We have had unreliable internet so the previous post took a couple of days to get it out there!. Some of the pictures below might remind you of the last James Bond film!!!

Greetings from Southern Italy! Weather is like an English summer day!! A few pictures below including the train that took us to Lecce ! Hopefully more in the next day or two! The sculpture is of an olive tree more on olives later!

The aftermath of yesterday’s rain has left loads of standing water everywhere. I ventured to Wick Court this morning and the moat was completely full covering the stones at the side completely so my grey wagtail we have seen the last two weeks has nowhere to go!

The cricket from Pakistan is a run fest (low scoring games are usually more interesting). You have to take your hat off to Joe Root now the highest scoring English Test batsman! Some of his cover drives and Harry Brook’s were exquisite to watch!

Blog maybe intermittent over the next few days as we will be in Southern Italy so I can only blog on my phone.

My goodness what an afternoon and early evening here. Torrential downpours that have been unrelenting! Once more the M5 near Bristol has flooded causing traffic chaos in our part of Gloucestershire. Quite a bit of localised standing water all around Frampton! I got a bit of a soaking this morning on my bike when the rain wasn’t so heavy (almost feel nostalgic for this morning!)  I had cycled to see Wild Acres where I have an outdoor gig later this month. Despite the weather really enjoyed seeing the place (will write more on this gig in future blogs!)

Feeling really tired now – we had spent a day and a half down in Exeter playing with our bubbly granddaughter Ellen now 3 (she told me several times). We took her to Killerton (NT property) to play and ride her bike!

Tomorrow night is Book Club and we will be discussing Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North – a contemporary  but harrowing book based on Australian POWs on the Burma Railway. Will be interesting to see where our discussion goes!

Busy day for me on Friday. Long cycle ride with my friend Martin over the tops on a lovely morning. The afternoon I went to celebration of Celia who was a lovely lady and had been our scorer for cricket. It was a lovely but obviously poignant afternoon.

The evening we made our first visit to Bristol Beacon since it had been revamped. It certainly is impressive and the acoustics were good. However, the seats were uncomfortable which was sad after all that upgrade! We watching the farewell tour of the Oysterband who we have seen a few times over the years. We chose Bristol because this gig had the wonderful June Tabor singing with them. Brilliant musicians and June has still got a good voice that complements the band sound brilliantly. A couple of pictures below.

Finally yesterday was my youngest son’s  birthday! So we joined Pete and family doing the steam train from Cheltenham to Broadway, having a great lunch and then a great playtime in a super park. My grandsons were thoroughly enthralled and so were we!

It has been a difficult week which now sounds like it might be getting better so I have not felt like blogging!

I did have a lovely day at Wick Court yesterday with young people bird watching and we saw a good mix of birds. I was with them again tonight story telling.

I was involved in a BTO gull count for two hours till dusk last night. The number of gulls going over was disappointing I only spotted 300+ birds I was expecting thousands! However, I saw plenty of other birds while there including the kestrel in the picture below. Also had 50+ swallows on their way! I did manage to see our osprey (well the one in Frampton) earlier in the week as well! Some pictures of the sunset below.

Good to see some old friends this morning one of whom is a regular reader of this blog!!!!