The dove from above

Stuff always happens after I have finally decided to clean the windows.
It is an event, cleaning those windows but I finally managed to find a rapid, effective way to do them.
We've still got the moat running round the house and using a ladder has now been circumnavigated. I can get at the windows now with stuff mounted on poles.
Anyway, stuff always happens. Like heavy rainfall that puts streaks all over them. Or birds flying into the windows.
We used to have a lot of them flying into the conservatory, remember the big lovely Jay nursed by Dr Livingstone.
So this dove was no exception.

I didn't see it at first, but in the morning when the condensation was on the outside of the window, the imprint became quite apparent.
Caught in mid-flight. It's ghostlike appearance hovering in the line of sight.
It's on a window of the room where the administration gets done.
It's still there.
I might consider cleaning the windows again.
But twice in one month's time is a lot you know...

King of the air

I can recognize the sound of a Westland Sea King helicopter miles away. It has been in service in our Royal Air Force since 1976 so I've nearly seen and heard it on a daily basis because I used to live on the coast, about 20 kms from its home base.
So I was really surprised when we were relaxing outside our house when I suddenly heard the low, thundery noise in the distance getting louder by the minute.
'I can hear a Sea King' was the first thing I said to Dr Livingstone.
He stared at me in disbelief.
'I can really hear it, it's getting quite near'. After a minute or so it suddenly emerged from behind the tree tops and flew right over our house.
I was just in the process of taking some pictures of the garden, so I was rewarded with a nice picture of the RS02!

Last Friday was the centennial of our Belgian Air Force. There was a show at the air base of Bevekom (Beauvechain) in which the Sea King participated.

Mouser mousing

Finally we got some rain. Quite refreshing. The lawn was begging for some drops, manifesting its will by turning a lightish brown/gingery colour.
I haven't had a peek at the water tank, but I imagine it will not turn to cement powder just yet.
Mouser has been out and about, surprisingly, during the intermittent showers.
Just before I headed out to bed I opened up the front door to see if Velvet Claws™ was going to join us.
There was a flash of fur and then it stopped mid-way down the hall.
I flicked on the light switch and lo and behold: It had rescued a fluffy friend from drowning.

I saw a mouse scurry round and head into the living room.
Of course it hid under the first available book shelf. Mouser was poking about trying to coo the rodent from under there, to no avail.
It ran into the study and I closed the door.
Dr Livingstone came out to help catch it and we moved some furniture about.
Mice tend to walk along walls and never straight across open spaces.
I had been in a similar situation a couple of years ago in the old house. To jog your memories: see my blog entries Cat & Mouse & Human Game and Got Him!
I though this was going to take hours.

But to my own surprise I caught the little bugger at the first attempt, although it did try to bite me. I had to hold the plastic container down because it just moved the whole thing across the floor while under it.
I relocated the mouse to the doorstep and it disappeared into the night.
Needless to say, teh Kitteh was still hovering around the bookcase looking for its playmate.

Rubus stealus

I spotted an over-succulent raspberry on one of the bushes a couple of days ago and I just had to take a picture.

The bush is teeming with berries getting ready to turn all red and sweet.
When Dr Livingstone came home one evening I forgot to tell him all about it.
So I did the following evening.
'I know there's one. I already ate it this morning before I got in the car.'

-_-

A carrot shaped like...what exactly?

No turnips here shaped exactly like a thingy, but we have pulled out some extraordinarily shaped carrots. They look like they changed their mind half way and started growing in the opposite direction.

Dr Livingstone thinks the ground is probably too hard and they're having trouble  moving in the right direction.

Summer still here

Luckily the summer hasn't left us yet, so nice warm weather, lots of sun.

We could do with the odd shower though for the garden. And our water reservoir. It's empty. It usually holds 5000 liters.