Hobbies and Crafts

I'm glad you enjoyed your meal Maryanna.I'm afraid it would have been my worst nightmare.I like Haddock ,Cod and at a push maybe Sea Bass ,but that is about it on the fish front.

Kandj .I won't go into the details BUT I just managed to shut the back door (yesterday) to stop Thomas coming in with a bird in his mouth.He then sat under the patio table and ate the whole thing :-( :-(.Not a feather or anything left!!!!!,just a bit of blood on the paving :-S...I know it is just nature ,but I hate it.He doesn't even have the excuse of being hungry any more....But he is still a dear and here to stay I think :-D :-D

Jane..... uuuggghhh!!!! send Thomas straight back to the naughty corner!!

Touch wood no more Kandj.Well not that I have seen.I couldn't put him in the naughty corner as it is just Nature .I do think he knows I wasn't too happy though lol

Bet Ann is having great time now on the cruise.I wonder if she might manage to get some pics of any exotic birds.
Nothing much happening here ,although I have seen 2 Moorhen :-D.The trouble is they don't hang around for long now as they must know 'Thomas' is about :-S

Yes Jane, was only joking. Thomas is only doing what comes naturally but I'm glad our neighbours cats only drink the milk and don't give me any little "gifts" ha ha.

I'm sure Ann and OH are having the time of their lives. A wonderful experience, she is sure to let us know all about it on her return...... I think 21st was mentioned earlier.

Well. Today we had a pigeon fly on to the window feeder, that hasn't happened ever before. The bird hovered around and then landed on the top of the feeder and then flew away as quickly as it had come. Two seconds later the pigeon came back.
It looked into the lounge and turned its head this way and that way and just stood staring............. we must look very strange ha ha. We both had a good view and the bird just stood still and then flew off without eating anything at all from the feeder.
Very odd!!

Wow Kandj.That is a big bird for a window feeder.I am surprised it didn't come unstuck .I bet it didn't expect to see 2 humans looking out LOL.I did have a Magpie land briefly on ours yesterday but as soon as I shot out of my chair it was off.Touch wood it hasn't been back .We have a few Magpies about at the moment ,and they are not my favourite birds at all.

Well Thomas has just had another mouse.OH intercepted just in time and shooed him back down the path with mouse firmly clamped in his mouth (Thomas not OH :-D)
We are going have to keep a close eye on him as i do not want little pressies in he house.Not like my friend who lives down the lane.His cat drags all sorts in through the cat flap.Including a Pheasant and a Squirrel !!!!!!

Hello All

Cloudy and cool here in Yorkshire today. Is it today that Ann and OH return home?

I have spotted a Magpie Jane. Just the one. Now how does the poem go?....
1 for sorrow??? well, I hope it's joined by another and I can think of 2 for joy then.

Would you believe that the pigeon has been back yet again! Not on the window feeder but he flew onto the windowsill and kept popping his head against the glass window and looking intently into the lounge...... very weird methinks.

I saw headlines in this mornings newspaper of a lady who lived with 122 cats and spends £90k a year on them. Can that be right?? More money than sense imho.

Off now to wash out the two birdbaths and refill the feeders now.

Kanji there will another one there somewhere :-D.You never get just the one Magpie.
I can well believe the story of someone with that many cats.What an amount of money though!!!!!.I always think it rather sad when you hear of these things .Was the lady a recluse?
I'm not sure when Ann is back .But I hope she has had a wonderful time.

Cloudy here with some sun but feeling really quite warm.I am in just a sleepless top


:-D

I'm home!!!

Full report some time later when I rejoin the land of the living instead of being half asleep.

Hello, we are home, wonder if you missed me?

I am jet lagged, just got in from a flight from Miami so not sure which way is up. We have been on a 6 day cruise round the Western caribbean, we called at three Islands, although we opted to stay on the ship and enjoy the peace while the majority of the 4000 is passengers went ashore. We visited, Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel (a small Island off the coast of Mexico) The weather was good, 83 to 90 degrees all week day and night.
I didn't particularly want to go on the cruise which was won by our son and given to us. It was an experience and I am glad we went. But I am not sure I would repeat the experience. It was a big ship and so very clean everywhere, all day every day they were cleaning, the food was ok not fantastice but good. I am pretty certain we were the only British on board, most of the passengers were American or Mexican. And, although we thought we had found out when American school holidays were, there were a lot of children on board, from tiny to teenagers. Luckily there was one sunbathing deck only open to over 21s. So you can guess where we spent most of our time.

Loved the sound of the fish menu Maryanna, my favourite food. Favourite meal of the week for me was shrimp cocktail (prawn) followed by lobster tail. and finishing with creme brulee.

Glad you are safely home Ann. Hope you are getting over the jet lag.

It took us ages to get any birds to come to the garden when we first moved in here and I think we are going to have to start all over again in 3 or 4 weeks time. Our garden makeover has started so the bird feeding station has had to come down and there is absolutely nowhere I can put any food down. I have managed to stick a shallow bowl of water in one corner but I think the noise of machines being used will frighten them away. :-(

Welcome back Ann, look forward to hearing about your trip, glad you had a good time.

If only we had just one Magpie, there were about a dozen on the lawn yesterday.

A big fat wood pigeon broke one of my feeders the other week, stupid things think they are sparrows.

The sheep over the back ar being very noisy today, we don't usually hear them very much, lots of Baaing going on.

M.

Are the sheep maybe being separated from their lambs Maryanna?

Why is it that wood pigeons think they can balance delicately on the lightest feeders? Wings flapping they cling on for grim death.

Glad you are home safe and sound Ann...4,000 passengers !!!.It sounds like a pretty big cruise ship.I am guessing that it would not be you normal choice of holiday :-D.Nice to have the adult space on board for a bit of quiet sunbathing .OH and I have done one Cruise to the Norwegian Fjords and it was a child free ship :-D.

I bet the noisy Sheep could be missing their babies Maryanna :-(..We don't have sheep here but cows and i hate to hear the distressing mooing when Mums and calves are separated .One year when that happened the 'Mums' escaped from the field and all came down our road trampling in and out of peoples gardens !!!!.The Police had to try and block off the road before the cows got as far as joining the A14(dual carriage way).This was all going on at 5am in the morning.The noise of mooing and hooves was just awful .I do have a picture imprinted in my mind though of a Policeman running down the middle of the road with his arms waving trying desperately to round up these Cows(and failing miserably lol)

We have a little Sparrow with a broken leg :-( :-(..It just drags the leg behind).and it's tail looks a bit at an odd angle ,but that might just be it has to be like that for balance.
It has been around for a while so is managing to fly and eat.Not nice to watch him walk though.

The ship statistics are: 14 decks. Tonnage 130,0000. Length 1,004 feet capacity 3,690 guests (plus crew total 1,386). So yes Jane big! Carnival breeze(has a website) is the Carnival flagship. :-D

Hello All

Glad that you are home safely Ann and I hope that you have got over the jet lag.
That ship is huge but I think you will have enjoyed the scenery and experience too.

It will be noisy in your garden for a while Vera but it is sure to be worth all the mess to think how lovely your garden will be at the end of it all.

The lone magpie has disappeared (perhaps flown over to Maryanna's garden).
We rarely get them, it's starlings that come in droves and eat everything in sight.
A wet and windy rainy day today. When are we going to get a dry Summer??

Poor little sparrow with a broken leg Jane. Hope Thomas doesn't catch it for dinner!

Oh my word Ann what a huge ship !!!!.Just had a look at the 'virtual tour' !!!!.I am not surprised that you wanted to find a bit of peace and quiet on the sunbathing deck for the over 21s :-D :-D

Wow Ann, have had a "nosey" around the Carnival Breeze it is enormous. Big enough to get lost in....... did you or OH get lost, or did you soon get your bearings.

Jane, the lady with the 122 cats was married with children. Photographs of her home showed beautiful furniture, furnishings and expensive decor. A pity there were jus so many cats everywhere. Are you still enjoying having Thomas waking you up early?

Vera, are the men working hard and are you kept busy making the tea/coffee?

Maryanna, still no sign of the lone Magpie so I'm guessing he has joined all yours.
I had to refit the window feeder as it was a little loose...... I'm blaming the pigeons!

Kandj it took a bit of getting around and even on the last day we were seeing places we had not been to. We were helped by the'maps' that were by each set of lifts (3 sets on each deck, we did seem to walk a lot but as we tended to go to the same bar, the eating places other than the designated restaurants were all in the same area in the stern, we also sunbathed in the same two places and the theatre was very close to our stateroom it wasn't too bad. I think everyone went to the same areas all week. The plus was, being big it was also very stable.

I might put my holiday diary on the blog later although it is a bit long. :-D

Kandj...no i am getting rather fed up being woken at 4.40 each morning :-S.But if I just ignore him he just pads around the bed ,across the pillow ,purring ,so I just get up and put him outside.
He has been in bad books again after bringing one dead and beheaded rabbit ,and a live one into the house !!!!!! :-| :-| :-..We are having to make sure we keep the back door shut now when he is out and about and Iwill be adding another bell to his collar.(not that I am sure it will make much difference)

This morning the Moorhen was in the garden with 2 babies :-D.I was so worried as to where Thomas was I can tell you !!!.It was lovely to see though.I just hope that they stay away really next door where the little lake is and know they will be much safer there.
Also this morning the Green Woodpecker was having drink from the birdbath :-D :-D I tried to get a pic from my bedroom window but it was all fuzzy.Same with the Moorhen and babies.

driving through to Deeping this afternoon, I spotted a bird in the road ahead......He'll move in a minute.........yeah in a minute he'll...............no he wont, and I managed to straddle him? looking in the rear view mirror saw he was ok, as it was safe enough, I stopped and walked back. T'was a baby sparrow, probably thinking what am I doing here? where am I?

so I picked him up, no struggles, just sat in my hand, noticed he had a broken feather on the left wing and a couple of straggly ones on the right, but otherwise content to stay in my hand..........so after couple of little strokes put him safely on the verge, where hopefully mum or dad could find him.....

Bob

I hate to see roadkill........

Aaw that was sweet Bob. :-)