All Loved Up

It isn’t very often I get out my florist wires and ribbons these days, but I had a lovely time a couple of weeks ago making bouquets for a wedding.

I used beautiful blue love-in-the-mist,  which I’d grown grown from seeds that Flighty kindly sent me,

The brief had a lovely relaxed, country feel about it. I’d masses of hydrangea’s in the garden, which were just the thing

For the  ceremony, which was outside, in a stunning location. 

There was such a wonderful vibe about the place during the preparation, everyone beavering away, hanging bunting and paper lanterns, assembling luscious cakes, the band doing sound checks and banter.

Someone even managed to find time to get the kettle on

Wonderful.

Ladies and gentlemen; the bride and groom ( Photo Credit Phil Sproson).

Weighing Things Up

Serious,  weighing things up, at Hope  Show.

Social, chewing the cud

Aspirational, a young handler with his cade lamb

Lack of Communication

A month since I last posted, my thoughts, like this telephone box could do with a bit of weeding. It’s happened before, so I know the first post after a break is the hardest,  I just need to get in the groove again.

Turn of the tern

Belatedly, it is back to the Farne Isles, and it’s the turn of the tern, the artic terns.  They seem to build ridiculously  scant nests,  not so much a nest, as outline planning permission for one.

Some don’t  seem to bother with even that much effort, when there is a footpath available (see bottom left of this photo).

But they are not any old terns, one at least is a record breaker

Tiny bird flies 59,650 miles from its breeding grounds in Farne Islands in the UK to Antarctica and back again, clocking the longest ever migration recorded

They are feisty in defence of their nests…

Mr Uphilldowndale had borrowed my hat, a hat designed for snugness rather than its bird deflection properties.

The birds are protected and nurtured on the Farne Isles, and we felt very privileged to get so close to them, but we did wonder how much energy they were putting into attempting to ‘see off’ the endless stream of visitors…   They must be grateful for the days when the weather is too rough for the tourist boats to land.

A throning, or a party by any other name

I’ve a string of posts to deliver,  I’m behind schedule, I’ve been distracted; they are going to tumble out randomly, it seems to match the mood of the nation!

You’d be hard pressed to call where I live a street, but it didn’t stop us having a street party to celebrate the Queens 90th Birthday a few weeks ago.

There were a lot of planning meetings (Mr Uphilldowndale will tell you  what I mean by this, is that there was a lot of drinking of prosecco  on Sunday afternoons for the previous month) I’ll tell you the planning was just as sociable as the party.  We then went on holiday and left the neighbours to all the hard work, arriving back in time for the sound of popping corks.  They did a fab job, we had  music,  flowers, porta-loos, road closed signs, bollards and bunting, a proper party.

We even had very official notices to close the road, who could resist a throning of neighbours?

 

We didn’t divert any carts as far as we know, a few cyclists and a couple of walkers meandered through the tables, most took  the diversion in good  heart.

We brought out the finest vintage food (the ‘food miles’ of some of it could be measured in inches rather than miles)

Ate proper pie (Yorkshire pie, brought over the county boundary under special licence).

I may have mentioned the prosecco before

So many cakes

and a few gate crashers.

We raised money for charity too, we are very lucky to have such lovely neighbours…

Unidentified Emotions

As a friend put it on Friday, in the wake of the EU referendum results ‘I’m experiencing emotions I can’t name, I certainly haven’t felt them before’.

Politics isn’t something I’d normally mention here, but the referendum and  decision  for the UK to leave the EU is to big to walk on by.  I’m gutted. Horrified. Sad and bitterly disappointed for my boys. A few of those unidentifiable emotions my friend mentioned are swilling around in the mix too.

A conversation I overheard, seemed to me, to capture the fact that many folk hadn’t got a handle on the chain of events voting ‘leave’ would set in motion.

First women. ‘My son says Nando’s are leaving the UK because of Brexit’

Second women. ‘Oh my god, you’d think it was the end of the world, all we did was put a cross in a box on a bit of paper!’

I wasn’t sure if to laugh or cry, so I  just stood in front of the newspaper stand in crushing bewilderment.

Mr Uphilldowndale and I were set to go to Loweswater, in Cumbria on Friday, in preparation  for Daz’s Memorial  fell race.  We didn’t like going and leaving Joe home alone, he’d been up all night watching the results come in and was as down as we were; but Spud the dog stayed at home to keep him company, as ironically Tom is away, in Europe, working (we cast a proxy vote on his behalf).

 

We stopped by at Dodds Wood and climbed up to the viewing point to see the osprey’s  this  and a walk in the woods did us good and soothed our souls a little.

The next day I had chance to contemplate the hills and some of the many emotional events of the last few weeks, and some of those emotions spilt out. The sheep was my confidante .

What more can I say.

Green eyed beauty

The gorgeous green eye of a shag. More photos from the Inner Farne Isle

How on earth the chick don’t just fall off the nest I don’t know.  They look a bit of a car crash!

And the chicks are not handsome are they?

I’ve saturated the colour in this next shot, so you can see what I could see, plastic fishing net in the nest…