Spring on Hampstead Heath

Most Tuesdays I join the Marylebone Birdwatching Society for their birding walk over the Heath.

The weather forecast was good, so I arrived early on Hampstead Heath this morning. The mist was burning off in the heat from the sun. I only had my phone to take these pictures, but they came out pretty well I think.

There's something apocalyptic about the images.





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Domestic Goddess

This post is a paen of praise for my wife Angela.

On Saturday I was with the Marylebone Birdwatching Society here...



There were 31 of us enjoying some beautiful weather and some beautiful birds, including Kingfishers and Peregrine Falcon.




The sun was dappling off the River Hamble near to Southampton Water...




I didn't get home until nearly 8p.m. By then Angela had got TWO machine-fulls of washing done and line dried, baked these...



Delicious shortbread biscuits, produced this....




Sponge Tray-bake, to be finished off with Raspberrry Jam and Desiccated Coconut.

And last but not least...



Beef Chilli!

I must go birding more often....

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Going The Whole Hog

Angela and I were in the Welsh Marches this weekend. Specifically we were in Chirk.

We were in North Wales for a wedding with a difference. Our dear Nephew Stuart was marrying Ellen. The venue was a large field in Ellen's home village. A number of Yurts had been built especially for the occasion. Mobile loos had been hired, car parking arranged, and lighting had been laid on. Dozens of wedding guests would be camping in the field.

Bands had been hired, fire jugglers were on hand and workshops were taking place in drumming and willow weaving. This was no ordinary wedding - this was "Wedfest".

The trees were decorated...



Mountains of vegetarian food had been prepared; even better, as Stuart is a confirmed carnivore, there was a Hog Roast. A Hog Roast is a simple affair. You just get a couple of gullible friends to dig you a pit four feet long, four feet wide and two feet deep. Then you fill it with wood, allow the wood to burn to embers, then suspend an entire pig on a spit above it. Cover with corrugated iron to keep in the heat. Top up charcoal as it burns down. A fully grown pig will take about ten hours to cook... Oh, you will need to find someone to turn the spit continuously to guarantee even cooking and crackling which is simply cosmic.



The Hog roast shortly after cooking.

To make sure there would be enough food a couple of sheep had been keeping the pig company, stuffed with garlands of Rosemary and whole cloves of garlic. Awesome!

Dotted around the field were various sculptures by members of Ellen's family, such as this reclining bather...



The day went brilliantly, the couple were obviously madly in love, and facing the future together...



The wedding cake had been made by Jane, a family friend who now produces sculptures rather than cakes for a living.



The cake deserves a close-up of it's own - the happy couple...



The cider flagon is not just for decoration; Stuart had pressed three barrels of cider the previous Autumn in readiness for the day.

A few hours later this was all that was left of the hog roast and the two roast lambs..



The happy couple were spending their first night as man and wife in the Nuptial Yurt, set discretely apart at the far end of the field. The view was stunning as the sun fell behind it...



We wish Ellen and Stuart all the best for the future. We had a wonderful time, and we know they did too.

I will end this post with just a tiny peek into the nuptial yurt.

So Romantic...



.P.S. If you want to see all the photos I took at Wedfest, just click here to go to my Flickr account.

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This one is for you Amalee!

Too many moons ago I set a competition. The prize (!) was a blog post of the winner's choice. Amalee won, and asked for photos of my fridge.....

I know.

I haven't a clue why either.

However, as Amalee is my most loyal follower I have felt twinges of guilt over the ensuing months (two and a half years actually)as my food chilling equipment has remained un-photographed.

The wait is now over.

The reduced photos are below. Click on the links marked [Expand this photo] below to be taken to my Flickr pages, where annotated boxes will explain the contents of my fridge....

The fridge door (outside view)



[Expand this photo]

The main compartment



[Expand this photo]

The door (inside view)



[Expand this photo]

Have Fun!!

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Just Do It

Sometimes after an extended break the best thing to do is just get on with doing Something.

So here goes.......

It has been quite a while since I introduced Tigger and Fluffy to you all. They have grown in size and character. Over the last few months they have shared their interest in Nature with us.

They have brought us many frogs and toads (all bar one alive and well); they have brought a robin, sundry blackbirds, and on one occasion a fully grown and very-much-alive wood pigeon through the catflap!


Fluffy is a bit of an entomologist. When we hear him meowing after coming through the flap at night he usually has a moth or two to display, dropped at our feet proudly. Lime Tree hawk moths are his current favourite.

Here is Fluffy in our garden, taken at the end of April...



Tigger is pictured below, taken a couple of months ago...



Sometimes they will even sit still long enough to get both of them in the same picture. Sometimes when they are awake too!



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Flower Power - Greek Style

We are back from Samos. I never did get to send any more posts from Greece - the internet connection was decidedly patchy!

We landed at Heathrow two days before the Icelandic volcano stopped all air traffic. Can't win 'em all!

Flowers were all around us on our walks. The countryside of England must have looked like this not so long ago, before agriculture became monoculture and "weeds" were banned...





On one walk we were kindly invited to look round a greenhouse where orchids were being grown for sale.

This is Angela checking out the fragrance...





They weren't the only orchids on the island though. This is a monkey orchid. I haven't identified the insect yet.

Some Recent photos

The previous post was somewhat concerned with death.

Now at Easter the focus is on resurrection.

Very few places on Earth take Easter as seriously as in Greece, and Angela and I are luck enough to be in Samos, a beautiful verdant island in the North-Eastern Aegean.

We are on a walking holiday.

I'll be posting a few photos over the next week....

Here are some to start with...

The poppies are already in bloom in the hedges and fields...



And the churches are all looking their best. This is the newly renovated church in Paleocastro, above Vathy in Samos..




This was the view from our walk today. Absolutely stunning.




Happy Easter to All...

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