A new beginning....

I was recently told that when one door closes, another opens - well I suppose that sums up the last month.  I was made redundant from my garden centre job two weeks ago, and tomorrow I start a new job at another garden centre.  I am so lucky to find another job so quickly, especially as its just round the corner and fits in with my morning job at the newsagents.

One of the great things about living in the countryside is the different birds which you see in the garden and locally.  This black and white pied blackbird draws quite a few glances!

There was plenty of activity in the field opposite when they finally took the sugar beet up.  Usually they would have taken it up months ago but I suppose the bad start to the winter delayed everything.

And finally... why does the cat always insist on sitting on the pile of neat freshly ironed clothes???

An afternoon with the animals...... fox included....

Saturday afternoon was dry and I didn't want to be stuck indoors, so whilst Neil cut the worktops for the new kitchen, I decided to go for a walk and take some pictures of the animals.

The reindeer were easy to capture when they were eating, and I actually got to touch the soft velvet like coating on Horace's antlers.

                       This female decided to investigate the camera!

I helped to feed the ostriches and managed to stroke one of the ladies (I'm not brave enough to be close to Cedric, the male).

A nice photo of some of the chickens was next, turned the corner and there, bold as brass, sat a fox.  Just looking at me.... even stayed there long enough to get a photo.   Is this the fox guilty of killing lots of chickens lately??? You can't see him clearly in the photo unless you click to zoom in, but he is just sitting there.

And then in the evening back at the house, I found this cute newt (yes it is cute, well I think so, if rather muddy).

A real proper summer....

After the worst winter in years, we are having a real "proper" summer.  Three lovely weeks of warm temperatures and sunshine, surely a record for this part of the UK...!  Its too hot for working but great when you are out and about.

Yesterday Mum and I decided that housework could wait and we had lunch at Wroxham which is in the heart of the Norfolk Broads.

After a walk along the watersedge we then drove onto Ranworth and followed the boardwalk to the visitor centre at the end.  It was so warm! The geese and ducks were enjoying it.
The Mississippi style paddle steamer was also out, first time I've seen it in years.
It was lovely to just sit in the sun (Mum will have a fit that her photo is on the internet!).






We were on the look out for Swallowtail butterflies which apparently can be found in the area.  We didn't see any though.

My Dream Farm - Mendlesham

Last night I watched this weeks episode of "My Dream Farm" and really enjoyed it.  Amazingly it was in Mendlesham, a village in Suffolk where my Mum's family have come from for generations - I even lived there back in the early 1970's for a while.

I love watching this series, trouble is it makes me even more keen on keeping some pigs.... as well as chickens and turkeys, once we move.....

There were scenes of Monty Don driving around the village, showing its character off perfectly.  Its a beautiful village, full of a real mixture of old and new buildings.


In the program a couple, Karon and Simon, had escaped the "rat race" having been luckily left some land, and they wanted to keep pigs and set up a farmshop and gallery.  The program followed their progress over the year and by the end they had achieved a lot of what they set out to do, but with much more work for the future.


Here is a link about pigs from the program.....  I love Monty Don.....
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/my-dream-farm/articles/video-a-guide-to-pigs

and here is a link to their Nursery which includes lots of videos of their pigs, including the curly coated Mangalitza pigs
http://www.stackyard-nursery.co.uk

I feel a visit coming up soon, I just have to see those curly coated pigs, they look more like sheep..... here is a picture I found of some on the internet.

Baby Dove is growing well.....

The nest at the bottom of the orchard now contains a baby Dove.  We waited till the mother left the nest for food and then quickly took these photos.

There were 2 eggs originally so we have no idea what happened to the other egg, but this is a good size chick.

It will be interesting to see it grow over the next couple of weeks.

In an ideal world.....

In an ideal world I would live surrounded by animals and birds... Some would say that in a way I do already (3 cats, 7 chickens, 1 rabbit and some fish, plus my eldest son has turtles), but in this "ideal world" of mine I would love some alpacas, a pygmy goat, maybe a couple of sheep.... One problem, lack of land, oh well, it was only a dream... 

These are some of the photos taken last summer when my birthday treat was an afternoon with an alpaca breeder.  I was surrounded by them all afternoon, helped herd them, walked one... it was a great afternoon.

I do however seem to always be having my photo taken with some form of wildlife.  A couple of weeks ago we went to Happisburgh, my favourite beach in Norfolk. There were lots of huge starfish washed up on the beach, naturally I had to pick one up...

Happisburgh looks a mess, cliffs have been eroded by the sea to a frightening extent over the past 30 years.  Its scary to see the photos of the damage over the years. The parts of the beach I used to play on as a youngster are now way out at sea and over the years many houses have been lost to the sea.  But despite this, I find Happisburgh has its own beauty.  Here is a link.

 www.happisburgh.org.uk

I love any chance to feed the ducks, though at Wroxham I was surrounded by geese, pigeons and swans.  In the photo I am holding some bread up for the seagulls to take from my fingers.  They are used to people and quite tame.  Poor things were hungry as most people were sensible and had stayed at home in the warm....

The snow has gone now (at last) and hopefully it will get warmer soon.


Enough for now.

Springtime walk

Sunday was one of those spring days where the sun had forgotten how to shine.... but even so a nice afternoon for a walk.

We were in the village of Ormesby St Margaret in Norfolk and I took some pictures of the stained glass windows in the church. They are beautiful.In the churchyard there was the largest area of primroses I have seen this year, they were amazing, best I have seen this year.
Roll on summer.......

Sunny walk by the Broads

Saturday was one of those lovely early spring days, sunny and not too chilly. We decided to go for a walk at Whitlingham which is on the outskirts of Norwich, on the other side of the city. Its had a lot of money spent on the area recently with a visitor centre and watersports centre, but we ignored all that and carried on past to the unspoilt original end.I say unspoilt, but once you have walked about a mile, you reach the Southern Bypass, a huge dual carriageway which has been built around the southern edge of Norwich (and they want to build another round the north...). It was the first time I had walked that far, and it was interesting to see how it was built. The size when you stand underneath was amazing.
















By the riverside there are some lovely old cottages, along with some newer luxury versions. I thought this one was cute, really tiny.


The blossom was out (and Neil started sneezing), and although I was exhausted when we reached the car again, it was a great walk, about 3 miles in total. Of course it would have been a shorter walk but I suggested we head up the paths to the trees, and then discovered that they were old lime quarries, last used about 120 years ago and now overgrown. There is even an old lime kiln set into the cliffside. The path was much longer and steeper than I had imagined....

The beautiful Norfolk Broads

Saturday afternoon was a lovely calm, almost mild afternoon so we decided to go for a walk. We are lucky enough to live within a few minutes drive from some of the Norfolk Broads which is an area of waterways, covering many miles. Every year many thousands of holidaymakers visit this area from all over the world, but of course being a local, we tend to take the lovely views for granted.....

We went to Salhouse Broad which is approx 5 miles away from home. It has a car park with local information and then a lovely tree lined walk down to the water. The path is lined by some impressive 0ak trees, many hundreds of years old. They are developed into some weird and wonderful shapes. Neil of course had to climb the tree.... big kid at heart.

The whole area around the path is soggy for most of the year and in the summer you get some wonderful dragonflies and there are always a lot of birds.


One of our favourite things is feeding the ducks (and gulls and geese in this case). They are so tame and the lovely Egyptian goose took food from our hands. You can tell they are used to
people feeding them..

And as for the Coot, I love the blue feet.



Salhouse Broad doesn't look at its best this time of year, but once the trees are green and the sun is out, its beautiful.

Even this time of year though, there is always something lovely to admire.