Walking with L

Morning all. Apologies in advance for a rather photo heavy post. We appear to have switched from mid-winter with snow and hail to glorious summer with sunshine, soaring temperatures and blue skies. Not that I'm complaining; it's been wonderful. 

L finished yet another batch of exams this week, so we decided to make the most of the good weather and celebrate with a walk and a picnic. We didn't stray too far, just a couple of miles down the road to the village of Chieveley. It's a gorgeous, little village with so many characterful houses - a converted chapel, an old school house, old post office and shop and more cute cottages than you can shake a stick at. Sadly, there were a few people around, so I was too embarrassed to get my camera out. We parked in the pub car park and walked through the village to our starting point. I should point out that our directions were scribbled down from a walk website and were sketchy to say the least. We got lost a couple of times, so it was slightly longer than intended, but we made it back safely. 

Here are a few of the photos that I did manage to take: 

The start of the walk:

 Not the best shot of a kestrel ever, but he was fun to watch:

 There were horses:

 .... and geese:

 There was a flask of tea:

... and egg sandwiches - some more chunky than others! 

and a cinnamon Danish pastry - yum!

At the edge of the field where we had our picnic, we noticed some holes and little piles of earth. I thought initially that it was ants but it was actually a bee. I've never seen mining bees before. It just sat peacefully in its little hole whilst we ate our sandwiches next to it. We didn't bother it, it didn't bother us and everyone was happy.

 More gorgeous rape - I love the smell of this stuff, almost like honey.

We rounded off our walk with a drink in the pub garden. I really loved walking with L. She is such peaceful company.

Other happies this week:

New crocs for the summer - the legs are out, so it must be hot!  Hamish has a passion for rubber and ate my last pair, so I shall have to keep these well out of his way.

 Carrot cake: 

 

A few shots from the garden:

Bluebells:

Watering the greenhouse:

The irises just beginning to open:

 Hostas before the slugs and snails get to them:

Blossom and blue sky - my favourite combination:

 

More perfectly imperfect strawberries:

My wheel of Colour cushion is nearly finished. I had a little knit by the river yesterday:

 When it got too hot (did you hear that? Too hot!), I moved to the shade on the patio and the ducks decided to join me: 

 Then Fergus came to say hello:

 One last random shot: E's mango 'hedgehogs'. I think mango must be one of our favourite fruits. What's yours?

Well done if you made it to the end. I hope the good weather holds for today as we've got a BBQ planned. First things first though, we're having a new stairs and landing carpet fitted this morning. I'm so excited. Our last one was ancient and had started to biodegrade where it was exposed to the sun!
Wishing you the best of weekends.

Toodle Pip for now. x