Easter Weekend...

Yes, I know, it’s been ages since I updated this but I’ve not really had anything worth posting.

Last week was pretty quiet both at home and at work with little or nothing of note happening. The weather has been slowly but surely getting warmer and we’ve even had to water the garden a couple of times, as the ground is so dry.

The Autograss season is now fully underway but, as yet, I’ve not been to any meetings. Gary has not finished the work needed to bring his car up to 2007 spec. rules yet so it will be another few weeks before his car hits the track.

Biggest laugh of the week came at work… One of the salesmen tried to take the top down on a cabriolet we have for sale and got the electronic mechanism totally messed up! The end result was the roof stuck down and the boot lid stuck four feet up in the air! We sent him off back to his desk whilst we sorted everything out.

The jammed boot lid!

The Easter weekend was a quiet one for us. On Good Friday and Saturday, I had to work. On Sunday, I raked all the dead moss and grass from the lawns, and then mowed them; I dug the flower borders over and then washed the car. Lunch was a delicious roast turkey with all the trimmings - just like Christmas all over again! We even had a Christmas Pudding! Needless to say, we didn’t move far in the afternoon.

Yesterday, Bank Holiday Monday, I went out birding for a few hours at Willington Gravel Pits with Paul. We didn’t come across anything out of the ordinary bird wise - Sand Martin, Chiffchaff, Little Ringed Plover, Ruddy Duck, Wigeon and Common Buzzard being the highlights - but did get to watch a great fight for a nest hole between two male Great Spotted Woodpeckers! One of the birds had obviously laid claim to the hole and was quite happily going about removing debris from inside when along came another woodpecker that decided he would try to evict the first one. The fight that followed got to be quite nasty at times and also rather noisy; we left them to it with the bird that had first claimed the hole having the upper hand.

This weekend’s warm weather has seen quite a few butterflies taking to the wing. On Sunday, we had numerous Peacock and Small Whites in the garden and also a single Brimstone. On Monday, we came across more Peacocks at Willington along with two Orange Tips and one or two Speckled Woods. Later in the afternoon, we had another Speckled Wood in the garden at home. At last, some real signs of summer!

Today, I’ve been off work - time owed for working Good Friday - and I’ve spent much of the day sorting through well over 1000 photos on my PC! I’ve still not got them all in order, or transferred onto disk, but I’m getting there!

Is it the weekend yet?

Chiffchaff at Willington Gravel Pits.

Peacock butterfly at Willington Gravel pits.

Speckled Wood butterfly at Willington Gravel Pits.

The next photos show the second of the two male woodpeckers advancing on the nest hole.

This last photo is as far as the intruder got into the hole!