I’ve posted a few photos and videos of the collared doves’ nest – first the empty nest, then the eggs were laid, the chicks hatched and now we have an empty nest again. On Thursday evening the second young collared dove left the nest and has not returned. I do feel a little sad – empty nest syndrome!
Empty Nest!
Here is a video showing the final moments as the young bird left the confines of the nest behind the satellite dish for the last time and flew off into the wide world beyond. It looks quite big in the video but in reality it is still very small.
To participate in Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo (new or old) that you (or a friend or family member) have taken, but make sure it’s not one that you found online.
Today’s Saturday Snapshot photo is an old one from years ago, when we visited Brittany. We were camping next to the site of these Standing Stones at Carnac. Some of the stones are huge – my husband and son are standing in front of one of the stones in the background.
Last Saturday I posted photos of the nest the Collared Doves had built at the back of our satellite dish.
Earlier this week we had a sight of the two eggs in the collared doves’ nest –
Here is one of the parents sitting on the eggs –
and here is a short video we made of one of the doves settling down on the eggs –
We hoping to video the chicks as they hatch – it’s just like Springwatch here at the moment!
To participate in Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo (new or old) that you (or a friend or family member) have taken, but make sure it’s not one that you found online.
I don’t have many photos of my grandparents. Here are two.
The first is a photo of George Ellis Owens, my Taid (grandfather on my mother’s side) at his home in Penyffordd, North Wales. My mother has written on the back ‘Myfather1930‘. He was born in 1880 and was a steel worker at John Summers at Hawarden Bridge Steelworks Shotton.
He is the grandparent I knew the most, because he and my grandmother came to live with us when I was 5. My granny died five years later and he lived to the ripe old age of 87, when I was 20. My other grandparents died when I was 6.
Below is a photo of my granny, my father’s mother, taken in her garden at Bowdon Vale, Cheshire with my cousin Sylvia. I do remember her fairly well. She was always smiling in contrast to my granddad who was always grumpy, I thought. He had a big mustache and a loud gruff voice which made me nervous, plus he had his dog tied up to his armchair which scared me. She had her hair in a bun – just like grannies in picture books. She was born in 1878 and died when she was 74. I was named after her.
and this is me when I was 5½. I’ve cheated a bit here as this was a school photo.
To participate in Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. All Alyce asks is that you don’t post random photos that you find online.
I’ve dug back into our photographs looking for photos of Zoe, our Golden Retriever. She was our first dog we had when our son was 5 years old – he’s grown up now with children and dogs of his own. I can’t find the one of him holding Zoe when we first brought her home, but this is one taken a few months later in the back garden. She lived with us for 13 years and we had many happy times with her – she was the most faithful and gentle of dogs.
Here is one when she was older, with me and our other dog, Ben:
This is Bamburgh Castle, off the coast of Northumberland south of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and on Monday when we went to the Island, it was clearly visible on the horizon. The sea was shimmering in the sunshine.
I posted a photo of Lindisfarne Castle when we visited the island in March. Early on Monday morning it was raining but it soon stopped and the sun came out, even though it remained extremely windy.
The Castle was originally an Elizabethan fort protecting the harbour. It was built between 1570 and 1572 and was garrisoned for over 300 years – guns and soldiers were removed in 1893. Now it is owned by the National Trust.
The photo below is of Lindisfarne Castle taken from the walled garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll north of the Castle. The site of the garden was where the soldiers of the fort had formerly grown vegetables.
Lindisfarne Castle
Inside the Castle it’s an Edwardian house, designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens for his friend Edward Hudson, who was the founder of Country Life magazine. By 1902 the castle was derelict and Lutyens turned it into a holiday home for Hudson. It’s both homely and dramatic. There are columns and rounded arches; the rooms are all small – you can imagine yourself living there. The dining room in the old Tudor fortress has a vaulted ceiling with a wide arched chimney-piece. It had once been a bakery and there is an old bread oven next to the fireplace.
Lindisfarne Castle Dining Room
These days you can get married in the Ship Room, so called because of the wooden model ship that hangs from the ceiling, flanked by two Dutch 17th century chandeliers:
BooksPlease 