Brownsea Island

Making the most of the balmy March sunshine I took a daytrip with Adam to Brownsea Island, a National Trust reserve in Poole Harbour.

Transport to the island.

Brownsea Castle... which appears to now be owned by John Lewis group... I wonder if they are going to open a shop? Not sure they''ll get much passing trade... or perhaps its where they have their upmarket sweatshops?

Sweatshop entrance.

Look a red squirrel! Take a picture quick! Bah OK this is just a picture of a picture of a red squirrel... the pesky things were very sneaky and did not want to be photographed. However Brownsea is one of the only places in the south of the UK that has indigenous red squirrels as their nasty American grey cousins have not invaded there yet.

Lovely beaches for a sit down... but maybe not a swim.

Priscilla Preview

An outing to the bestest newest (and campest) show in town (well it was back in March) with my London buddies Georgina and Stephen who are always up for a bit of West End action. Incidentally the show was lots of fun... Im thinking of starting up a sister-site blog to cover theatre trips past and present... I wonder if it would serve to document the fun times or simply make me realise how much time and money I invest in "the arts"! Answers on a postcard please...

Georgina... she trained as a dancer you know... you can see she has lovely lines?

Good weather Garage

Gasp! Tim under a car - there must be some mistake? Well thankfully for me and the safety of other motorists I appeared to have escaped incident free from dis-assembling and reassembling my car. The cause of my consternation was having no windscreen washer jets. Nothing nada. Not even a dribble of moisture. The culprit as shown below was the pump, easily replaced for five English pounds from Ebay but could not be installed until now as the weather was so miserable. No-one wants to be under a car when its snowing eh?

Hooray - jets of water to wash my window!

The little tinker that sucks up the soapy water from the fluid tank through the big hole and squirts it down the little pipe at high speed. Magic.

Birthdays, Babies and Brrrrrilliant times

A few of my favourite shots from my most recent trip with Grandma to see the Norwegian contingent.

Henny is still ultra-cute and getting to grips with this solid food malarkey. Not entirely convinced right now but getting the hang of it slowly.

Of course Maud was really still celebrating her birthday with her new willing party guests and hand-made crowns, handbags and jeweled tiaras were the must have accessory of the moment.

Maud was very keen to show her special purse containing special sparkly things...

The shiny sprinkles that came in her birthday card from Grandma! All neatly filed away :)

Henny is always ready for a bounce on Grandma's knee.

And Uncle Tim is always ready for yummy gluten free waffles with afternoon tea! Thanks again Silje :) YUM!

More fun times

So Grandma - this yellow thing... what does it do agin?

IT SQUEAKS! HEHE!

Ermmm.. the yellow squeaky thing that makes me smile has gone - now I look serious... or perhaps its toilet time?

Despite the recent news that TFW will soon be likely to be moving on to pastures new, the old girl at least can be glad that she didn't have to put up with conditions like this every day down in her nice warm garage! You'd be kind of miffed if you came back to your car and found that the snow plough had buried it! Better get digging if you want to go home!

We seized a break in the sleety snow to dash out for a quick walk in the slush. Silly Uncle Tim hadn't brought his snow boots though! D'oh!

The pale brown tights with no baby Henny inside them...

... the original and very scary pale green trousers with nobody inside them :)

From quite possibly the best childrens book ever written, the Dr Seuss classic:

"The Sneeches: and Other Stories"

Visitor

Always interesting to see how the other blogger documents the same situation... or possibly not. As I&I followers will be aware Matt came to visit recently and of course following are pictures mainly of food... and some nice scenery too. The Jolly Sailor pub, situated by one of the largest marinas on the Itchen was a great afternoon of al fresco drinking and dining, along with some good old fashioned people watching. All the rah-rah-hockey sticks people out for a chug along in their motor boats. Jolly nice I say !

Fish and chips... and it comes served on a piece of paper! How original! Peas were very good though :)

It was a gastronomic experience from start to finish - I really pulled all the stops out in the kitchen for my bro! That's right... ordered in a Chinese! We had to sample a wide array from the menu... simply to ensure their food quality was up to standard... obviously! Nothing to do with being greedy piglets!