly. Friday evening started the weekend with a fabulous rainbow...

... which set the trend for the weekend. Saturday wasn’t too bad but Sunday saw torrential rain for most of the day. Still the garden needed it, although it did batter my peonies down.

Even so, there are some fabulous blooms on them...


... and the ones in the front garden seem to be of a different variety...
.
This year we’ll be concentrating on getting the back half of the garden sorted out, with a summer house, rockery and pond, but after that I will be concentrating on planting a few more colours in the garden. It seems to be very purple-orientated at present. I think these are Mayflowers...

The last two weeks have been tense ones with little Megan (my niece) being flown over to Great Ormond Street Hospital for major surgery. She and family are now safely back home in Malta and hopefully making a full recovery. This week’s news is centred around the bathroom. Yes – we finally have a fully functional (barring telephone and CD connections) bath/shower/sauna. It’s difficult to take a picture of the whole thing but this will give you some idea...


By Sunday evening the rain had died down so I went for a very cold and blowy walk along Drains Bay. I was glad I did as for the first time in months I saw Turnstones along the shore. There were also a few Plovers which have been scarce too. As yet the Redshanks haven’t returned but I will keep looking out for them. I didn’t manage to capture any of them on film, which is a shame because I saw three new birds that I haven’t yet snapped. First was, I think, either a Lapwing or a Dunlin. Now those are two very different looking birds, but as I didn’t look it up straight away and only odd features stuck in my mind, I couldn’t make up my mind which bird it looked most like. I had no difficulty in identifying the next newcomer, with its long half white, half black wings and long pointed head/bill there was no doubt when it suddenly folded its wings, pointed its neck and plummeted like a spear into the sea - the amazing hunting technique of the Gannet. New bird number three was a Tern. I’m not sure what type of Tern but it was another fascinating bird to watch as it plunged into the sea and then came up again shaking the water off in mid flight.
On Monday night I drove up to Glynn to get a closer look at the Swans with their two signets.


Moving swiftly on, Tuesday evening brought the most beautiful sunset. The sea was as still as a mill pond and Scotland was so clearly visible you felt like you could paddle over to it. I probably spent the best part of an hour sitting on a rock watching the Terns plummeting and a couple of Plovers calling to one another and hopping around the rocks. I’m not sure if the call were “chat up lines”, if they were it was certainly taking a long time to impress the female! I took a few shots of the view...




... and this shot was taken at about 10.25 p.m. which will give you an idea of how much later it stays light over here...

Kxx