However, we do have lots of good friends over here, and one of them visited us this week. This is Dolly with her cat Frankie. Dolly and I are exactly the same age (born on the same day, in fact) and we were flat mates in Hamilton when we did our Master's degrees at McMaster. She worked in Canada for a while and then came home to the UK. We went to the US, but we've stayed in touch ever since (it's nearly 40 years since we met!).Dolly is a brilliant artist and is also keen on natural history in all its forms, so we have a lot in common. We talked almost non-stop for two days! This was helped on Wednesday by rainy weather, so we stayed in a lot of the day
On Thursday the weather was lovely and we had a day out. We started off by driving up the Burway, parking at the top and having a bit of a walk on the Mynd. In the picture below we're looking eastwards across the Stretton Valley to Caer Caradoc. The colours up in the hills are lovely right now. The whinberry bushes are turning reddish brown, the bracken is bright green and the heather is purple as it comes into full bloom.
We didn't have much of a whinberry crop this year. Whinberries are the local, wild, blueberries. They are very small, but quite delicious. Unfortunately, the drought came at the wrong time for them and there are very few fruit.Many of the wild blackberries are looking dry and hard, too. In some places there are tons of them and in others there's nothing. It all depends on just how much water there was in that area. However, we've promised ourselves that we'll take a plastic container with us wherever we go so we can harvest berries when we find them. There are lots of cobnuts (hazelnuts) about too and I'd like to get a few of them before the squirrels have them all!
After a smashing lunch in a pub in Wentnor, we carried on into Wales to Rhyadr. This was to visit the Red Kite feeding station at Gigrin Farm. It was definitely the highlight of the day, with a spectacular show of these lovely birds. The photo to the left shows John and Dolly at the farm and all the birds you can see in the sky are Red Kites. I took lots of pictures, but none of them are very good, so I think you'll get a better sense of what happens here if you visit their web site. Yesterday was REPATRIATION DAY!!!! The first anniversary of our arrival in the UK. Next week will be the anniversary of moving into Peel Wyke. We celebrated by having dinner at a Thai restaurant in Shrewsbury after we'd worked in the museum for a few hours.
Yesterday was also the day I started on some new drugs to cancel out the side effects of the Arimidex. This is something I hoped I'd never have to do, but they got bad enough that I'm now on an anti-depressant and something for my digestive upsets. I really don't want to move away from the Arimidex although an alternative drug was suggested, so we're trying to cope with the side effects rather than risk a whole different set of them! Oh well ... only another 4 years to go! In the meantime, while I get used to these new drugs I'm wandering around like I was stoned for most of the morning! In fact, I think I've got the munchies - maybe I'll go get some lunch and have a nap!
Stay in touch, please!
