I've been enjoying swimming with the Bluetits this summer. I am cautious about sea swimming, but the Bluetits are active enough that there's always someone that wants to swim when I do, and usually someone who has already got a convenient time planned.

So far I've mostly swum at Freshwater East, once or twice at Angle: both of them conventionally ( Read more... )

t feels like there's been brilliant sunshine for months. I think surely, it must have rained a couple of times in May? But certainly, most of the time it has been sunny, and increasingly, hot and dry.

All the doors and windows have been open to let the breezes through, and these last two weeks or so, we have been using that most un-British item, a ( Read more... )

1. Developed an excellent technique for getting medication into Theo's giant floppy ears.  For some reason, it's fine if I put the medicine on my finger and then my finger into his ears.  Ears are now sorted.


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Theo had itchy ears again today, which seems to be a recurring issue with him. He does have rather long floppy ears, which makes it harder for the ears to stay well-ventilated, apparently.

He's now got to the point where the vet will not touch his ears unless he's sedated. I've never had a vet-reactive dog before, and although I've tried working ( Read more... )

Saturday was Pp's birthday. I had promised to make a cake and a meal, which I did, with some success in the most important department (taste) but less success in the visuals. I intended to make a chocolate tower-cake, but my tower proved structurally unsound, and even the addition of a bamboo skewer did not entirely prevent listing and eventual ( Read more... )

I am ordering a few seeds online. The DT Brown seed catalogue has the most magnificent range of Salutations to add to your name I have ever seen!

Canon
Captain
Colonel
Commander
Councillor
Countess
Doctor
Fr
Judge
Lady
Lord
Lt Col
Major
Master
Miss
Mr
Mrs
Ms
Mx
Prof
Rev
Sir
Sister
The

Countesses can order seed, but not Counts.

I was strongly tempted to choose 'The' but ( Read more... )

A mighty storm is raging outside, but thankfully so far nothing has blown off the house this time. White horses are racing across the Cleddau, and it's hard to open any doors that aren't on the south side of the house because of the force of the wind.

I bought a sash block for a window that is insufficiently secured against the wild winds, on Ebay ( Read more... )

We forgot to buy bread for the Easter weekend, so instead, yesterday, I made some cheese and bacon scones. Mine had some home-grown chives in too. (Pp does not like chives, probably fearing they might contain vitamins...)

Last week, Lidl was selling Kumquat bushes with actual kumquats on them, so Pp bought me one.  Today I went and bought a pot for ( Read more... )

Once upon a time, JRR Tolkien wrote a fairy-tale retelling, an attempt to reconstruct an alternative version of the ancient poem called Beowulf*, and he called it Sellic Spell: 'strange tale' or 'wondrous tale'.

Once upon a time, on the long road home from the Lonely Mountain, Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf travelled with Beorn to his home and spent the ( Read more... )

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