Swanbourne Lake in Autumn

Today we visited Swanbourne Lake for lunch in the café. We were delighted to find the lunches were excellent: rack of lamb, a vegetarian moussaka and ham, eggs & sauté potatoes. The girls fed the coots, ducks and terns and we lingered on the bench enjoying the view of autumn colours in the bank of trees opposite.

Warnham Reserve revisited

We took Bea to Warnham Reserve for lunch, we had delicious soup. This was my first visit for about six weeks, and the my first big nature outing since sciatica hit me. It was good to get out again. The meadow had been mown and I just saw three butterflies: a Speckled wood, a Small copper in poor condition and a White, species unknown. The swan family is still going strong, they came over for some bread at the Heron Hide. There were a lot of large bees on mauve flowers by the dipping ponds.

Sheffield, sciatica & squirrels

Greetings readers, sorry to have been away for a few weeks but I have been laid up with sciatica since my last posting which has limited my outdoor activities. During the interval we have been on a trip to Yorkshire, staying with Danuta and Ken in Sheffield for a few days. The back garden has changed since our visit last year and there is a lovely sitting area now where we enjoyed some excellent wine. The squirrels are frequent visitors to the bird feeders, and we admired their acrobatic prowess on several occasions.