Hobbies and Crafts

Maryanna I expect if you are like me you are now knee deep in holiday washing. for some reason a week away always seems to produce more washing than a week at home. It sounds as if you had a lovely time anyway. Was it a coach trip?

Jane if little cat is not chipped and you have advertised him found then you have done all you can. I wonder if he has returned to the area from where previous owners have moved away. Continue to enjoy him anyway.

We saw a funny sight from the bus yesterday, I have never seen this before. A grey squirrel actually walking down the outside brick wall of a local hotel. It walked quite a long way down the wall before deciding that an easier way down would be the metal fire escape.

My goodness........

The other Magpie family have left the nest, they have four young, so with the others and their three there were eleven of them all squabbling on the lawn earlier.

Talking of squabbling, the Starlings have also fledged. There seems to be two families of them as well and no sooner had the Magpies left then they flew into the garden, I could count the four adults and, they wouldn't keep still, something like fourteen, maybe more, young. No wonder there was so much noise coming from nest doors roof.

The Rhododendron we were given for our Ruby anniversary has also come out, it is very pretty, purple rather than red but with a very pretty variagated leaf.

M.

Cat has Fleas !!!!!! Just on his ears.My Son's girlfriend noticed little 'seed' looking things all around the rims of his ears today .So my Sister and I went to investigate ,and when we pulled them off tiny fleas emerged :-S.So my son and his girlfriend were sent off PDQ to the pet shop to buy Frontline and a spray for the house .Nearly £30 later he is 'done' and banned from the house until tomorrow.The rest of his body is totally clean.it is very strange.
So he is not a happy Puss tonight being shut out.But he has a comfy spot (SPRAYED NOW) in the summerhouse .He can come back in in the morning :-D

Maryanna ,is the Peace Rose the lovely red with the wonderful old fashioned scent?
I know just what you mean about cooked breakfasts ,the 3 course meals etc.....That is what is so good about being away on holiday :-D :-D..You just have to go with it :-D :-D :-D Eat ,Drink and enjoy :-D

Jane, the Peace Rose ( Rosa Paxa) is a large hybrid tea. It is a creamy yellow colour with peachy pink edges the colour tends to darken with age.

It is usually grown as a bush which was why it was a bit of a surprise when mine started to reach for the sky !!! It now has a reach of about twenty foot as we grow it along a fence..

I think it started off being named something else but was renamed after WW2, there are now some different variations of colour as well, deeper pink etc.

Oh dear, a puss with friends, we had so much trouble with one of ours. She was always outside hunting and would bring them in with her finds. We had to throw a carpet away once it was so bad, we just couldn't get rid of them , we were all covered with bites. Horrible things, just as bad as the ticks the dog used to get on him, yuck !!!

Going to see my sister on Saturday, haven't seen her for a few months.

M.

All flea free here now :-D.Hopefully for the next month and then if puss is still here it will be another dose :-D

Maryanna your Rose sounds beautiful .I always thought my Aunty's Red Rose with the wonderful scent was called Peace.Can there be more than one variety with the same name?

The Green Woodpecker has been on the lawn today.I haven't seen that one for a while.I am glad that the window feeder is still busy even with having the cat now sitting just around the corner with eyes on stalks LOL

Wonder why nobody is commenting on the garden thread. Maybe everyone has blown away :-D :-D :-D

Ann, very likely folk have been blown away. Really strong blustery winds here. No chance of getting anything done in the garden at all today.

Maryanna, I also have a Peace rose in bloom with lots of lovely buds too. Hope this strong blustery wind won't cause much damage to this beautiful rose bush today.

Jane..... oh no, fleas on your cat! I bet he won't like being shut out of his new home. Hope he won't pounce and kill any birds feeding in your garden?
I have just googled the green woodpecker. It is amazing. Such a pretty colourful bird. Lucky you Jane, Would you please exchange just 1 green woodpecker for 6 of my starlings??!!!

Daughter in an e mail has just said the green woodpecker outside her window tried to take off from the feeder and was blown backwards!!

She also said the shrew toll today is two but both were alive so she picked them up and took them outside, she could feel their little hearts beating but they scampered away happily so hope they are ok. She has explained to the cats that they are an endangered species and they mustn't catch them but it hasn't worked, they'd rather play with them than balls. I said she should be tagging them so she'd know how many times they had visited her. :-D

Ann we haven't been in the garden for 2 days now.Pots blown over and like that Woodpecker all the birds are being blown around all over the place :-S

Kandj I think i would prefer my Woodpecker to your half a dozen starlings lol But thanks for the offer :-D :-D ;-)...Fleas all gone now .Poor Puss.I now have worm stuff ready to give.He won't be too happy again.Last night because the weather was so bad we decided to put him in the kitchen on a nice comfy bed.I thought the door was shut but about 20minutes after we had got into bed and we were reading I saw his little face peer around the bedroom door.Needless to say he spent most of the night on the bed :-D,until just after 3 when he was wide awake and walking all over me .I lasted until 4.15 and then just had to let him out.Trouble is he wants to sleep all day.So tonight when he has had his dinner he will be chucked out for a few hours and then I will let him sleep in the lounge where he is very happy to be ,and then hopefully he MIGHT just go all night.I think it a matter of just getting him into a routine.Well that is what I am hoping :-D.I found him on top of the upright fridge freezer this morning .He had somehow managed to jump up there and knocked all my tupperware things off :-S
Just sussing out his new home I think.

Ann I didn't know that Shrews were endangered Thankfully we just had the 2 on the first morning.No more pressies since :-D.I am still hoping that no-one claims him ,but just keep telling myself I am a Foster Mum at the moment .He really is a very lovely cat,and is so gentle ,loving fuss and tummy rubs.(that helps big time with grooming ) as he is long haired.Tomorrow looks a better day .I have plants waiting to go in my pots in the front garden.

Good morning everyone.

A really beautiful day here this morning. I think Summer has arrived, enjoy it now!

I'm happy the wind and rain has gone away. I had meant to get out in the garden yesterday afternoon but that never happened. Instead, I cleared a wardrobe and have 3 bags of clothes now to take to the village charity shop. It's good to be tidy again.

I have washed the feeders and they are all filled once again and also cleaned out and filled both birdbaths....all ready and waiting to see who comes to visit us today.

Kandj, will try and find time to get out in the garden, got plenty to do indoors. Have to sort summer clothes out and put away winter ones now it really looks as though it might be warming up. However this morning disappeared in Tescos and this afternoon it is hair cut so not much day left. :-D

Kandj, yes Summer does seem to be here (for now at least :-D).It is boiling here,and I have got the big fan out from the garage.Not sure whether to get the other one out for the bedroom.
Don't you feel good when you have a good clear out of things no longer needed :-D
I need to refill the water in the bird bath.It must have evaporated !!! I hope you have had lots of visitors Kandj :-D

Ann it is surprising how the day goes with shopping and then hairdos :-D You wonder where it went.Still it looks like the weather is going to be ok for a while to get out in the garden again.Saying that it looks like we may be in for some possible heavy thunderstorms tomorrow here.Hopefully they might just miss us ,but it seems like it is going to be a muggy day.
Not quite so many birds soon the feeder today..I wonder if it is anything to do with Puss !!!!! LOL He does hide in the shrubs sometimes watching.Touch wood no kill that I have seen so far.He is well settled in now .Had a mad 5 minutes earlier tearing around the place up and over the settee and then grabbing at the long patio window curtains..Now that was not good .I had to be very stern then...I hope to keep these curtains for a few more years :-D :-D

I have just been watching 3 Woodpidgeon on the top of our dead tree.One, obviously the male was trying so hard with his courting antics ,but he was totally ignored by the others lol.He is up there on his own now :-( :-)

We look to be warm for the weekend, i like warm lol!

Aaw naughty puss swinging from the curtains :-D

There were two pigeons on a nearby roof yesterday, but despite the amorous contortions of the male she was not having any of it. :-D

We went to Basingstoke again today, saw two Red Kites on the way there and just at the end of our lane there was a Spotted Woodpecker sitting in the road. He seemed to be drinking from a puddle and didn't seem in much of a hurry to get out of the way. Not sure which one it was, we were just so shocked to see him, he was about the size of a Bkackbird.

Lovely and sunny now this afternoon, a horrible night again after such a beautiful day yesterday and dull this morning. Everything is wilting in the conservatory and needs a drink.

M.

I have lost track Maryanna is it your birthday today?

Oh dear,we have had the first bird kill :-( :-(.I tried to rescue it but too late.I have a feeling he had been to a nest for it.Not sure what bird though :-S

Just nature Jane.

No Ann, the big celebrations were a month ago.

Those huge balloons plus two more that said 4 and 0 have been bouncing about ever since. We also had some small pink white and red ones for about a week as well.

First of all they were behind my chair, that just rubbed it in and frightened me to death every time I walked in the room. They also moved and I could see them out the corner of my eye.

So I then moved them into the conservatory never expecting them to stay up so long.

I kept getting glimpses of them from the living room, kitchen and garden, I could even see them through the roof if I looked out of our bedroom, the little round one was at head height, I kept thinking someone was there.

Then they would creak in the breeze ..........

Our daughter paid a fortune for them so I didn't want to get rid of them too quickly, but enough is enough.

The funniest thing was seeing my friend, well she did volunteer, bring them back from the pub where we had the party, in her Fiat 500, I have some lovely photos of her trying to stuff them all in her car. She is very tiny and when she brought them round later that evening, standing on the doorstep holding about twenty helium balloons, she looked like something out of " Up " I thought she was going to take off !!!

M. :-)

Oh good I thought I had said happy birthday at some stage, then saw the balloons. It is not difficult to confuse me you know :-D :-D :-D :-D

Just been out to one of the Blue Diamond garden centres we don't go to often. But we called in for coffee to a small one next door, and there we bought another Buddleia to replace a hydrangea that has died. We paid £6.99 for a really good quite big specimen, next door in the large garden centre they were £8.99. But, in the large garden centre I bought a pretty salmon coloured cotton cardigan (no button style reduced from £19.99 to £12.99 so..... swings and roundabouts.

I am wondering where the hot weather we were promised for today has gone. It certainly didn't come here, we have heavy cloud, showers, patchy sun and a very cold strong wind. :-S :-( :-(

Now they are 2 MASSIVE balloons lol.Not sure I have seen any quite as big.They can hover for weeks and weeks.Did anyone get a pic of your friend Maryanna holding all those balloons???.The helium ones are better than the blow up ones as they don't go BANG..I hate that.

Your cardigan was a good buy Ann.Some Garden Centres sell some quite nice clothing.
No hot weather here either.There is quite a chilly wind.But at least the washing will be dry in a very short time :-D.No rain.

Thomas is now wearing a collar and bell Ann.We will see if the birds hear the bell !!!IIt is nice having an animal in the house again,even though it wasn't planned :-D :-D
The sun is coming out :-D :-D