Ivel river walk

Ivel river walk, a set on Flickr.

At last the rain and storms have stopped. However much I know we need the rain I was very pleased to see the sun today.

After having a coffee with Alice and Pete at lunch time I decided to go for a walk a long the river Ivel. Pete kindly escorted me as I'd not walked north along the river before. In fact the path leading north is much better kept than the other one.

We also walked to the site of the Biggleswade castle. A castle that was forgotten by history; no records of a castle at Biggleswade exist but geo phys type stuff identified the earth works which would have been where the castle was.

The excitement down the river today was a fallen tree. It must have come down in the storms. Whist I was photographing it two environmental agency people turned up to inspect it.

We also met a lady walking her dog who stopped to talk to us about an old wall I was photographing. She said it was at a place where coal had been unloaded from barges at an inn. Horses were kept in the stables at the inn which the wall could have been part of.

Tomorrow I am off to Luton to take part in a radio show for BBC 3 Counties radio. I'll blog about that later in the week.

Yet more cats in the garden pictures

Yet more cats in the garden pictures, a set on Flickr.

I apologise for the repetitive nature of my photos lately but the weather has been nothing but rain, hail and storms. When we do get a break it's often in the evening and I don't have time to go out, so I have to use what I have to hand, which is the garden and the cats!

Today our first cherry blossoms flowered. As leaves had already begun to unfurl I had thought we wouldn't get blossom this year. We've only had the tree a year so I wasn't disappointed if it it didn't flower. But there are tiny white buds all over the tree and the most delicate blossom emerging from them.

I'm going to walk along the river soon - weather permitting with my camera to hopefully get photos of the swans, ducks and geese.

It was Jason's birthday today. Sadly he had to work and then had a horrendous journey home tonight. When h got in Id made him a birthday cake and peanut butter cookies which hopefully made up for his difficult day.

Theatre weekend

My parents came to stay on Saturday so we could all go to see Noises Off at the theatre on Saturday afternoon for Jason's birthday. Noises Off has just moved to the Novello theatre but has kept most of it's cast including Celia Imrie. I haven't laughed so much in ages, it was a truly magnificent performance. There's a review here from the Guardian from 4th April. We also managed to fit in a lovely lunch at Cafe Rouge and a dinner at the Stratton Hotel in Biggleswade.

Yesterday was a rather quiet day at home, my parents left fairly early so missed the hail and thunder storms that we had in the afternoon. The cats did not like the thunder one bit, poor things. We spent most of the day watching DVDs and TV. A real lazy Sunday.

Today I caught up with the latest dark Scandinavian BBC4 drama The Bridge on the iPlayer. It's not quite the first season of the Killing but it's up there as one of the best opening episodes to a crime drama I've seen.

Friday photos

Happy Salmon's photostream on Flickr.

Its been a tough week. Since my visit to Moorfields I've been taking my eye drops and trying to find ways to cope with my new vision problems. The good news is I think the eyedrops are working as some of the blurriness seems to be going.

As there's been nothing but rain all week I've been stuck indoors and not able to take as many photos as I'd like. But tonight I went out to take some pictures in the garden and of the stormy skies.

My parents are coming to stay tomorrow so I've been getting the spare room aired and even put some lovely flowers in there. I'm a good daughter :-)