September

The last instalment of catching up with the Summer brings me to this evening's wonderful Moon after more wildlife and an eclipse yesterday.

The Woodpecker is still around.

So is the bizzard, but I keep missing him or her!!

Butterflies are a bit easier to focus on.

As I said, butterflies are a lot less trouble..

It rained quite a bit one week

Lots and lots of damsons on Maggie's tree

I don't know whether herons like damsons.

The Blue Moon Eclipse at 3am, 27 September

The Moon is still pretty red tonight.

August

More catching up from the Summer. These are mainly for the benefit of people who missed them and may not look at Facebook or Google much. So some of you may have seen these before.

A jackdaw that really wasn't anything like this close but he did sit still for longer than usual.

This fellow was also probably looking for the buzzard.

A Woodpecker was a regular visitor to the paddock this year

Mattis eemed to think it was cold despite the sun in August!

July

Continuing the catch up from Summer, here are some more butterflies and some birds and a duck.

June

As I haven't written anything here for ages I thought I'd do a month at a time and add suitable photos from each.

Nice honeysuckle

Nasty deadly nightshade

The good and the bad around here in June. The honeysuckle is keeping my house smelling good all summer. But the pond has a huge deadly nightshade bush. Luckily it's mostly around the back and no-one goes there much.

Bank Holiday Monday with some birds in a field. And bunnies.

It's Bank Holiday Monday and everyone seems to be walking somewhere so I thought I'd better exercise the old calves and breath some outside air for a while. First stop The Camp, made famous as the location for several videos featuring Bryony, Kyran and Matti climbing, rolling tyres at each other and generally smiling quite a lot.

There's a cute little pond nearby where nothing much actually happens but the flag iris is pretty. Later there'll be an occasional duck and several massive blue dragonflies.

The few rabbits that have managed to escape from The Shoemaker Cats seem to understand I am not a cat and live for another afternoon, merrily munching grass or whatever they like there.

This pied wagtail never came closer than the fuzzy end of the range of my lens. I sat very quietly for ages and the little fellow wandered around looking for whatever pied wagtails look around for on a Bank Holiday across almost half the field but not the half I was in.

The robin was far more obliging and even posed on a convenient post for me. Twice.

A Doncaster Delicatessen

If you happen to visit Doncaster then I can heartily recommend a little delicatessen. Possibly called Scicluna Deli, but not necessarily so as there are few visible signs of any consistency. Outside there is one name and on the napkins another!

It is located more or less beneath the Premier Hotel close to the Minster and close to a market place and car park so easy to find. It is also easy to miss as when I was there yesterday I had no idea it was a place where anyone could eat. there were boxes everywhere, spilling outside across the pavement too! I was looking for somewhere to have a quick sandwich and a cup of coffee and wandered past but, finding nothing quickly that wasn't too far away, I walked back and thought I'd look inside, as much out of curiosity as anything else.

The place is quite mad. I did spot, however, two small square tables and some stools at window ledges and on one of them was a cup of what had probably been coffee. Sure enough, when I enquired of one of the friendly staff they said I could have almost any sort of coffee I required. To go with it I could also order virtually anything that they had in store to be prepared as some sort of sandwich, roll or whatever. Now, I have heard of choice but this was ridiculous!

I settled for an innocent-sounding ham and cheese toastie which emerged sometime later as a delightful tasting affair with horse radish flavoured soft cheese spread on smoked ham, smoked with some wood I don't remember now, and contained in some marvellous soft bread that defies description.

It came with half a plate of freshly prepared salad and some chutney that time didn't allow me to sample. I downed the coffee, munched as much as I could of the toastie, paid the very modest few pounds and ran as I was a bit late. 

I saw things in the boxes I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Goodness only knows what they all were. A worldwide collection from Pakistan, India but also Italy, Austria, France and Peru. That was all I could quickly recognise as source nations. The food was prepared and served by nice clean-looking ladies in black and white uniforms who spoke a pretty broad local accent and looked like people's aunties, except for one who could have been that girl at the wedding you fancy but never get a chance to talk to.

As it happened, I had a funeral to attend. 

Litchborough Real Ale Festival 30 May

Here's a good excuse for a short walk in a few weeks' time. This area seems to be well provided when it comes to local brewers and Merriman are promoting and arranging this 'festival for all the family'. Especially family members who like real ale, cider and wine and bouncy castles. Probably not all at the same time.

Eclipse 2015

A few pictures of the eclipse here this morning. The cloudy skies actually helped as there's no way I could have taken any photos with the sun shining brightly.

It was notably chilly when the Moon had covered most of the surface. Here in Northamptonshire we could only get something around 86% coverage of the Sun's disc by the Moon but it was still great to experience.