Tuesday 25 September 2018

Audley End - A Day Out

A beautiful Autumnal morning with a bright blue sky meant one thing...make the most of it!  So off we went to visit Audley End with the dogs.


The river was looking lovely in the sunlight



Flowers as stunning as ever. They are always changing and the last time we went was before the School Summer holidays so there is always something new to see.





So lovely to see butterflies on the buddleia 




Love this shot.


Grapes in the glass house


Yellows alone the length of the glass house.





The formal gardens




A little bird chirruping away.



More butterflies.






Farewell until another day.

Percy update:

He enjoyed his walk today with Stanley and us very much.  He still seems to be doing really well, so hopefully he has turned a corner.  Last night he played with his ball for ages and then settled down to give his antler a chew - something he hasn't done in a long time.




Monday 24 September 2018

Monday Catching Up!


After a wet Sunday today has dawned beautifully - lovely clear blue sky typical of a crisp Autumn morning.


Our Maple still looks very green but there is evidence of leaves starting to change.  Out the front the Oak tree on the other hand is really starting to show off its Autumn colours - much take a photo for another post.

The rose garden is still looking amazing.


I think it is enjoying the damper and cooler weather.





A few conkers gathered on a walk the other day.


Little Autumnal display now has a tiny pumpkin added.


Some peppers from my son.


Last weekend, not the one that we have just had, my son and his wife came down to help me do some things in the garage and Cavy Shed.  I wanted to move a block of cages up to their place for when we go away so they can look after my piggies and move a double block from the garage into the Cavy Shed for when their piggies come to stay as they can no longer be housed together.  One of my blocks of cages from when I used to exhibit the cavies has dividers in it.  Of course moving it was no simple task as we had been using it for storage so we had to clear out 'stuff'  a lot of which was able to be thrown fortunately!  The rest was tidied up.  This also meant there was space in the garage to move the boxes of books that had been sitting in the lounge for the past few months to be moved.  We now have space in the lounge!


So the shed has been changed round a bit and I like the new layout.



Bottom cage has the divider in for when my son's two piggies come to stay.  I thought I had a wire divider, but couldn't find them, so guessing that must been from an old block of hutches I no longer have.


Another job I wanted done was some slabs to be laid out the front so the bins could go in a line rather than behind each other so they are easier to access and move.  Not a particularly pretty sight, but at least it is tidier.   I do have some stickers to put on them, but will probably wait until Spring now.  


I thought this picture of Percy 'on' his bed was rather cute!


He has been quite a poorly boy and has had a fair few cuddles these last three weeks.  He had to have blood tests which showed elevated liver levels so went back last week to have more liver tests.  We got the results on Friday which showed something is going on but not indicative of Liver Disease, so he has to go back in three weeks time for more tests.  He actually started picking up on Wednesday and we thought he was doing pretty well then he had another seizure Friday night - the third he has had.  Although Saturday and Sunday he was much more like his usual self and far more active, back playing with his ball.


Hopefully this means he is on the mend.  We will of course still have to keep monitoring him, and if he has another one actually capture it on video - I almost did for the last but messed up the recording with the new phone I have.

Some new books.


I saw this, and have heard a bit about this and wondered what all the hype was about so thought I would get it for a read.

Having enjoyed Phil Drabble's 'A Weasel in the Meatsafe' and his account of keeping a badger I thought I would try the two books that inspired him to keep a badger.


The first of which is 'Diana, My Badger' by Frances Pitt, which is partly non-fiction and partly fiction of what she thought might have occurred after the badger left her.  I'm about half way through this book.


The second is 'The Old Stag' by Henry Williamson.


Some new little note cards.  

Sunday 16 September 2018

Butterfly House and Dahlia Gardens

On Friday we went out for lunch at Aylett Nurseries in St Albans with our son and daughter in law.  We were delighted to discover they had opened a small Butterfly House as since Butterfly World closed down a few years ago now there has been nothing like it near here.


It was fun spotting the different types of butterflies they had as well as the caterpillars



Big Owl Butterfly



Their caterpillars


Flambeau



I'm not sure which butterfly this is.  Although they had a 'Butterfly Spotter' chart, this one wasn't on it.  


More Flambeaus



The also had a wonderful Dahlia display as well as their Celebration Field and Dahlia Gardens which we really enjoyed wandering round.  We first discovered this last year so I think this will become a yearly event for us to visit these wonderful gardens.  The also have a 'Time for Tea' tent that serves delicious cakes with tea or coffee.
























It was a lovely way to spend a few hours and a great way of re-charging ourselves ready to start work on the garage - clearing, sorting and tidying ready for moving one of the Cavy hutch blocks that had been used for storage into the Cavy Shed and thus clearing space for all the book boxes that are currently stacked up in the lounge.