As the title says I have been out and about quite a bit! The pictures above are from Yeo Valley Organic Garden we visited on Thursday- we got quite wet at the end! I took by binoculars and saw about 500+ swifts flying low over Chew Valley Lake.

Thursday evening was storytelling with young people from Clapham at Wick Court. 

I will put yesterday’s visit in a blog tomorrow with pictures!

I am just about to cycle (and it is wet again) to tell stories at the GL11 Community Project in Cam. I may end up there in a dishevelled and damp state!

Yes the figure hunched over his bat is me!!!! I know the stance isn’t great! Yesterday all our four Gloucestershire Over 60s teams won their games! In three of them 100s were scored- I wasn’t one of them!!! However, I managed my troops to what turned out to be a comfortable victory over Warwickshire and was chuffed with my fielding (several diving stops and a catch).

Delighted with the birds in our garden at the moment with so many young birds around. We are getting around 15 different species a week turning up that land somewhere, so I can’t count the swallows and martins over. We are also hearing oystercatcher, tern and cuckoo frequently.

Off to bird watch with young people at Wick Court later and have our Book Club BBQ tonight – we are discussing Small Things Like These – a provocative and beautifully written book.

Really been struggling with hay fever over the weekend. I am allergic to long grasses and with everything that has been encouraged by no mow May I can’t get away from grasses! I think it is a good thing environmentally to let grass grow  but not good for me!!! So yesterday was a quiet inside day- struggled to do anything! Today has been all action doing many errands all over the place!

Looking forward to my cricket tomorrow – we are playing Warwickshire here in my village (it makes a change not to travel to a game!!!!

Thoroughly enjoyable day yesterday at Frocester Cricket Club where we put out two teams against Australian tourists. Both games epitomised the spirit of friendship through sport. My team lost narrowly and we won the other game. I even had a bowl and took a wicket and had a dropped catch as well! As captain I was presented a wonderfully garish tour shirt- perhaps I will post a picture at some point.

I am Story Telling at Wick Court tomorrow.

A poignant day as we mark the anniversary of D-Day and the pictures from Normandy were very moving. I was sent the following poem today.

Queuing for an Ice Cream

although he didn’t smoke grandad never went anywhere without the old tobacco tin in his pocket one day me and my brother asked him what he kept in it                      some sand, grandad said

why do you keep some sand in a tobacco tin, we asked                                              where else would I keep it, he said

but why keep sand at all we asked  it’s special sand, grandad said it’s come all the way from France

we peered into his tin and stared  for a while      French sand didn’t look very special, it looked like ordinary sand to us

why’s it so special, we asked                                                                                             each grain represents an old friend of mine, he said

grandad must of have had a lot of friends, we thought                                                        did you go to the beach with them when you were a boy, we asked

yes, something like that, grandad said, snapping the lit shut,                                             asking the man for three 99s, two with red sauce

by Brian Bilston

I led my intrepid team to Somerset yesterday to play what is usually a keenly contested cricket match- sadly this one wasn’t1 I won the toss and inserted them on a green pitch and then watched them amass over 300 runs- several dropped catches of the highest scoring batsmen didn’t help! We didn’t get anywhere near! Still I have Friday’s game against the Aussies to look forward to.

I returned to Wick Court today to take young people from Southwark bird watching. Nothing out of the ordinary but they were fascinated when I told them about swifts  ( we saw a few) staying in the air for two or three years! I am Story Telling there tomorrow night and again at the open day on Sunday. Wick Court is a Farm for City Children and children spend a week on the farm- poster below and all are welcome!

I am performing at another open day the following Saturday for GL11.

I mentioned I was jealous that the house martins were building a nest next door-see above! It didn’t take long to build it. Don’t think she has laid any eggs yet. A slightly fussy picture of a linnet below.

It has been a frustrating day here – been suffering with hay fever all day so have felt pretty washed out! Hoping I will be ok for tomorrow’s cricket we are away to Somerset. I am also captaining a Senior’s side against an Australian touring team on Friday.

Saw this fish (Don’t tell him your name Pike!) on our walk this morning. I was looking for Hobbies but despite there being plenty of dragonflies there were none over the lake. Lots of goslings on the grass!

The Ross’s Goose still near Court Lake!

Final picture I took a couple of days ago of the song thrush!

A lovely Gloucestershire  morning. I pedalled up Frocester Hill to meet Clare and her friends for a wild flower walk on the top. Some pictures from this morning below. Also managed to see a lesser whitethroat.

I was miffed to see house martins building a nest on my neighbours house- I have had a house martin nest box on almost exactly the same place on our house for a few years and the martin’s have never shown any interest! So I am jealous!

Our walk was rounded off with a splendid pub lunch!

Last Thursday of the month is the time of our bird survey out by the river. We saw plenty of different species although nothing unexpected. We thought the lapwings and the redshank had young the way they kept flying up when other birds were over. We didn’t want to disturb the birds and steered well clear of that area. A couple of swifts flew low over our heads. The skylarks were busy and again we thought we had located a nest. I think skylarks trilling epitomise spring and summer.  The pictures below apart from the swift are what I took this morning all a bit distant- a reed bunting, greenfinch, a goldfinch, and a deer!