Sunday Summary on Monday plus a Yummy Cake!

I stayed with my son and his wife for a couple of days over the weekend as I needed a break away from home, so my post for Sunday is a day late.

Earlier in the week the gladioli just started flowering and by Friday was looking fabulous

Of course the rain then gave it a bit of a battering.

My roses are looking as lovely as ever and give me much enjoyment.

Just love Rhapsody in Blue.  

Wednesday evening we went to my son's for dinner and were delighted to spot this hedgehog in his garden.

The maple leaves in our garden look so pretty with the sun shining through them.

Hover fly.

These beans are coming along nicely and are very tasty.  In fact I put some in our dinner tonight,

I made a cauliflower, kale and pasta bake with added green beans and tomatoes.  

On Friday an air ambulance was circling over a road fairly near us...I fear a bad accident must have happened.  Not sure what was going on a few nights before that though when a helicopter was circling round our road and a neighbouring road for HOURS from about 2 am - 4am!

We picked up the wedding photos we had done in April in the weekend and they are fabulous.  My son chose these two to go on his wall.

This is of my gorgeous daughter in law, his wife in her fabulous Nepalese gown.

Love this photo of them both.  This is a photo of the large print they now have on their wall, the colours aren't as good as in real life.  

This afternoon I have been 'faffing' in the dining room - dusting and polishing and rearranging things after the windows have been painted.  Now need to get things tidy again!  Almost all the windows have been done, apart from those in my room and the lounge.  Hopefully they will be finished by the end of the week.

Love these tea pots and cup and saucer set.

Some bears and things.

Lastly I even made a cake today!  

I thought I would try something completely different and made a Beetroot Cake and my was it delicious.

Ingredients needed are:

Beetroot, Self-Raising Flour, Baking Powder, Soft Brown Sugar, Vegetable Oil (I used Olive Oil), 2 Eggs and Sultanas.  

All mixed up - I forgot to take photos with my proper camera so these are just some Ipad shots.

Fresh out of the oven

A slice (or two)... with a cuppa.

Very tasty indeed.  I will definitely be making this again.

The recipe I used came from here:  https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/view/recipe/beetroot-cake 

A Day Trip to IOW

We had a day trip to the IOW yesterday, getting up at 3am, leaving the house at 4.30am and arriving on the island at 8 am, we got home at just after 9pm.  A long tiring day!  It was interesting to see just how much busier the ferry and Island was now the school holidays have started.

Leaving Southampton we had a lovely view from our seats.  We normally sit up the top with the dogs, but as we didn't have the dogs with us this time we sat in the lounge area and got 'front row seats' which was lovely.

We say this Cruise ship on our way to the Island.

Not far away now!

Our first stop was Alverstone Mead Reserve.  We went there a couple of weeks ago on another day trip and were delighted to see some red squirrels, very 'up close and personal' and I wanted to go back and get some better pictures as I only had my small hand held camera on me at the time.  Sadly though this time we only saw one squirrel at a distance climbing/running through the trees.  Funny thing is though - and this really was quite bizarre - I took some peanuts to put down on the shelves in the hide in case there weren't any, and they weren't and well I am convinced someone took them!  We put them down - several large handfuls, both inside the hide where the squirrels had come last time, and on the shelf that hangs on the outside of the hide.  Nothing came along so we went for a five minute walk - and really only was five minutes, came back and there was someone in the hide, and absolutely NO peanuts left whatsoever, not even the husks.  I made a comment about goodness they went quick and she said, oh there have been lots of Jays around, they must have taken them.  Well I have seen Jays feed, and in fact we saw some a little later, and they tend to swoop in and take one away - there would have had to have been an awful lot of Jays to have taken all the peanuts I had put down in a mere five minutes and would they have come INSIDE the hide as well?? I think not.  So our only conclusion was, was that she pocketed them for some reason which seems really strange.  When she had left, I put down some more peanuts and we repeated our experiment after watching what birds would come and feed while we were there , and we left for five minutes or so and then came back...and guess what the peanuts were still there!  So really there is no other logical explanation as to what happened to those peanuts.  Anyway back to the birds...

Now for some photos of the squirrels we saw last time we were here - not the best photos, but they still capture the experience of seeing these wonderful squirrels so close.  It was incredible.

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After we left the nature reserve we drove to Freshwater Bay.  The day was amazing and the sea actually looked very inviting.

So pretty.

Funnily enough shortly after I took these photos a sea mist came in and it turned completely grey and 'cloudy' but only lasted for about an hour and then cleared up again, by which time we were in another part of the island.

A good day, not long enough, we would have liked to have had more time to 'relax and enjoy'.