Feeling Proud!

Gabrielle has bought her first car using her hard-earned savings.



It's a Vauxhall Astra


Congratulations also for passing your theory test recently Gabrielle - I'm sure it won't be too long before you are ready for the practical test.

Josie

Holly Hill Woods to Swanwick Solent Estury Walk

Today I did another lovely walk from Holly Hill Woods to the Solent Estury at Swanwick and up to Warsash and back with Jane.

Jane is a good friend and she grew up locally, so Jane knows a lot of very good walks!
The weather was beautiful. We saw plenty of wildlife including deer again. We were mesmerised by a soaring buzzard early in the walk and also saw a woodpecker busy doing what woodpeckers do.

Here are some pictures (again pictures are clickable if you'd like to see the full resolution version):






Spot the deer! ^

Location:Downland Close,Southampton,United Kingdom

Lily's 12th Birthday

Today Lily celebrated her 12th birthday. She had some school friends come to dinner and they all played Minecraft as that is their favourite thing to do.
Here are a few pictures from her special day:















(Photos are clickable to see them at full resolution).

Whiteley Pastures Walk

My friend Jane and I did a nice long walk from Locks Heath to Whiteley Pasteurs today. The ground is still very soggy following a long wet winter and this combined with many storms and high winds has seen a lot of trees fall. A lot of the pathways were blocked by fallen trees so it was quite an interesting trek climbing, crawling and finding new routes along our way.
We did see some Roe deer too - but they were too fast for me to photograph!
Here are a few pics:

Warsash to Warsash Spit Walk

Today Jane and I did a lovely walk from Warsash up to Warsash Spit and back through the woods. It was nice to see the sunshine and some spring flowers. Here are a few photos I took along the way.































Photo's are clickable for high resolution images.

Warsash Spit Walk

A cold and windy walk along the beach and back through the woods. Some pictures of the family enjoying the sea breeze:

Unicycle birthday money buy!

Rowanne bought herself a unicycle with some of her birthday money. It arrived and is a bit big as was expected. We have instructions how to cut the seat post shorter with a pipe cutter which will be done asap so Rowanne might practise unicycling through the half term holiday.


(Click on the picture to see non blurred version - the blogspot server is still downsizing file size but if you click pictures you will see them in the full uploaded size).

Rowanne is 10!

Rowanne is 10 - how time goes so quickly. Here are a few photos from her birthday celebration:






The cake!





Blowing out the candles!





Here is a hat I made for her birthday (green jellybabies are her favourites):

Brick Lakes Walk and Swanwick Marina Walk

Today's weather was predicted to be wet again, but Jane and I put on our wellies and raincoats and went for a walk anyway. Everywhere outside is muddy as ever still but we did get some sunshine and did two walks as the first around the old brick lakes at Swanwick Nature Reserve didn't seem long enough.
The nature reserve is on old land that had belonged to Bursledon Brickworks and the lakes are formed where clay to make the bricks was dug out the ground. There are a few bricks here and there on the walk to remind you of the history of the site.



































The next walk was from the Ship Inn at Swanwick, along the bank of the Solent estuary as far as Holly Hill Park and back again. There are lots of types of birds here and a few shipwrecks to see depending on the tide.





















We then had lunch in The Silver Fern at Warsash.

Location:Swanwick, Southampton