BIRTHDAY AND A CLOSE SHAVE

49 today......where did those years go? Anyway, these beautiful flowers are from my mum. When I came down this morning, I found Origami Boy had made me this wonderful banner:

I also got this print which I spotted in a local gallery some months ago and 'mentioned' in an unsubtle manner. I absolutely love it:

I didn't know a lot about Lucy Dawson but, having trawled the internet, I've found a lot more of her work. I love this being white on a coloured background. I think it's one of the most successful drawings I've seen, done in 1937.

Coffee and cake this morning with friends and now sitting waiting for Asda to deliver my shopping. I'm always amazed they come up here; they must be mad! £3.00 well spent; it would cost me more than that in fuel. Once they've been, I can take Snippet out in the delightful gale force winds and rain. Four degrees centigrade this morning and about six now. Lovely. I've just been sent this picture of snow in Princetown last night....they did say it might happen. I'm so happy it missed us:

Shopping is away, Snippet walked and coat dripping all over the floor. 

On Saturday, we had the close shave mentioned in the title. OB and I came back from his tennis lesson (he's no Federer but enjoys running around with his friends), to find a massive branch had fallen off the ENORMOUS beech tree that shadows our garden for most of the year under which we and our direct neighbour, park our cars. You can kind of see how big it is from the picture below but nothing really gives the sense of its majesty. What fell off was the size of a medium sized tree in itself. We don't own it but have very kindly been given enough of it to last us a year once it's seasoned. Partner spent all of Saturday with two others chainsawing it up to get it off the drive it had fallen on. The tractor below was parked in that drive and the falling tree just brushed its mud guard and trashed the trailer. Expensive though the trailer is, it's nothing to what the fairly new tractor would have cost to replace. We are SO lucky it wasn't one of the branches on the other side as it would have destroyed three Land Rovers, one Renault Megane (I could have lived with that), three sheds at least and probably a section of our roof, despite it being 100 feet away. Anyway, I'll stop wittering; here are some pictures:

Sadly, because of what's happened, the whole thing is going to have to come down. It's such a beautiful tree but, on the plus side, our garden will be much lighter and won't be a depository for its millions of falling leaves every year.

To change the subject, have any of you ever lost your entire Blogger reading list? For two days, it completely disappeared. As if to tempt fate, I just checked it AGAIN and it's all back. Very strange. So, apologies if I haven't been visiting recently but a lot of you went off the radar. Here are a few more pictures taken in the brief moments between torrential rain:

Things still not looking very green

Foal A and mum

Daisy and Isaac

Gelding shenanigans 

A new foal G. Two little white socks are the only distinguishing marks. I'm beginning to regret the lack of skewbalds for that reason alone!

Curly heads

Wind ruffled feathers

   

Not sure who this is, it was SO far away. I'm tempted to say it's a Harrier from the shape, possibly Marsh Harrier given the amount of marsh around here. I look forward to your opinions....

The Longstone, with Thornworthy Tor beyond

The visitors to the bird feeding station are getting bigger and bigger!

So, Having eaten nothing since the massive slice of cake at ten this morning, I am stealing myself for the M&S curry I splashed out on yesterday whilst spending the birthday cheque my mum gave me on clothes in Exeter yesterday. I was not allowed to spend it on anything but clothes. Do you think she's trying to tell me something? Until next time, here's Snip again in a rare dry moment.