Saturday Market in Wells

Today we visited the market in Wells town centre before setting off to Clark's Village at Street to do some shopping.

Cherry Blossom!

We may have missed the cherry blossom in Washington but here the spreading white cherry tree has excelled itself once again.

It is so shady under the tree that you can't see the garden seat or even the trunk - giving the appearance that it is floating.  It has also grown straight through the 'dwarf' conifer, bought by Mum some 45 plus years ago and still growing.

St Stephen's Church

I have passed by St Stephen's Church on Lansdown so many times and admired the coloured floodlighting for important weeks in the church calendar.

Tonight I decided to stop and record the stunning purple illumination for Lent.  Next week it will be red for Holy Week and then gold for Easter week.

Sitting Ducks

Visiting the University today, it was sunny and warm - I walked to the Parade from the car park via the lake.

There were several ducks by the water, dozing in the sun..

The mallard was watching over them..

On the other side of the lake, some students were performing a play in the amphitheatre.

Considering that the grass was probably quite damp they had a surprisingly loyal audience!

British Garden Birds

The birds were not very busy around the feeders in the garden today - perhaps because it was sunny and quite warm and they had other options to pursue.  However this blue tit posed quite helpfully and I managed to capture, just one at a time, a couple of the delightful and very flighty long-tailed tits that often come to the feeders in little flocks.

One of the long-tailed tits appeared to be convinced that life inside the window was  more interesting!

Lambing time

A rainy drive (again!) down the Fosseway this morning and David set off for his trip to Toulouse from Bristol Airport.  A shorter trip for me - just a few miles - as I called in to the farm to see everyone.

New lambs are arriving hour by hour including this one born this morning and even newer arrivals, born while I was visiting the Lambing Shed.

Thankfully no assistance was required from me with the serious business of delivering the lambs, very ably managed by Kate.

But I was allowed to do a little bottle feeding..

Japanese Flowering Quince

The 'Japonica' growing on the front of Lauren & James' house is covered in flowers, as prolific and colourful as any flowering shrubs that we have seen on our travels.

It seems to have responded well to being very heavily pruned at the end of last summer.

Lauren also has a wild primrose in her lawn.  We have not seen any in the US, as yet.