Welcome back!

The Dawn Patroller has returned.

Welcomed back by a Roe Buck on this mornings dawn patrol.


He had a good weekend.  Enjoyed by all.

My grandson Theo.

And his big brother Zachary.  (Yes -  they needed sun cream!)


But the DP was led a bit astray.  He hates cutting grass and has been redesigning the garden to reduce the amount of lawns to cut.

So this half of the lawn at the side of the house is to become this....

What was even better for him was to hear, from an expert "JUST LEAVE IT AND SEE WHAT COMES UP."  Then we will get these beautiful creatures.

Well, at the moment, all I can see is grass.  Having been left quite long time between mowings due to the odd weather we have had I can see there are different types of grass.  And daisies, and dandelions, and the odd buttercup.  


Apparently what you do is mow a path through it.  This is so passing horse riders, cyclists, joggers, people in high vehicles, tractor drivers etc can see you HAVE THIS UNDER CONTROL.  THERE IS A PURPOSE BEHIND THIS.


It will be a while before I let him out to play again.

Be afraid... be very afraid

Of a woman with a paint brush.

A beautiful sunny, still morning.  I had said if it were so I would paint the man shed.  So I did.

Having some paint left I did the top of the table.

And with still some more paint left I did the birds dining table.

But even I cannot paint like Mother Nature.

Saturday's 'solitude'.

The Dawn Patroller has gone off to Edinburgh this weekend.  The RSPB Bird Fair.  Also seeing daughters 1,2 and 4 and 1's two sons.

I am not quite alone as I have Min and Sith.  Who suddenly decided to declare open warfare this afternoon. 

Prior to that bust up, I went off to our favourite furniture shop.  

After all the looping of wires here there and everywhere we had the SKY box and DVD brought down to floor level.  Now the t.v. is higher up the chimney breast to allow for wood burning stove and a shelf to deflect the heat, so that the t.v. dont melt, the boxes which were above t.v. I would not have been able to reach.  But we needed somewhere, other than the floor, to house them.

So this is it.  It matches our occasional tables so I was well pleased.  (Despite the sales lady showing me 'entertainment units' costing three times as much.)

Down the shed for the afternoon I finished off the Oyster Catcher, which I have to admit, I am well pleased with.

Then an amble round the garden in the early evening.

The Clematis we bought last year is flowering.

Rogersii getting bigger.

Paeony getting bigger.

Lilac almost ready to cut and bring in the house.

And Ladies Mantle flourishing.

Indoors lots of fresh new growth also.


And me -?  A time to reflect, be inspired, and a quiet time to figure things out.


The DP is back tomorrow, thank goodness, back to earth.  I'll have to share the wine.....

Marooned.

Yesterday I was marooned down the shed.  I do have one of these masks.  But do look a bit of a dill wearing one.

We had the electricians.  Removing wires and cables and scart leads and phone wires.  And causing a lot of dust, not good for my breathing.

What seemed like this lot came out of the chimney and then put back up/down again.

What really made me laugh was at one point I came up from the shed to find the DP and the electrical apprentice holding up the tv whilst the electrician checked all the connections to SKY and DVD and telephone.  

When I asked if they were going to stay there all night like that so I could watch the tele, did not go down well.  

The main problem was that they had threaded all these cables and bits only to discover the scart lead to the dvd was faulty.  So had to call in someone else to bring another who was a mite critical that they had not checked the first one before threading through loft/floors/walls and into socket.  So long as I am not paying for that hours delay....

So meanwhile I was marooned down the shed.To avoid all the dust from hacking into walls and shifting sockets.  Really painful being marooned.  (Ho ho).

I watched Sith claw his way to the top of the man shed.

I finished off the hens.

And made some bunting.


Just in time to return to the house and watch the tele.  All fixed.  Pity, I quite liked being marooned.

Catch up.

Where to start?


Alleluia.  Yesterday morning our chimney was swept.

Not by this Fred Dibnah look alike.

Or this extremely clean person who claims to sweep chimneys.


No it was our Alan, from Yorkshire, (the best), who is actually muckier than Fred Dibnah but better looking, tho possibly not as smirky as sweep number 2.


Alan removed the cap off the chimney, removed the Jackdaws nest and announced our chimney clean and ready for the multifuel stove.  He also had a cup of tea and told us about his bills from the vets to save his calves.
It has been such a weird winter that as there were no real frosts or a proper winter to kill off any bugs, his calves, within a few days of birth were diagnosed with some sort of food poisoning.  Cost = £8000 to treat them.  But all are saved.  Though I cannot see how he will ever get his money back.  And then he charges me £28 to sweep the chimney.  No wonder he looks mucky, probably cant afford soap.  I gave him more than £28.  And the cap off the chimney.  I should point out here that Alan is the only chimney sweep in the area and could/should charge us much more than £28.  He could charge what he wants and people would have to pay it.  But he doesnt.


So - what a day this has been.....
Tuesdays are my day out.  I go to Cafe Connect and am the link to all the volunteers beavering away in the schools.


This was followed by lunch at the Scottish Lighthouse Museum.  Its a hard life.


But I did have a high power discussion with the new manager there.  Trying to talk him into letting viewers of the exhibition in in September for nowt.  Our discussions are to continue via email.  Fingers crossed I can sell this to him.  Sell being the most inappropriate word, no hope for me is there!




Art class/group this morning.  Yesterday afternoon I finished off another painting for the Discover Art exhibition.

At the art class/group this morning I did some more on our topic of farm animals.

Getting there.  Hen in the middle has an extremely beady eye - waiting for the one in front to get a move on.


Also framed a painting done by one of the others in the art group.  After me saying that I judged a picture by "Would I want that on my wall?" and that I would.  He gave it to me!

Ah - sigh, just shows how far I have to go.

Organising. (and other stuff).

Chiff Chaff singing.

Jackdaw eating, just look at that eye, awesome.

Awwww Little Bunny.

A new visitor in the field to the front of us.

In the harbour today was this boat I have seen on a number of occasions and thought what a smart boat.

And it is called the Chloe May.  Two of my daughters are named Chloe and Amy, so... switch the letters round and the boat is even more beautiful!

In the morning while the DP was off shooting his camera at everything that moved or didnt, I was cleaning, ironing, sorting my wardrobe (closet) out.  Decided to go for colour coding (what a laugh -  nothing matches).  Tomorrow is to be a green day, well, with a bit of red and blue.....
I then went down the shed.  
Now the big garden table is out and all the tools into the man shed I got going with sweeping brush, hooks, hammer and nails.  Broke the sweeping brush, and three of my nails before I gave up.

This table cloth is one of those plastic efforts with a backing, and I am going to cut it with pinking shears.

I even started making a sign.

My art stuff is now sorted on to two ancient tea trolleys.  Which can be shoved out of the way, or pulled alongside my painting table.

Can this really be me?  Organising?

Ah ah - no wine rack.  Not there yet.

Tis Sunday.

Some years ago when we lived in an urban sprawl, Sunday was the day everyone washed their cars.  Soap suds everywhere.  I have to own up that apart from the odd scary experience of a drive through car wash (where I am told I screamed the whole time we were in there,) I have never washed a car.

And never will.

Better things to do.  (and I think cars with mould on them are pretty.)

A Willow Warbler in full warble.

A grey start to the day and cool.

Lots of seals at Cairnbulg, including some baby ones.

The view from my seat in the shed.  Of one of our beautiful cherry trees, hung with bird feeders.  (and the man shed behind.)

 I finished the Gannets.  Wall of infamy or a frame?  No need to answer.

Then finally the sun comes out.  The wind drops.  

Too late to start anything else.  Like gardening, hanging washing out, mowing the lawn, washing the windows, such is life.  


I could always open the wine.