To Studland!

We had a lovely day by the sea at Studland on Monday. 

Not - before you get excited - the nudie bit. No, the other bit, with golden sand and dunes behind it.
 

Old Harry's Rocks between Studland and Swanage

We took the boys with us. Risky, given that they'd already endured a full day of our undivided attention in London on Saturday, but because we all came through that relatively unscathed we thought we'd push our luck and try another Family Day Out. 

They proved remarkably content to spend time at the beach with their parents once they realised there was a Slackline immediately behind where we plonked our picnic blanket. This unsurprisingly acted like a magnet for various other teenagers on the beach who were all equally desperate not to be seen dead with their annoying parents. Full Marks to whoever thought to put it there. Our lads duly spent the rest of the time falling off it and now want one in the garden....

 

 

The health and safety sign had us in stitches...

Since when does a flat rope strung taut half an inch off the ground constitute an extreme sport?! 

I feel I had the most elegant technique, if the least effective....

Only F made it the entire way across, by doing a sort-of running, skipping, slithering zoom. M was hopeless and plummeted to earth after two steps. Which was Very Funny :o)

L made several new friends, as is his way, including a lass who must've been four years his junior and who kept asking him to go swimming with her. Cue sniggers from F about girlfriends and a certain cool and swaggery 'no thanks, I don't do swimming' from L, which made me snort.

M does do swimming. Try keeping the man out of the water. He's in there even when it's far too cold for everyone else, for Heaven's Sake.

Afterwards, he and F proceeded to have a game of let's see who can chuck the tennis ball at one another hardest on the crowded beach. By the third near-miss of innocent members of the public I called time to their game. They both returned with sheepish grinning faces that resembled naughty school boys. Honestly.

It rained. 

Of course.

But we Hardy Holiday Makers soldiered on, because it wouldn't be summer on a beach in the UK if it didn't rain.  Actually, no one did blink when it started- everyone did just carry on as if it wasn't happening (note the grey area beyond the trees indicating the approaching Heavy Squall)...

We made our way back utilising the chain-link ferry between Studland and Poole, which included a 45 min wait but luckily there is a delicious stretch of golden sand right by the terminal so we all buggered off onto that while we waited.

M and F resumed their ball game (fewer people about so I didn't have to tell them off) while L drew pictures in the sand then buried his feet, as you do.

I took pictures of other people's sandcastles, wistfully, because the Grumpy Teens wouldn't be seen dead with a bucket and spade these days unless it was to fill it with water (or sand) and chuck it over someone's (my) head...

There was also further evidence of yet more Jellies being washed up on the beach, poor things...

By then the ferry had returned so we climbed back in the car and drove on...

I got terribly excited by the sat nav on my phone showing us in the middle of the sea!!!! (small things, eh?)....

And we all enjoyed the view of Brownsea (next time, Squirrels, next time) and Poole harbour...

Apart from that it's been quiet here. I had another migraine (boo) Monday night which put paid to Tuesday and provided Miss Pops with the perfect sofa-related excuse this morning...

Apparently, nursing duties come before all other sofa-related-injunctions.

I have baked a cake and some buns, but bits keep disappearing off them...

And I am double-chuffed to discover that the oh-so-difficult-to-grow hop seeds that I planted but couldn't be arsed forgot to subject to warm temps for 2-3 weeks, then 4-5 weeks at 2-4oC and then more cool temps after that, have managed to grow just fine by themselves, having been bunged in some compost and forgotten about left in the greenhouse during soaring temperatures. Good For Them. It won't be long before homemade beer with homemade hops, eh?

You go away for one day (bed ridden a la migraine) and everything changes. Look: the sweetcorn has gone all punk on me...

And remember the Comma larva who was on the nettle at the weekend? Well he's only gone and started pupating. I Rather Like the way he's hung himself up neatly beside the nettle flowers, pretending to be one..... When he's finished and has gone all crispy I think I may transfer the pupa into the butterfly house and watch him emerge as a Bootiful Butterfly....

T and P send everyone their regards (despite Ted looking Grumpy As in the pic- he is Feeling Cheerful, promise)....

And want me to assure you that they are being extremely considerate of my post-migraine self by only chasing each other round the house a teeny weeny amount and barely indulging in any dentistry at all....

I'll leave you with a Gate Keeper and a Brimstone I spotted this morning, as well as the Loosestrife which is coming along nicely now thank you, and the roses which have started blooming in the hedge again (only don't tell  Mel because her Turkey's ate hers....), and finally T and P who were on Sniffer Dog Alert Mode like mad this morning all over the drive. I couldn't fathom what had left such an interesting smell (the garden being fenced off to Mr Fox, Mr Badger and Miss Bunny) until I saw a CAT running up the track next door. What on Earth?! We are all AMAZED and have no idea where it's come from...

Hope all are well? Apols if I've missed some of your posts. Hoping to get round them this week now I can see again and make sense of the words :o)

CT x 

Wrens, Shorts & A New Visitor To The Garden

I've got an hour to myself.

Bliss.

Yesterday, we took the boys to London. We went to the Science Museum for L, who has his eye on being an engineer, and to the British Museum for F, who is set on becoming an archaeologist. Isn't it nice when things divide quite so neatly?

For once, the trains and underground all worked and it was a (relatively) stress-free experience: even the being squished beneath Other People's Armpits in the suffocating thick air of the tube wasn't too unbearable. 
For the most part the Grumpy Teens were well behaved and not particularly grumpy, despite being 'dragged out of bed half way through the night, mum!' (9.30am) and eating only crisps and chocolate for the duration.

Today, we are at home. Well, I am. M and Pops went out marathon training first thing and ran 15miles while Ted and I made a pair of bright pink shorts for running in.

 
I picked some of the sweet peas which have finally decided to flower and put them in the new EB vase...

 
And then got thoroughly Over Excited when a new flutter turned up in the garden on the uber expensive patio buddleia (which, like the uber expensive daphne that attracted the Painted Lady, I now consider to have earnt its exorbitant price tag and place in the flower bed). 

 
Its a Silver Washed Fritillary (see the silver lines on the underwing?). This one is a boy (longer black lines on the wings, which you'll see in the next pic)....

We've never had one in the garden before. They are flutters of ancient woodlands (broad-leaved mostly) so I'm not too sure what he's doing here. We do have remnants of ancient woodland nearby so praps that's the answer. They are such elegant butterflies and have the most graceful, lilting, gliding flight. It's lovely to watch. Happy Days about seeing him :o)

 
I've used my Quiet Hour wisely, by wandering the garden camera in hand. 

First, I found a Comma caterpillar having a Lovely Time amongst the nettles in the wildflower garden...

 
Then I found a tiny Scarlet Pimpernel growing in the gravel on the drive...

 
I noticed that the Sunflowers are nearly out...

And that Feverfew has self-sown itself beside the compost heap where the wasps have been making their nest...

Calendula has done the same. Those seeds must have dropped out from last year's plants without me noticing as I tipped them onto the compost.

I watched a Common Carder Bee stuffing pollen into his baskets...

 
And saw a Buff-Tailed bee enjoying the wild thistles by the fence...

The white Everlasting Sweet Peas were looking whimsical and delicate in the light...
  

And a Meadow Brown had discovered the Verbena growing secretly by the pond...

Toms are growing like mad in the greenhouse...

 

 

And the veg patch is blooming...

 

 

It was while I was in the veg patch (looking for small people) that I got shouted at. From underneath the kale. Not an everyday occurrence.

 

Who was the culprit?

 

 

A baby wren. Honestly, it's getting to something when someone not much bigger than a bumblebee yells at you. There are three of them. And they have spent most of the afternoon in the veg patch or the wildflower patch (which are next to each other) yelling at the top of their heads for their mother to feed them. Which she has been doing constantly, bless her (although  the look she gave me as she flew wearily past on her way to the gutter to look for insects spoke volumes. If she had eyebrows she would have raised them).

 

 

It seems that, no matter how hard you work fetching and carrying, some people are never satisfied...

 

 

I retreated indoors to give my poor ears a rest and to read this fantabulous article in praise of JRs that ma found in Country Life...

 

 

I read the header out to M when he got home. 'There is no braver, more loyal and determined dog than the Jack Russell-' at which point he said: does it say anything about how naughty they are? I continued: 'but don't even consider having one unless you have a good sense of humour.'

 

We all think that sums Pop up perfectly....

 

 

My favourite of all the naughty Jack Russell stories related in the article was the one about Snuff, who was so incensed at the arrival of his mum's new BF that he removed every piece of smoked trout from every plate prior to a smart dinner party, leaving the lettuce leaves they had been sitting on in perfect condition. I also couldn't resist grinning over the antics of Widget who ate a chocolate fudge cake and chased a hot air balloon across two fields, Troy, Mrs T and Tyke Junior who will destroy their dad's Landy when he feeds the sheep unless he leaves the door open for them (they remain seated comfortably inside regardless) and Rigsby, who once ate a cockerel and an entire cold salmon, weed on a briefcase, was sick on someone's bed and refused to come out of a hole unless a roast chicken was wafted in front of him. 

It makes Poppy's antics look like those of a Saint, but then I suppose she isn't two yet....

Hope all are well?

CT :o)