The BeenThere-DoneThat Blog

We were grubbing about in the farthest reaches of the garden today behind one of our old outbuildings when we noticed a lot of buzzing. We soon traced it to the top corner of the outbuilding, just under the roof, which was an easy job when we noticed all the hornets coming and going.

I had a look inside the building but there was no sign of them there so they must have built a nest in a cavity in the wall somewhere. Hornets tend to like woodland areas and this corner is virtually surrounded by trees.

I went back a little later to try and photograph one which wasn't easy. When they emerge from the nest by the time I realised that one had appeared it was gone and they tend to zoom back in rather quickly too. (I'm trying to make excuses for a not very good picture)

We often see hornets around here so it's nice to know that they're nesting in our garden.  They took no notice of us when we were there so we shall leave them in peace.

It seems, at the moment, that if we lift or move anything in the garden there's a toad underneath. I think we've cornered the world market in toads. 

That's enough about those for toaday. 

Do you realise that we are now past the longest day and into July and although we have made a few day trips to London we haven't been away once yet this year? 

We probably can't go away for at least another two weeks because next week on Wednesday and Thursday the base for the new garage is to be laid and then, sometime the following week, the new garage will be erected. If we then were to go away the new garage, having only just arrived, might feel a bit lonely. 

This, of course, is the continuing saga of the garage. I can't imagine what else you though it might be about.

Life is hard.

I have just discovered that the international translator thingy (If I might use the technical term) was using about 50% of the disc space that the whole web site uses so it's had to go. 

You may notice, or you may not, that it has gone from the top of side bar on the right.

The problem was that translations, once made, were stored in a disc cache so that when someone wanted that same translation it was available on disc – much faster. The disc space for this web site costs money and Amanda and I have to pay it and what space there was was rapidly disappearing.

It all looks a lot healthier now (and cheaper  ).

Today the weather is warm and sunny. 80F warm and it's only just past the middle of May but don't worry the weather is forecast to go downhill next week so we'll be back to normal English weather. 

We've had this sunny spell for about four days now so that would have made a reasonable length break to go away but there are times when we have fixed appointments that we cannot change and this was one of them. Tomorrow, which is forecast to be nice again, is our last fixed appointment then after that we are free, at least for a while, and the weather is forecast to get worse.

This spell of good weather has been of some use though because our current single garage is falling apart, literally, and we are going to have a new large double concrete garage erected in, we hope, the next few months. This means clearing the site a little and, even worse, clearing out the old garage. Where are we going to put all that stuff? 

Two compost heaps have to be moved. One, which is only partly 'cooked', I've moved over the past two days and the other which is ready to use will have to be moved as well. Amanda has been doing 'gardening things' and meeting old friends such as a Slow Worm (legless lizard – not a worm) and some, as she described them, toadular persons. At least the weather is good for gardening and so isn't wasted.

What's the betting that when the next spell of fine weather comes along we won't be able to go away? 

Amanda was in the garden this morning and she moved one end of a large piece of timber and uncovered a number of toads. There were five in all although only the two largest and the back legs of one of the smaller toads are visible in this picture.

Here they are – warts an’ all. Cute eh? Perhaps we should have a ‘Make friends with a toad’ week.

We do come across the occasional toad in the garden from time to time but this is the largest group we have seen to date so this must be Toad Hall.

It sort of sneaked up on me. I was checking the batteries for one of my cameras and found them to be mostly devoid of any significant charge so I made sure that were fully discharged and then recharged them. Then we bought a cheap inkjet printer on ebay so that when we are staying away we can print off sections of Ordnance Maps that I have stored on my laptop (full story here).

It was a little after that that I realised that, subconciously, I was starting to make preparations for the coming season. It occurred to me, then, that I had been sitting around doing very little since the beginning of December although we did go for a couple of short walks prior to Christmas to post some cards.

My legs felt a little creaky so a little exercise wouldn’t do them much harm and today I went for my first walk this year – 2 miles in 50 minutes. It had rained all day yesterday so the going wasn’t easy. In fact it was quite messy in places which slowed me up a bit.

I noticed that my pedometer was reading two miles at the finish but my route on the map measured 2.4 miles so the pedometer is still under-reading a little. I’ve adjusted that and I’ll see what it reads next time.

We are hoping to meet Antonello from Italy at the end of March – circumstances at the time permitting. So it’s all starting to happen and Spring isn’t far away.