Well folks - it was an absolutely gorgeous day today - with high temperatures in the high 20'sC - such a change from the weather we've had lately. At least we haven't had the horrendous rain that Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have had, nor so hot like the west coast of the USA - our land may be small, but at least we have been fortunate not to have the extremes others seem to have had.

Well I decided to have a stroll around the top garden, because the baby seagull has now flown the "nest" - in other words he's no longer on my porch roof, and I tried to persuade Pippin that he could go out through the cat flap again, without the fear of being attacked by the parent seagulls. When I went out and nothing happened, he ventured out carefully and relaxed. I took out my camera, a drink, my phone etc and put them in the basket on the rolator, and off I went. I find it very dicey - walking about without the rolator - as I feel so giddy most of the time - it's a nuisance believe me.....

Well Emily had done some weeding etc on Tuesday and bless her - it looked so much better. The weeds had grown so quickly with our wet and warm weather. I noticed that the purple loosestrife had really taken hold of some of the flower beds in the front - gorgeous plant....


The purple loosestrife is abundant

Such a pretty flower

I also noticed a rather large complete cobweb - now I wouldn't like to meet the spider who made it, as it would have to be a rather large spider to make it - I quickly took a picture and moved away quickly!!!!!

Incredible cobweb still complete

Of course Pippin had to escort me, and he kept up his annoying habit of turning away whenever I brought out the camera, but I did manage a couple of pictures of him!!!!

Pippin keeping an eye on me

Pippin had to follow me of course

Once I got onto the lawn, I took some pictures of the wild roses at the top of the tree and also some blackberries starting to form, well their flowers were out...

The wild roses among the trees

Blackberries starting

I sat down on the rolator seat and just looked at the Himalayan Honeysuckle - it's an incredible bush - it must be close to over 8 feet high - that's almost 3 metres high!!!! It has incredible flowers just popping out all over the bush...

More of the honeysuckle

One of the flowers of the honeysuckle

Part of the Himalayan honeysuckle

It was then I noticed that there were apples forming on the tree - wonderful - together with the blackberries - that's sorted out my desserts for a few months!!!!!

Apples are forming - yay

To top it all - on the way out back to the kitchen, I noticed that the damson tree was fully laden with damsons too - so that means I'll try and make damson jam - or something like that.!!!

The tree is laden with them

Damsons are forming too

So all in all - a very pleasant couple of hours was spent this afternoon - apart from the fact that it was absolutely scorchingly hot - and being unused to heat, I was dripping wet by the time I went back indoors!!

We are expecting similar weather for the next week or so, so I'll go out again tomorrow if I can - only up the driveway methinks - there are lots of wild flowers growing there and also I may even manage getting to the top of the drive and see the view down the valley to the river - but that's a chance I'll think about, as both neighbours have gone away on holiday and if anything should go wrong, I won't have them to call on. So I'll just have to be careful.

Okay folks, this is just a quickie - please stay safe out there.