Day 40 - Dry Enough for a Walk

Rain again today, but there was a break just long enough for us to get out!

We saw some baby Sheep! Lambs, I know, but we like calling them baby Sheep!

And a field with a load of horses not maintaining their 2 meter social distancing!

Day 39 - Wet Weather

No walk today, it was pouring it down all day! Which is a real shame, I love our family walks.

But my wife and eldest went out for a walk in the evening while I played Roblox with our youngest. So it's all good fun!

Not a lot to report today, work is carrying on as normal, we are still in lock down, the figures for people in hospital, catching it, and unfortunately deaths are still very high.

So what happens next is anyone's guess!

As a picture today, we saw this on the previous days walk, someone's made a plane out of cardboard and masking tape. Let's hope it survived the rain!

Day 38 - Roblox

So I play a lot of games, and my kids really love Roblox. There's a particular game in there called Adopt Me where you hatch pets and raise them to have different abilities etc...

They've gone and got me addicted, with trading and swapping, it's like marbles, Micro Machines and Pokemon all over again!!

Look at it's face!

So now I spend my evenings trying to get the best pets to trade with my kids, so they can get their ultimate pet! Which is a Frost Dragon, and the other wants a Flying Pig! We'll get there kids!

Day 37 - Sunday Movie Night

We had a nice walk down the river and to pick up some tomato plants from a friends house. They were taking donations towards a charity and then you can turn up and pick a couple of plants from their stand. They're in the conservatory now, lets hope they grow!!

Also, for the movie night we watched Aladdin, the new one with Will Smith, which is good fun! The kids enjoyed it, especially as they got to eat one of these:

I love that they even made the cone green for the stalk!

Later in the evening the moon was a good crescent with some reflected glow so you could see the full shape in the background. Lovely weekend!

Day 36 - Sheep

Another wonderful weather weekend. So walks a plenty!! In this episode, sheep and lambs!

There's a field very close to us that we call the horse field, because it has two horses in it, but the next field along is full of sheep! They have been lambing, and it's lovely to see them all gambling around and enjoying themselves!

Here's a close up of a mother with two lambs, they were quite inquisitive and came close a couple of times. But not close enough for the kids to pet, which is what they really wanted.

Then we finish up with a bonus shot of a deer who was certainly aware we were there, but not too bothered about us taking a few pictures and cooing at it!

Day 35 - Colours

Spring is great, especially when the weather is great, and obscurely due to the lock down I actually get out more. Which doesn't make sense on paper, but being able to take a daily walk with my family is glorious. I will really miss it when this ends.

Today's focus is colour! My wife had the idea of getting all the colours of the rainbow to make images for social media, and with the kids. Here's a little taster of what's out there!

Orange! A lovely English Marigold.

A Blue Flag Iris.

A Tulip.

This I'm not sure on, a type of Fumaria? Close enough I reckon (since I had to look them all up on Google)!

Have a good day!

Day 34 - SpaceX Starlink

I haven't got any SpaceX Starlink pictures, but we watched the launch love with the kids, it was certainly an eye opener, and amazing watching the rocket return to Earth and land again!

Very cool stuff. We tried to see it in the night sky, but we couldn't see them today sadly. Next time!

But as I didn't manage to get any exciting Starlink pics, here's some from our walk today!

Here we have some Guinea Fowl, wandering around the edges of a local farm.

You can also see a Peacock having a wonder, there are loads kept here, and they do make a racket!

Finally, I just liked the way the sun played through the branches here, and the shadows it created.

Day 33 - Treats for Pigeon

So when we go for a walk we always gather dandelions for the guinea pigs and rabbit, and the cats have a packet of dreamies to treat them. But we have nothing for Birb (our pigeon) and I read they like grapes.

So, Birb got a grape!

Turns out he likes them! So much so that when I first went to put the grape in it was snatched from my hand. Lovely Birb!

In other news, the weather remains lovely, sunny and warm. Two of our cats decided the rabbit hutch would be a nice place to chill in this warm weather.

Day 32 - Hackers!

So someone hacked our Disney+ account (expletives deleted). The had changed the email address so we could no longer login. However, I did get an email stating the change had been made and had to have a long chat with Disney+ to resolve it.

But resolve it they did, which is nice. Bit of a shame though, it seems they have had quite a few problems with accounts being hacked since launch. Let's hope that doesn't continue!

Streaming service aside, a busy and emotional day work wise as we furlough two members of staff. They are of course not best pleased about the situation, and I am worried we will not have enough staff for the potential May workload (when the furlough begins). But what has been done is undo-able, so we will just have to roll with it for now. Then there is the potential of a second round in June!

Otherwise, walks as usual (I love our family walks!) but you see loads of walk pictures, so here's a visit from our social distancing window cleaner:

And here's one of our cats durping on the windowsill:

Close up you say? OK!

Day 31 - The Bog

Another beautiful day, and for our walk today we went investigating on a new route, where we saw tadpoles and discovered Emmer Bog. This was a great long walk, and we got to go through the woods, see several free roaming horses, and walk round a huge wet, boggy, bog. Which makes sense.

We saw clumped mud which had fallen from a horse's hoof.

Some lovely big fungus growing on trees.

And a lot of cows! I managed to pat one on the nose. Which was... slimy!

Finally, I practised a bit of macro photography, and captured some shots of this fly. I do love the camera on this phone!

Day 30 - A Dewy Morning

Woke up, wrenched myself out of bed, and went downstairs to feed the bunny and start the jobs. I found that it was a beautiful sunny day, but very moist on the leaves, and this inspired some photos!

Otherwise a lovely Saturday, w big long walk (of course) and we watched Ratatouille!

Enjoy:

Day 29 - Friday Again

At least a think it's Friday, who can tell anymore?

Working as normal, there's still plenty coming in to keep our department busy, but they are talking about furloughing members of our team for 3 weeks in May.

By then a lot of the European countries will be operating again, so it is a worry what this does to our workloads.

Still, completely out of my hands!

A rainy day today, shame, but the garden definitely needs the water.

We still managed a walk and saw a lovely hedgehog hole!

Day 28 - Wildflowers

So the kids have been learning about nature, and flowers, and discovered that both daisy's and dandelions are edible.

So, on our walk I thought: "Why not?"

So I nommed some flowers, and they're not bad!

First I went for the common daisy. It seemed less 'meaty' than a dandelion! The suggestion is to sprinkle them over a salad, and I can see why. A very lettuce and mild flavour, light and not bad at all. I think I ate three in total.

So next the dandelion!

Not this one specifically, especially as it has some ants crawling on it, but one of a similar size. IT was very bitter, a bit like rocket leaves. But, again, not bad, I could certainly eat it, and understand why it's used in jellies and drinks. Well, you live and learn!

We also saw a sleeping bee on our walk! Very sweet! Every now and then it's antenna would wiggle, so we left it to rest.

Day 27 - Witches

Lock down appears to be la daily walk to keep us sane! I'm still working every day, at my desk and putting in my hours, plus there appears to be plenty of work to keep the entire team occupied, which is great. I've not had a single day where I have been looking for work to do.

But, the lunchtime walk is greatly received! Today I have baby duck spotting, and a witch stick! (Ooooh!)

Here of course are the ducks! Just a 2 minute walk from our house there's a river which leads all the way into town. We usually see quite a few walkers, dogs, cyclists, butterflies and birds. Plus the added bonus of baby ducks today!

And this is the witch stick! Made ourselves, basically, you get a stick, you get some leaves, and then you skewer the leaves on to the small twig sections of the stick, then poke it in the ground. What does it do? Well... umm... magic things!!

Day 27 - The Sights

It's a bit cooler today, so jumpers and hoodies for today's walk, but it is still a gloriously sunny day!

First image I have to share are the new improved, no longer printed A4 sheet, don't play on the play equipment signs!

At least sign writers are still getting work! It even comes with a QR code for more information! Snazzy!

Rainbow rocks are a thing around Romsey, it used to be that if you found one you were to pick it up and post a picture on the Romsey Rainbow Rock page, and then re-hide it somewhere else for others to find. However, as we can't touch them they have instead been created and placed in strategic locations for others to enjoy. I particularly liked this one!

And during our walk I of course record my steps (otherwise it doesn't really count!!) and as I went to take a look I'd hit a unique number:

I'm sure four 6s are fine!

Carry on! Stay safe!

Day 26 - Easter Monday

Another relaxing day with a lovely long walk. Plus, I did drawing club with the girls to teach them some tips and tricks on drawing. They'd like me to do it again, so I will definitely make the time!

Here's a selection from the kids:, the topic was ducks, both cartoon and realistic, then freestyle :)

Here's my addition, I added in an Elsa for fun:

And here's a shot from our walk, we went down the canal and through a tunnel, it's just glorious getting out and about with all this lock down going on!

Day 25 - Easter Sunday

The Easter bunny visited sometime around 10pm last night, and left a mini trail of chocolate eggs hidden around the house.

Very kind!

This lead to much excitement with the kids leading to a lovely big Easter egg to finish!

However, upon opening the front door we found this!

Which was totally unexpected and made it even more magical. Someone on the close is a good egg!

Lovely walk as a family today! We went past Romsey Abbey, so I grabbed a deserted shot.

Photo's my favourite statue/pillar in town. Hah!

And captured this little guy on a fence post.

Great Easter Sunday, great walk. Great day!

Day 24 - Easter is Coming

The hot weather continues, and the neighbours have decorated the trees around our close with little eggs praising the NHS. Which is very nice!

 It's really nice to see the community getting together.

 I did of course take a few more obligatory walk photos!

And found a buttercup! First of 2020 for me.

The virus rages on, we remain under lockdown, but isn't nature glorious?