Dad's seat

When my dad retired, he got a job with the National Trust running a job creation scheme maintaining the coast paths near where he lived. When he died (1987) they put up 2 seats in his honour. They are still well used today! On each there is a small plaque which I expect few read. Nonetheless, it is a fitting memorial for all his hard work. He loved this area in the South Hams of Devon and so do I.

Bee

This bee (and lots more!) were busy on a lavender bush at Anglesey Abbey near here yesterday.

50th Wedding Anniversary

This weekend my wife's brother and his wife celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a party in Cheshire. It was a good chance for my wife to catch up with relatives not seen for a while.

Old College Friend

For the last few days, my wife has had an old college friend staying with us.

We visited a few local National Trust properties and managed one meal on the patio before the weather broke.

Yesterday we went to Ely Cathedral and ate in the Almonry, which is very close to the cathedral and also very old. Parts of the Almonry date back to the 13th century.

Breakfast in the garden

For the last 2 days we have had breakfast in the garden. It has been hot lately - unusually hot for the UK. It was good to be able to sit outside in the shade at 8.30am and not feel chilly at all. 

One of the pleasures was watching the birds e.g. this Robin. By the way, most of the fat balls in this feeder have gone within 24 hours, eaten by robins, great tits, dunnocks, collared dove, pigeons and jackdaws! Traditionally robins enjoy mealworms, although they much preferred the fat balls.

Museum visitors

We had some visitors who arrived at our local museum in this old charabang coach. This is it parked outside the windmill. The word charabanc is from French 'char-bancs', meaning a carriage with benches, so I read. The coach probably dates from the 1950s. The windmill is 200 years old.

Our home is on the left in the picture.

Bird table visitors

Every day we get jackdaws on our bird table. They are quite big birds, but quite fun. This one is busy tucking in to kitchen scraps. We now get quite a variety of birds. I think they know there is free food on offer!

The starlings love the fat balls. A refill on Saturday was totally empty on Sunday. 

We get a smaller variety of birds here than at our old home. There are fewer smaller birds, although I think this is true widely. We do see blue tits, great tits and long tail tits as well as other smaller birds, but fewer than might be expected.

UPDATE 4th July 2017 0825z: The fat balls go quickly. We have had big and small birds eating these and the food on the bird table.