Disturbed

This is a wren's nest I uncovered when taking ivy off one of the old trees in the garden. It did come back and finish making the hole smaller, but unfortunately then abandoned the nest.  At least I have learnt a lesson and will wait in future until all the birds have reared their young before I strip the trees of the ivy.

Malvern Cat or what?

Sox doing his 'Cheshire Cat' pose

Think he was trying to cheer me up after I had got very upset having found a badly injured cat in the garage which had to be put down.  Think it might have been hit by a car.

Sox has now become very good at climbing trees and getting himself back down again, much to my relief.  However, if he does not stop crossing the very busy road at the front on his exploratory excusions I fear he will not be with us much longer.

Malvern Hills Visitor Centre

The garden became an outward bounds area over the weekend when three friends descended on us on their motorbikes on a 'dummy' run for their impending excursion to Germany later in the year.  In addition we had a couple of visitors staying in the house.

At least they provided me with the ideal opportunity to get out and about and  ...  at long last get onto the Malvern Hills for a walk.The steep climb in baking hot sunshine was well worth the effort when you get views like this in every direction.  The kindly boys took turns lagging behind to keep me company.

Here I am looking delightful in my sun hat.  I might add this was all achieved before breakfast.  Whilst the more intrepid of us ventured out my charming husband kindly remained behind to entertain the other visitors we had for the weekend and get them their breakfast.

Finally, we have a picture of some of the sights of Malvern!!  Malvhina is seen here entertaining two of the bikers and providing them with some of her refreshing spring water.

Now it's gone ....

The cedar tree has now been felled and what a difference it has made.  Four nice chaps arrived a day late, around 1.30 pm (mid morning?) however they did an excellent job and worked really hard leaving everything neat and tidy.  The highlight of the afternoon was when one of them was clambering about in the huge oak tree cutting off dead branches.   (Ignoring the chainsaws) they had some very interesting equipment which I would not have minded getting my hands on ....

Not found out what the neighbours think of the new outlook yet.

We have also been visited by a juvenile Greater Spotted Woodpecker this week which was lovely.  One of the blackbirds does not seem to have been deterred by all the noise and upheaval yesterday as she was busy collecting nesting material this morning. I am sure the squirrels will be back and will not take the least bit of notice of all the disruption.

Almost finished the roman blind I have been making for the shower room so now ready to start on two more for the kitchen.  I have had to paint and put up a new batten for the blind in the shower room as the existing one was not wide enough for the velcro.  Been perfecting my sawing and rubbing down techniques along the way.

Three Counties Show

Had a fantastic day at the Three Counties Show in Malvern on Saturday.  The Kune Kune pigs had to be the stars of the show with their little piglets.

We never got into the cattle sheds as they started to do the judging, which is where the best opportunity would have arisen to get some really nice close ups of these lovely beasts.

The Hereford cattle were fantastic and I managed to get this picture during the Young Handlers competition.  The weather turned rather wet by the time the Grand Parade took place so it was not easy to hold an umbrella and take photographs.

Sox is settling in

You all keep asking how Sox is settling in ....  well he seems to like it here, although he is a pain as we do not have a catflap.  We go for a walk up the Dell most evenings and he is starting to explore the trees (squirrels) and can even climb them now.  The pictures above are him discovering that the old Elm which is dead and rotten smells of something interesting and has a huge hole inside it.  Not only did he climb up it, but he also came down inside the hole and out the bottom.  I thought he must be stuck inside but he was sat nonchalantly at the other side of the tree where I could not see him.  I missed the best photographs of him inside the hole.

Now you see it .....

This huge tree (Western Red Cedar?) - which must be 50 ft in height - is in the back right hand corner of the rear garden.  Well next Tuesday it is going.  Lovely as it is, and it smells fantastic, it blocks out a lot of the afternoon sun. The stream is to the right behind the roses.  Not sure what the rose is but it looks like the picture below and must be a climber. 

The garden is full of lovely roses at the moment.  There is a deep red climber at the front called Dublin Bay and apparently the weather this year has meant that it has produced the best flowers ever,