Our new addition

Meet Loki, our new addition to the family! We've been expecting an arrival for a few weeks, and on Sunday got the call from the Cats Protection League to say that they'd found us a suitable young man and I have to say I think they got it spot on.
He's 7/8 weeks old and has lost his mummy to a traffic accident........not that he's bothered now, as he's getting lots of fuss and attention here, let me tell you this is not a timid cat. The current reciept of his attention however appears to be the patio window blinds, a source of much amusement it appears, good job his claws were snipped this morning before we got him, so at least he's not climbing them today at least. Dd1 has so far drawn him two pictures of himself and re allocated her toy dog kennel for him to sleep in, dd2 is still at nursery so has yet to meet him, no doubt that will keep us amused until bedtime!

Strawberries Nil

This year I've been attempting to grow various things in pots. We've not got much border in which to do growing left, as I seem to have covered it all in bushes and herbs! So in an effort to show the girls how to grow their own food (like they paid much attention really) earlier we sowed a few trays of seeds, plus a few outdoor pots and now here are the results starting to come through! The pot above contains spring onions, I nibbled two for a taster with some sausages yesterday lunch and they were lovely, although they could do with another week or two to grow a bit more yet, so I shall refrain from harvesting any more just yet (Richard its a good job I forgot to send you home with some!)

The pot garden in all its glory.

The Grow bags contain far too many tomatoes, so I'm expecting a bumper chutney season in Autumn, although I may loose one plant yet, that is growing sideways mainly I assume due to the wind, but its stem is getting rather waterlogged, so may rot......

You can also see (left to right) Spring Onions, (back pot) Strawberries, 2 x Carrotts and finally Peas! Hopefully we shall have good crops from all, but we shall see........one thing I have learnt is that the table could do with moving, as whenever I put up the umbrella, it puts half the pots in shade....sigh.

Here's a photo of my fantastic strawberries. Well they were fantastic, we've had some very good eating off them, right up until the point that a small rodent, I think its a vole, has decided to start nibbling them.......we saw it bold as brass yesterday, running through the patch, taking a nibble out of each of my lovely ripening fruits......it ran away for all of 10 seconds when it realised I had spotted it, then it crept back.....I need to borrow my friends cat.....or get one of my own, dratted vermin. So yesterday it was Strawberries nil, invading nibbler 6........I was going to get netting, but they tunnel right? (the strawberries are in the remains of the border) sigh, moggy it is. I really wouldn't mind, but these strawberries did nothing last year, bar chucking off other runner plants, so to get all this lovely fruit this year, was something amazing! yet now I'm foiled again, who'd have thought gardening was so painful?

Storms

Monday late afternoon was a day for some good storms in the UK it appears! Although we didn't get a direct hit here, due to being up a huge hill and thus having some weird weather conditions at the best of times, this photo shows the storm front approaching from the west. It was a rather weird evening in all, as we could see the storms swirling around our house from all sides, but mainly we stayed in the 'eye' if you like (except it wasn't a hurricane, so surely can't have an eye?)

I wish I had a better camera, these photos do not do the cloud formations justice really.

What dh and I were seeing was 'proper' cgi, classic end of the world clourd swirls here, but sadly my little finepix camera, didn't quiet get the formations right.....I did call Meridian to get her dh to go out and take better pics with his mega equipment, but not sure if he got anything much from where they live? I'll wait for the rsvp on that one!

Anyway thought you might a like a few cloudy photos for a change, I may have to ponder on getting a better camera though (expensive hobby alert!)

Vive la France

Well, after the week of rain we've had here in the UK, I thought I'd cheer myself up (and anyone else whose reading) with a couple of pictures of lovely sunshine!

The Marina at Frejus, Cote D'Azur, France.

So we're back from our jollies to lovely, sunny, warm France, straight back to torrential rain in the UK, nice to see some typical British Summer Weather again......very tempted to get straight on a plane back down there again, I'll tell you!

We had a lovely time, splashing in the 6 pools on the caravan/camping site we were on (yep 6!) This is where we stayed and I'd recommend it to anyone whose looking for a great cheap getaway for themselves or their family. http://www.labaume-lapalmeraie.com/ Their photos are lots better than mine too!

As we'd hired a car whilst down there (lovely Toyota Corrola Verso, want one!) I managed to drag the horde off camp a few times, so we enjoyed perusing the 'local' supermarket 'Carrefour', who are about as local as Walmart these days.....but they had some nice goodies in there, so no complaints here! was particularly impressed by the range of Graphic Novels and Manga in there, you wouldn't get that in UK supermarkets.

We managed a trip into Frejus, the local town, although I don't have any digital photos of that to share, which is a shame, as its a lovely old place, with an assortment of Roman ruins dotted throughout. I did remember to take a camera to the Marina and beach though, so you can enjoy a spot of summer sunshine through those.

This is the view towards Saint Raphael.

We also managed a visit to Port Grimaud http://www.portgrimaud.com/ which again shows the place far better than I can, lovely little purpose built little venice, opposite Saint Tropez, which is the otherside of the bay. We didn't go into Saint Tropez, as its a one road in, one road out town, and the queues are huge. Most people recommend a ferry across, but with 5 of us, it was a bit too pricey for our cheap holiday! So instead we sat in Port Grimaud, admiring the lovely boats on display, whilst ponder exactly how many millions they cost! As usual a week away wasn't long enough, but hopefully we'll get longer next year.

I came back to find that Meridian had sorted out the 50's B Movie swap and I have my partner! so now I have to get crafting, hmmmm what to do.......