Time for T on Tuesday

Time for T on Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place, and here is another mug, a real cutie which is very small but just holds the 200ml of hot chocolate I have these days. I recently tried hazelnut drink ("milk") and it is delicious, not sure my gut approves, but with the gorgeous Spicy Hot Raw Chocolate this makes a really scrummy hot chocolate. I get the spicy hot chocolate from the lovely Paula and Dan at Elements for Life, they also do raw chocolate kits and more. I took this photo last Tuesday, it was a lovely day and warm enough to sit out, unlike today which is wet, very cold and I can't get warm!

Last Tuesday we went blackberry picking, this was the view from the top of the field, down to those houses I showed you last week, abandoned and up for sale.

Sooty and Alfie got a bit bored of blackberry picking....

....and suddenly ran off to the other side of the field! Shaun called them back and Alfie came but Sooty found the path and went right down to the gate, out of the gate, and back along the little road to the car, naughty Sooty! I worry when they go out of the gate, there is some traffic on the road sometimes, and one time they got out of the gate just ahead of us, a car stopped and some people started chatting. They said they saw the Schnauzers and stopped because their mother in Holland had one, but for all we knew they could have been planning to grab the dogs if we hadn't showed up when we did! Shaun doesn't think so but I do!

We were joined by a beautiful butterfly, who knew they liked blackberries? It fluttered round us and the fruit, and was joined by a wasp then flew away.

On the journey home I made Shaun turn the car round and go back so I could get some photos of a flock of starlings on overhead cables, this cat was sitting on the pavement when we stopped.

This shot shows how many birds there were! I got some closer shots but they don't show all the birds, I was thinking these would make a great silhoutte stamp!

These are the blackberries we picked, a week later there are still some left, I am getting through them and sent some to Mother in Law yesterday. Now we need to pick some more!

 I could show you more of the sparrow flock feeding, they have been here today, must be 12 or more all fighting to get onto the feeder which only has 4 perches. Maybe I should get a bigger one! I am refilling it daily at the moment, today I have seen greenfinches, blue tits and the sparrows but a few days ago we had this little bird, the one on the right. Which I thought was a Coal Tit, but...

Coal tits are supposed to have a white patch (or nape) at the back of their head, and this oen clearly doesn't...

see what I mean? So could it be a Willow Tit or a rarer Marsh Tit? I am puzzled because it does have wing stripes and the photos I have found suggest that is a Coal Tit feature, but because it is missing the white nape how can it be? Have I found another new species? Apparently scientists didn't know there were different species, i.e. Willow Tit and Marsh Tit, until fairly recently, they assumed these were all Coal Tits. I read that and can't remember the year, 1970's or 1980's I think.

Another place we go walking is near to Iford Manor, and this is a photo of the Peto Gardens taken from the old bridge. You can pay and go round Iford Manor gardens and the Peto Garden, and there are lots of evening events held in the gardens, concerts and plays. The valley is a beautiful place to walk too.

Sparrow in the rain.

Finally we were Kenny sitting at the weekend, he loves the stepping stones. He wanted to go into the garden all the time, one time he gave me his shoes and sat down waiting for them to be put on because he wanted to go out and play!