Things That Go Clank In the Night

In this hot weather we have been having I have my bedroom window open wide at night. The thing is, the friendly farmer has plonked this aluminium calf feeder in the field just outside. The calves find their way inside to eat their supplement but of course the mother cows cannot which is the object of the exercise. The cows feel they are being short changed and bash and bang away trying to find a way in. At night the clang clang of the feeder keeps me awake! I wish the powers that be had designed this contraption to at least make the sound of Trinidadian kettle drums - the cows would be dancing and swaying to the music and so would I!

Boom Boooom Boom

I woke up in the middle of Thursday night with my heart racing like Formula One. Husband and I contemplated dialling 999 but thought the dee daa dee daa would wake up the village! We drove via Cirencester Hospital to Swindon Great Western and I entered the nightmare of the ping ping ping of heart monitors in the Acute Care Unit -the noisiest place on earth as the medics rush round carrying out their expert care. I must say all tests were carried out at speed - good for the NHS. Back to the peace of the countryside today but more ECG's etc etc soon!

Meet Blue And His Lady Friends

This is "Blue" and he is residing in the field behind our garden along with his lady friends.

I find the constant movement of this herd very restful - I am sure they pretend they are on the high plains in wide open country instead of five interlinked fields. I love the twitching ears, flicking of tails and gentle moos. The calves are quite grown up now and cannot dodge under the electric fence - I think our veg plot looks very enticing to them!

Kemble Kontortions

These are the views we saw from our garden during the Kemble Air Day. The Vulcan Bomber . . . . . . . .

The Red Arrows . . . . . . . . . . .

Even our resident blackbird was silenced for the day!

Tumultuous Terrifying Typhoons

Today we had a terrific afternoon at the friendly "AV8" cafe situated next to the Control Tower at Kemble Airfield. The reason why we were there - Kemble Airday takes place (over two days) this weekend. Lots of the planes were arriving, rehearsing and then landing - it was very busy - both in the air and at the cafe. We decided we had a better show than the paying spectators will experience. The aircraft (I gather from Husband) are not allowed within 50 feet either side of the spectator area, but we, the day before, were not considered spectators and the aircraft flew right overhead of us. The highlight was the arrival and display of two Euro-Fighter Typhoons - the noise was shattering, the ground shook, car alarms were set off - but what fun!

Somewhere in the cafe area was Husband with our neighbours.

Kemble control tower keeping everything in order!

We shall have a good weekend because our house back garden looks over the valley towards the airfield - we shall sit outside with a BBQ and a good bottle of wine and watch, amongst others a display by The Red Arrows and a Vulcan Bomber.

I am very amused - whenever I post about aircraft I receive no comments - surely I am not the only tomboy around?

Everything In The Garden Is Rosy

Our climbing rose over the porch is doing well considering it is only in it's second flowering year. We are hoping to train it to climb horizontally along the porch, however this is against the sun and the rose is presenting us with a thorny problem!

All Cisterns Go!

Friendly Plumber was flushed with success after grovelling around within the bowels of our downstairs loo removing the spastic plastic and replacing with fantastic plastic - actually - er - no - just another dud Dudley part. We have decided if the loo gives us any more grief we shall replace the whole thing with a cistern which is not obviously the cheapest on the market!

Bog Ups!

Understandably I do not have a photo of this situation! I am now lamenting the modern loo! Ever since we moved into this new-build house the downstairs loo and it's plastic innards continue to cause annoyance. One day the push button explodes with water, another day there might be a soft sighing noise due to lack of pressure. Sometimes those annoying little plastic tubes get blown off. The plastic ballcock gets caught around the little plastic tubes which seem to float wildly around when flushing occurs. We taped them together with a plant tie!!! Plumber tells us "whoever installed this loo was a moron". Apparently everything is back to front. We sometimes call upon our neighbour who understands little plastic tubes and the other gubbins that constitute a modern loo but now even he has scratched his head and backed off!!

We are now without a downstairs loo awaiting replacement little plastic parts!

Clematis Camouflage

I think the blight of modern new build plots are the paling fences. This is the result of two and half years worth of growth and collaboration with the neighbours. Far left we have a honeysuckle that falls over into the neighbours' garden and his magnificent clematis follows the sun into our garden. Our red rose at the end entwines with the tree the other side of the fence. We also have a yellow rose that has burst through the forest of clematis which will come into bloom later. The roses put on a display for our neighbours as well as us.