A busy day scything and sizing up the two chestnuts for a future tree house

The fields are full orchids of all shapes and sizes

Quite a few parasitic broomrapes too

And more colourful moths

In the evening Justin, Emily, Thea and Myla came over for dinner...the twins were unstoppable!

A walk to Cabane Subera

After an evening by the fire and a glorious sleep last night, we awoke to low cloud. I set to work on strimming the knee high grass and by 10.00 the cloud had dissipated. Susie threw together a packed lunch and we set off for a walk in the mountains.

The mid mountain path from the Col de la Core to Cabane Subera fitted the bill and kept us just below the snow line and in amongst the wild flowers.

At Subera a hunting dog befriended us, we assumed he belonged to the builders renovating the Cabane, but after he followed all the way back to Col de la Core we weren't so sure. There were no numbers on his collar and he certainly seemed to be in good health and well fed. Difficult to know what to do, but we decided it was better to leave him to return to the Cabane or his home. Even he had been lost the day before, at least the Col would be the starting point for his owner looking for him.

In France with Susie. At Bristol airport Susie left her suitcase in the duty free shop and nearly caused a major security alert, fortunately her bag was saved before it was destroyed in a controlled explosion!

Here all is well but for more trees down in the high winds of about a week ago.

Chicken of the woods

Jurassic Coast

A hot lazy day on South Milton Sands on Saturday and I caught a reasonable sized and very colourful wrasse from Dominic's canoe. It made some nice Thai fish cakes, but they're not the most flavoursome or easy to prepare fishes, so next time I catch one I'll put it back.

Today was our 2nd wedding anniversary and as the weather didn't seem too bad, Susie and I headed off for Lyme Regis and the Jurassic Coast for a bit of an explore.  The tide was in at Lyme and so after a stroll along the beach and a coffee we headed to Charmouth
.

Here the soft grey Jurassic limestone is alive with fossils (apparently). We got told to keep away from the cliff by a warden because they'd had some rock falls recently. I did find a little pyrites ammonite in the end but alas it broke when I got it home and tried to clean it.

Then it was on to West Sands at Bridport for a spot of fishing, but a thunderstorm rolled in after a couple of minutes so that was that.

Springtime walk to Dartington

 Wild garlic

 Bluebells

 A solitary cranesbill amongst the predecessors

Swan fountain at Dartington with petals from the azaleas

A spate of flooring work here in Devon...tough on the knees. Otherwise busy planning a treehouse for Quélébu, trying to pin down dates with the thatcher for the proposed dormer in our bedroom and looking forward to a trip home in a few weeks time with Susie.

Great Mattiscombe Sands

A midday trip to Mattiscombe sands as the weather on bank holiday Monday was fine. Amazed to find the beach deserted. After a spot of fishing we collected all the detritus on the beach - mostly remains of plastic bottles, some rubber drive belts, odd shoe soles, fishing net fragments and bits of tin can.  Three full carrier bags worth plus a full rucksuck. Shocking how much junk we throw in the sea and of course the plastic is there for thousands of years to come.

Probably the evidence of humanity in the fossil/geological record will be thin layer of plastic and pollutants from burning hydrocarbons. All we deserve frankly.

Cold

Cold and rainy today, so finished the oak bathroom door, replaced the prayer flags (which had completely worn away), varnished some oak tops and window cills, hung the donkey skull, did my French tax return before carrying on with architecture work.