Howdy there Bloggettes, yup the time thieves have struck again! I mean where did they come from? I think the same guys also stole the sun too. The weather has been pretty rubbish here. I mean its the end of May and we still have the heating on! But I can't bear being cold..... please come back sunshine!

Now we've had a bit of a mystery, well kind of, over a dove cooing outside the bedroom window at 4.30am most mornings! The OM of course has no knowledge of this whatsoever - the upside of being a bit deaf eh? Well the other day I saw a dove almost fly into the bedroom window with a twig in its beak.... So I went outside for a look. Guess what I saw?

Yup the little dove has made herself a nest on the bracket of the security light! You can see how close to the barge board she is - not much room is there?


In fact so little room there's a good deal of overhang in the tail department!


But she does look nicely settled doesn't she? On the plus side of course there's as much food as she can eat in the garden. We've got a newly fledged baby dove in the garden, I wonder if its the first one out of this particular nest? I've no idea how long she's been there. On the plus side I suppose there's no one else trying get up there with her, the wind won't blow it and she'll be dry when it rains!

Now over at Totally Gorjuss we have another challenge up and running. This time its 'strings the thing' which basically means put some string on your card in one way or another - easy as always ;)) Now I had the idea for the card but then decided that I didn't want to just wrap it around the card kind of thing...... but what to do with it? Now while I was away I saw some flat coils of string so I had a go at those. I think its quite a good manly embellishment.


An arty shot of said manly embellishment!

Now I'm sure you've heard me mention the girls.... if not where have you been! Now me being a cruel Mummy I like them to earn their keep!

We had Tinker on cutlery duty the other day.....

I'm not quite sure she got the hang of it somehow.....

Woohooo!

Well howdy y'all!

Have you missed me??? Had you even noticed I'd gone?...... Well I've been MOH, that's Missing On Holiday!

So that involved these two, Tinker at the front (nearer my fingers) and Harry looking for food going in their new travel cage. Its better than the old one but I have to say the 'parrot proof' door fastener is rubbish! Tinker had it open in about 2 seconds flat! Hence a cable tie holding it shut. Harry was actually a bit less car sick than usual, now whether this is because she can see more or she's getting better car legs... well who knows?


So we've been here! Yup lucky me has had another Florida trip. We started at Clearwater Beach, this was the view from our balcony - directly onto the beach. This is sunset the first night. Isn't it beautiful? As the sun drops lower and lower it seems to take ages. Once it gets to the horizon though it goes really fast. One minute its there and then its gone! Oh and the sea was beautifully warm too, none of that gasping in shock that we get here in the UK. Oh and its clean, as are the beaches. People just don't seem to dump their litter everywhere, they use the bins on the beaches. Perhaps something we ought to have don't you think?

We also fed a few of these on the beaches too! Its amazing you wander down with your bread or whatever and there's not a bird in sight! Once you have one you soon have a load of them, they are so acrobatic.



We also saw lots and lots of ospreys. There seemed to be a nest in every tree with chicks in. Now these are nesting on top of a floodlight on a soccer pitch. There used to be lots of these lights but they've been replaced with modern ones. They left this one though as the pair were showing signs of breeding so its had a reprieve for a few months till the chicks fledge. Obviously Florida (this part for sure) is ideal for Ospreys as there are so many lakes and fish to feed them all. We even saw them catching fish in the sea too. So the huge nest on top of the light! Oh they don't use this light when there's a nest on it, there would be a risk of fire and the chicks getting burnt too. I wondered how the chicks cope with heat, some days it was over 90f.

A bit of a closer view, as you can see there are two chicks and the mother in there. She was shouting her head off! I'm guessing to her mate to hurry up and bring them a fish!

This is a nest in a tree on the golf course at Dunedin, as you can see its right over the path where all the golf buggies drive. The birds aren't fazed by these in the slightest though. There are chicks in this one too, they decided to duck down as I took the shot! In the space of a small area there were 3 nests so they obviously don't mind close neighbours.

One of the neighbours nests! You can see they use rather big lumps of wood! Makes you wonder how they manage to make them really. I don't think I could using both hands, and they only do it with their beaks without any instructions either ;))

Now seeing as I've been in the Shopping, sorry Sunshine State I felt it necessary to indulge in a spot of retail therapy. Well it would have been rude not to. Oh I also bumped into the Lord of Inkiness too ;)) So here is a small view of the meagre amount of stuff I acquired.....

Now I'm sure some of you may have noticed my interest in fabric.... well I just so happened to find a haven for fabric strokers everywhere! Oh my I almost got thrown out when I screamed yippee and threw myself on the bolts of fabric... Luckily it would appear I'm not the first person to have done that! I've never ever seen so much fabric in my life! Now I got ~coughs~ one or two pieces.... but I could have filled 20 cases with it (funds and luggage allowance permitting). So I chose carefully(ish) and also bought a few patterns, magazines and 'stuff.

So see hardly anything really.... What I mean by that is 'hardly anything compared to what I saw and wanted as well but......' You know what I mean? Now of course I will have to brace myself to actually cut it! But for now I'm more than happy stroking and wrapping myself in it!