lazing on a Sunday afternoon.

Its raining.

Hello people,

Well as the title says, I'm having a lazy day today, we've had some rain over the past couple of days. After a few days of very hot weather, almost too hot and humid at times the weather seems to have broken.

So as it is not the weather for sitting out I thought I would take the opportunity to write a few lines and also post some pictures taken over the past 6 months. Most of the pictures are of the bird life that I see regularly on my bird feeders. Some are daily visitors, others I only see rarely and when I do it's a real treat. So here we go.

Taken in May

Baby Bluetits waiting to be fed, mum just about to land from above and Robin watching the coming and going.

Female Blackbird

Common Starling, but such beautiful colours.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

A couple of Tree Sparrows with a Bluetit looking on.

Moorhen

Pair of Long tailed Tits, not often seen as they are very timid birds.

Mrs Moorhen legging it up the tree.

 There are several Moorhen in the Marina, but as far as I know only the one that climbs the tree to get at my bird feeders.

No wonder she's the size she is! The amount of seed she gets through!

Adult Great Spotted Woodpecker notice the white plumage and red rump, also notice this was taken in February.

Moorhen with her one remaining chick. She started with 4 but nature being the way it is, she's now down to one.

Heron waiting for his dinner to swim by.

I'm sorry the photos are a bit out of sequence, I did try to keep them in date order but for some reason they didn't upload that way.

Very young Bluetits clamouring to be fed.

This could be young Green woodpecker.

Or possibly a young Great Spotted Woodpecker that hasn't developed its adult plumage yet.

Anne's boat with the solar lights on a warm clear night, taken around 10pm.

Well that's about it for now people. Hope you like the pics.

bfn

The driving lesson.

Further to the last post, what I completely forgot to mention was Lydia's driving lesson.
Standing on a box so's able to see where we were going, Lydia took the helm for a while. With a few prompts from me like,"watch the front, which way is it going?" And a few gentle touches on the tiller arm from me, we managed to make our way fairly accurately up the canal. I was impressed with her concentration and the way she listened to my advice and responded accordingly.
As a driving instructor over the years I taught many many people to drive cars but that was a first for me, teaching an 8 year old to steer a 50 ft narrow boat! Blimey I'm still learning myself! Anyway, well done Lydia.

Bfn people.

A grand day out.

Week ending Saturday 4th June.

Hello people, just a few lines to let interested parties know I'm still alive and kicking.


I've had a great week, the weather is improving, I've been up the canal a couple of times just to give the engine a run and I've also had a review with my oncologist consultant. He's happy with my condition, so I'm happy too.
My next door neighbor Anne, off Jennyanydots, has been down for a few days bringing her grand daughter Lydia, and friend Martha with her, so for a few days peace was shattered as two 8 year old girls, and two bouncy golden retrievers raced around generally letting off steam. Actually I'm exaggerating somewhat as they were quite well behaved.
On Thursday we had a run down the canal on Anne's boat down to Fradley junction to give the girls chance to see how the locks operated. I took the helm and Anne and the girls operated the locks.
We had planned to turn right at Fradley onto the Coventry canal and go down as far as Streethay wharf but as Martha hadn't been feeling too well prior to coming to the boat we decided we'd turn round at Fradley, moor up and have a mini BBQ. We moored just above the top lock at Fradley in lovely sunshine, lit the BBQ and had a very pleasant time chomping on burgers and sausages etc.

After a good nosh Anne and girls had a walk down to the junction for an ice cream whilst yours truly dog sat and enjoyed the sunshine. When they returned we set off up the canal towards home, we only had one lock to do, Wood End lock. Unfortunately the ground paddles weren't operating so filling and emptying the lock was a slow process. We were number 5 in a queue of 6 boats so it took a while. 

I managed a reasonable 'mooring up' back at the marina so didn't disgrace myself. 

A great day out for all and no tantrums, (I behaved well). I certainly slept well that night.

Friday I had a meet with my consultant, all good, and Anne took the girls up the canal to the winding hole and back as an outing. Then in the afternoon the girls were press ganged into some boat maintenance tasks, like scrubbing the roof which developed into a water fight with the hose and spray gun!

Saturday Anne and girls were packing and preparing to go home so at the last minute I grabbed the camera and managed to get a decent shot. 

Left to right

Lydia, with Izabell in front, then Anne and Martha with Zac in front of her.

It was a great week, and it was good having Anne and girls around. It's normally so quiet here it was good to have some 'goings on' I'll look forward to their next visit, ....I think!
Bfn people.