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Wonderful Vera, how lovely for him. :-) :-) <3

Happy Birthday to your dear OH Vera. Plenty of surprises in store for him !!!

Goodness !! how big is your slow cooker??? To get meat in for 10 people.Must be like a cauldron LOL.
Have a fabulous weekend with all the rellies and guests <3

A touch of hubble bubble toil and trouble. Bet it is all happening chez Vera tinigh

Well, I am shattered, but the man himself has had a wonderful time so it has all been worth it.

He was so surprised and delighted by each new arrival. The meal went well with lots of laughter. I had been worried the meat might not be well cooked as it had really been crammed into my slow cooker with not an inch of spare space but it came out perfectly. We finished with birthday cake made by daughter in the shape of the five pointed Russian Star, iced in red and with the hammer and sickle symbol on the top in gold icing.

Today we had sixteen people for coffee and cake at 11 am and several of them stayed till 4 which I hadn't expected, so at 2 I made a load of sandwiches.

The rain we had this morning and the wind has kept the birds away though I did see a little robin pecking away out there just now.

So pleased it all went well Vera and that your OH enjoyed it all. What meat did you have in the slow cooker? And how big is the slow cooker?
A day of rest tomorrow then?

It sounds like your OH has had a weekend of surprises Vera and enjoyed all the
fuss for his special 80th birthday. I hope that you had enough coffee and cake to go
around today. If your friends stayed for afternoon tea, they really enjoyed themselves.
I hope that you can rest, relax and get your breath back tomorrow. Well Done You!!

The chaffinch has returned and the magpie has disappeared. All very strange.

Lots of birds in the garden at the moment. Plenty of sparrows, blackbirds and starlings, a little robin and a couple of pigeons having a love-in on the fence. There are also a couple of dunnocks bobbing in and out of the lavender right outside the patio doors where I am sitting and I haven't seen those for a while.

Ann, for OH's meal I had large, thick individual pieces of beef - not sure of the cut but it was a sort of very lean casserole meat. I wanted to do it in the slow cooker so that he wouldn't notice how much was being cooked. I thought my cooker was just a standard size but when I was catering for a party of 50 a couple of years ago I borrowed some cookers and most of them were smaller than mine. I had planned to put in mushrooms, and some carrot and onion but there wasn't room so they had to be cooked separately. I did manage to cover the meat with a gravy made of thickened beef stock, tomato purée and plenty of red wine and very tasty it was too :-D

Kandj I definitely over catered on the cake front. I think people's tastes are changing. I also put out cheese scones and some savoury bits and pieces and they were all eaten.

While I've been posting a couple of great tits have flown in and I haven't seen them for a while either. It's clearly a good day for birds :-)

Time to chill out now then Vera after what sounds like very successful birthday celebrations for OH's big Birthday bash :-D :-D. You did so well to cater for so many people . Not sure I could have done the same.

I see the feeder is empty yet again !!. The birds don't have put it away. The Blackbirds in particular fill their beaks .They are quite greedy so and sos' They remind me of Hamsters when they stuff as much as they can into their mouths.

Good Evening Everyone :-)

Vera it sounds as though you have had a very successful weekend with your catering and a wonderful time seems to be had by all, especially the birthday boy! :-)


Woody Wood Pigeon was back again today. Eating like there's no tomorrow :-D
I love them, they are so comical looking!

When we first had him visiting (I like to believe it's the same one that comes every year:-D, but probably not) my Grandson 1 came running in excited saying there's a DUCK in the elderflower tree! :-D :-D



My Great Tits have come back today too. :-)
The little robin returned and he seems a very vivid orange-red today.
A small collared dove was here today as well as the usual pair.

All the "usual suspects" :-D have been here- the Starling Families, The Blackbirds, The Jackdaws, and the "Hundreds" of Sparrows and their young.


Not seen the mouse for the last couple of days, but my favourite visiting cat has had to be sent out of the hedge a number of times :-0 :-D

It seems your OH has had a wonderful 80th birthday weekend Vera. I hope you aren't too shattered after all your hard work. Hopefully you can both relax on holiday soon.

I was cleaning the back bedroom window just now and a little bluetit flew past and landed on the clothes line, a real surprise as this is the first one and easily recognized.

Jem ,it sounds like you have a garden full of birds including your Great Tits :-)
Our window feeder is just like the drive through at Mc Donalds .Non stop.At certain times of the day it is mayhem. I do think there are lots of youngsters now visiting ,especially Chaffinch ,Gt Tits and Blue Tits. The Jay pops in still now and then.
There was a very young looking Squirrel this morning on a branch of the tree by the feeder. I went out to try and shoo it away but it just sat there and looked at me. OH said I should have told him and he would have been out with his gun :-| :-| :-|
No mice around here as the cat eats them all !!

Kandj,I wish you had more birds visiting you. It is strange how some of us have so many and others so few even when we all have gardens with trees etc. We are very lucky here as ti is all hedges and trees. The only downside is the mess they all make :-S

Birds do seem to be quite choosy about which gardens they visit. We have been here nearly four years now and the birds are only now starting to come regularly. The birds that are coming are mostly the common garden birds. The garden is small and we have no grass so I don't think I can expect to get the jays ,woodpeckers and so on that we used to have in the old place.

I have just seen a young robin hopping about out there. I had to google to make sure it was a robin. It was near enough adult size and had all the robin characteristics but hadn't yet got the red breast. No sign of a parent but it looked big enough to cope without them.

Had a lovely afternoon yesterday. We don't live too far from Long Melford so we spent an hour in the grounds of Melford Hall first. They are quite small but we had a look at the gardens and walked round the park bit where there is a flock of Jacob Sheep.

Then we moved on to Melford Country Park. Pre-WW2 this was arable land, then during the war the ground was used to extract sand and gravel. Now the pits are turned into ponds and lakes and the river is nearby. The rest of the land is mostly left wild. Lots of rabbits and I imagine they keep the grass cropped.

We saw swans and various ducks including, I think, little grebe, several wagtails at the water's edge and a mistle thrush on the grass that didn't seem to be the least bit bothered by us. But the best bit was several large areas full of tall nettles. From a distance it looked as though they were covered with black butterflies or moths that were flying in and out. As we got nearer we realised they were some form of dragonfly with a blue body and dark wings. I've never seen anything like it before; there was such a mass of them.

When we got home I did a bit of investigating and I am sure they were either the Banded Demoiselle or the Beautiful Demoiselle, and as they were so dark I think they were the Beautiful Demoiselle.

I found it a bit sad that there were several cars in the car park but the occupants were all within 100 yards or so of their cars. We had all the rest of the park to ourselves. Each to their own I suppose but it seems pointless to me to go to a country park and not see what it has to offer.

That sounds a lovely place Vera, you certainly had a lot to see. It always amazes me how people don't want to explore

Vera ,what a nice afternoon you had. All that lovely wild life :-D :-D. Good job you didn't go today what with the wind and rain !!! :-S :-S

What a day it has been . The only positive thing is we haven't got to water the garden or top up the bird bath :-D :-D. It is still looking a bit iffy here . The birds have been snatching food from the window feeder in between the heavy downpours.
I think tomorrow is going to be a better day. :-D

We are in Menorca till next Monday and we had plenty of rain yesterday as well. It was quite chilly too. Today has been pretty hot though it is fairly cool again tonight. I am a bit concerned about our garden. Will the fence still be in one piece? Will all the plants be flattened? Will the garden furniture be OK? The weekend after we get back I have a coffee morning for a club we belong to and the garden was more or less all set up ready.

No point in worrying about it. I'll think of you while I'm out in the hot sunshine :-D

We are in America and so far it has been very hot and sunny all day

Ann and Vera enjoy your holidays and think of us back home with strong winds
and lashings of rain!!

I have had to sweep the seeds and pellets up from the floor caused by the winds from yesterday, as I don't want to encourage any mice (which give me the creeps).
Today we are meant to have even stronger winds and yet more rain. Hope its wrong.

Very hot here Kandj and windy today too, some cloud but mainly sun and blue skies.

Sounds much better than here Ann. Where in the USA are you?

The little chaffinch is back and so is the one magpie. Still looking for others but I can't see any more...... very strange.

Jane, you are keeping the variety of birds in your garden. We don't have squirrels but my sister does and finds them a real nuisance. I think if she had a gun she would be shooting them too!!

Vera, I hope that you and your OH are relaxing and enjoying Minorca together now after his 80th birthday celebrations with family and friends. The wind is very strong and with the rain it seems more like October/November than June ha ha.