It's been a few weeks since I logged on to this blog and I had trouble remembering my details, that's what comes when you are getting on a bit and with so many other passwords to remember. Anyway I'm afraid I haven't took many pictures of late due to crap weather and the busyness of life, (that spelling doesn't look right, maybe it's not even a word). After spending a couple of weeks decorating my sons bedroom and tidying the garden my legs are covered in bruises and my arms in scratches from the rose bushes. Not to mention my hands feeling like emery boards and my tingling finger tips, increasingly hardening due to teaching myself to play the guitar. I'm persevering a bit more this time. And last week my middle son celebrated his 8th birthday. Here's some photos of him in his new wrestling outfit to add to the increasing collection of super hero ones. Just for you Phil a couple of flower photos from my garden taken with my new camera. I realise I have a lot to learn about camera techniques but the flowers are nice, I think.

While out on our weekend walk with the dogs and kids, practising different camera techniques (mainly the rapid picture mode on moving images), our black cocker came across a rabbit run and was determined to get to whatever he could smell. After he dug it out slightly and spent a few minutes with his nose in the hole we managed to drag him away. On returning a bit later however he had run on before us and when we got a bit closer saw him toss something in the air. Steve got there before me and managed to rescue this baby rabbit that Billy, our dog, had pulled out of the hole. After a lot of oohs and aahs from me and my children we put the rabbit back in its hole where you could feel another 2 or 3 fluffy, warm rabbits. Ohhh! I hope they'll be alright as a fox or a stoat could easily get hold of them, with them being so close to the surface and even more so now that Billy has made the entrance more obvious.

New canon shots

Just a couple of shots taken from my canon 30D. I've been told that the canon 40D may be out soon.

Nature's cruelty

At the beginning of this week I noticed that a collared dove had made a nest in our small apple tree. It seemed a bit of a pathetic nest to me as it consisted of just a few twigs laid flat on top of one of the branches. I later read they only lay 1 or 2 eggs, but even so I thought it must be hard to keep a chick safe in something so fragile and easy to spot. The next couple of days I watched to see if there was any sign of an egg but in that time she had not moved out of the nest so I could not get a proper look. Yesterday afternoon I was upstairs and happened to look out of the window and saw two collared doves chasing away a magpie. I wondered if one of them was the dove that had left the nest so I went outside to see. The dove had flown back into the nest but then she flew straight out again and on inspecting the area I saw the egg on the ground smashed. I was greatly disappointed as the chick had started to develop. Either the magpie had got hold of it and dropped it or the dove itself had knocked it out of the nest while trying to chase the magpie away. I was looking forward to seeing the chick hatch and grow and have been disappointed yet again. Last year we actually had a magpie build a rather big nest in our big apple tree, but later abandoned it before anything seemed to happen.

Waiting over

My camera finally arrived yesterday but not before I had to pay out even more money on the customs and exise. I still saved a few hundred quid though. Steve is very jealous and now wants his own. I say he can use mine but it's not the same he says. I can think of a lot more good uses the money can go on, but I'm not sure how long I can hold him back for. The temptation is just too great. I now have to get out and practice using it in different ways, other than just pointing it and pressing the button. There should be plenty of opportunities as we get out into the country quite often, which you can read about in Steve's blog. The weekends exploits saw us pinching the kids bikes to ride down a steep, narrow path. Something they were too scared to do. I thought that if I did it they would get the nerve up to do it, but Steve frightened them off by telling them what could happen. It's my birthday next week, maybe I'll have to buy a new mountain bike so I too can have some fun. The problem is transferring five bikes, aswell as two dogs, their cage, three kids and a caravan. Maybe we'll just have to go out on ours when we are alone.

While Steve was travelling to York to pick up my brother to go to see 'Porcupine Tree' in Newcastle, I decided to clean out my pond. Not a very good idea while still wearing my most comfortable, velvet, lace-up pumps. Before they got totally ruined with muddy water I quickly changed into my lovely pink floral wellies, which are now pretty useless as are split in quite a few places. These fashion wellies just don't live up to the standard that wellies should. Anyway, I thought I would probably rescue a handful of frogs as I've only seen a couple in there these last few weeks. The ones that were mating, mentioned in an earlier post sadly disappeared after I tried to clean the leaves out a few weeks ago, they obviously don't like disturbance, or maybe our pond just wasn't good enough. I coudn't believe that on counting them, while putting them back in, I actually had 27 frogs. That is from a very small pond, one of the smallest you can buy. I can't imagine how many you'd get in a large pond, or even in a natural pond, there must be hundreds.

When we first built our pond we named a few of our first frogs as they were quite distinctive in their looks. This one we named Homer because of his light green, almost yellow colour. Another one we named Nelson as he only had three legs. Sadly they never returned the next year but we get a constant supply each year to keep us interested. I am just waiting for the day we get some newts.

I am told I missed an excellent gig in Newcastle but am really looking forward to seeing two great bands at the beginning of June, 'Marillion' in Leeds and 'Dream Theater' at Newcastle. Roll on June.

Easter fun