Oh, I do Like to be Beside the Seaside.........!

I know that it's not officially New Post Time, but I just had to share a couple of photos with you (thanks to Rob and the power of his mobile phone!)

Yesterday we set off at 5.30 (after watching 'Eastenders', sad people but hey!) for our daily walk. We always meet up with friends and their two dogs and we usually do a meander to the fishing area and then a quick round-the-block before we head home for a glass of refreshment. As we arrived at the little path going down to the beach, we saw Phillip, Nicola and the gaggle heading to the sea for their daily swim. Well, the geese were, Nicola and Phillip paddled in the shallows!

The neighbours heading to the beach.

When you think of it, these little souls did the equivalent of a human 'Comrades Marathon'. We live a good 500 metres from the beach, and when you are only 15 cms from the ground, that's a lot of walking! And Peta has been doing it since she was only 6 cms from the ground!

Astro doing her 'Life Guard' impersonation!

I must say that it amazes me that they swim in salt water, but there they were, floating and swimming and flapping their little stumpy wings and eating the seaweed that looks like thin green plastic bags!
Alfie and the other two dogs made sure that they stayed out of Peta's reach and paddled a little way away, but Astro was there in the water with the geese, making sure that they stayed within easy reach. And after they had all had enough, out they came and headed home! Peta in the lead and everyone else following.

Today they will do it all over again!

When we came back from our walk, they were all relaxing on the grass.
What a privilege to live among nature like we do.

Alfie's Goose is Cooked!

I know that I have mentioned the six Egyptian Geese that Nicola and her goose Peta are raising?

Well, these little souls are growing by the day and are now quite adept at grazing with their large foster mother every evening on the Scott's lawn. We were chatting to them the other evening (are you surprised? I thought not!) and we realised that the six littlies arrived on Christmas Eve.

Peta and her brood. (Pics thanks to Rob)

Farewell Billy Boy.

Today is not a good day in our house.

If you like sad stories with happy endings, then stop reading now! This is a happy story with a sad ending. I shall explain.

A few months ago we noticed a bright blue flash of bird around our feeding pole. Then for days, nothing. Then the flash of blue again a few days later, and finally we saw... a budgie! Bright blue and turquoise, he had obviously escaped from either a cage or an aviary and had managed to find our 'Roadhouse' where there was food, water, fruit and sugar water freely available. He was not tame, but he did allow us to get fairly close, and he would perch on the antenna wire and 'chat' to the insulator.

Billy drinking the sugar water.

We had no intention of trying to catch him as he was happy as a free spirit and mingled with the other birds in the garden. We felt sad for him in that he had no 'friend' and even thought about getting another one to turn loose, but there was no guarantee that a second one would stay with him and then there would be two loose and lonely budgies!

Kuifkopvisvanger!

Yesterday we had our first 'trundle' of the year!

We stayed very close to home over the Silly Season, we much prefer sitting on our veranda and being quite lackadaisical (aka lazy!) to coping with crowds, no parking, and queues everywhere. So, now we are back to normal, we decided to do a recce of a caravan park on a working farm close to us, and, most importantly, dog friendly!

Speaking of dog, we first had to bath our boy as he had rolled in something quite foul and was not fit to be in the car, let alone meet new people! So, one quivering (but clean and sweet smelling) dog later, off we set.

Clean yes, but for how long?

Our Wildlife Just Got Wilder!

We have waved goodbye to all the visitors, taken a deep breath and listened to the silence of our little village settling into normality again. We grinned at the north-bound traffic pulling trailers and piled high with bicycles and children and we smiled and waved as they stared at us for the last time as they drove past our house kicking dust in our eyes!

We had a lovely visit from Rob's daughter Angie who was wheelchair bound due to operations on both her feet, so Vanessa was the driver, porter, coffee maker and wheelchair-pusher! Alfie was delighted to see them and became quite lazy at walk time! At one stage, Basil was quite keen on joining Alfie, but that would have been pushing his luck.

Alfie enjoying a ride!