Day 212 - July 31st

Another butterfly photo today, but a Peacock Butterfly this time and also I got two for the price of one. LOL

They were quite happy to be photographed so here's a few more shots I liked.

Day 211 - July 30th

No inspiration today so I resorted to the garden again.

I've also been tagged by Deb.

I have to :

1. Collect the book that is most handy

2. Turn to page 161

3. Find the 5th complete sentence

4. Cite the sentance on my blog

5. Pass the tag onto 5 other blogging friends

I have two books lying in the spare room ready to take on holiday. The one on the top was 'The King of Lies' by John Hart. I read one of John Hart's books, 'Down River' last year and now have this one to read. And the 5th complete sentance on page 161 reads

"Yeah, yeah, The fifteen million."

And I'm going to tag:

Lynn

Linda

Jakey

Sarah

Sheena

Day 210 - July 29th

Today started off dry but later the rain started. So todays photos is of Raindrops on Roses. I feel a song coming on .............

Day 209 - July 28th

Tonight we went on our second geocache hunt. We knew roughly where the cache was and after a few minutes hunting around in some undergrowth we found it. Steven is becoming particularly good at spotting the containers and he was the one that found tonights. It was a cute piggy shaped container inside a camouflage bag and the children choose a small keyring torch from the goodies inside.

Day 208 - July 27th

The children all have new trainers in readiness for the holiday. Luckily none of then are into brands apart from Lara who insisted hers were High School Musical.

Day 207 - July 26th

This afternoon we visited Cadwell Farm at Ickleford the home of Hitchin Lavender. Visitors can stroll through the miles of rows of lavender and pick their own lavender bunches. They even give you bags and lend you scissors to help. Its such a beautiful place - we could have been in the south of France.

There was an article in the Daily Mail about the place earlier this month. You can read it here.

Day 206 - July 25th

Today is father-in-laws birthday so hubby decided that he and the children were going to bake him a cake. Watching and listening to them was like watching a carry on film! Carry on Baking! But, the cake did get made and it actually looks OK, so a job well done. My photo for today is Christopher helping Lara.

Although I also like this one of Steven taking a sneaky taste of the cake mixture.

Day 205 - July 24th

Our garden seems to be void of plants that attract butterflies so I've eagerly been waiting for this Buddleia to flower. Lo and behold the Buddleia flowers and the butterflies appeared. :0) I always assume that these butterflies are Red Admirals but no! According to Lara's 'Usborne Spotter Guide to Urban Wildlife' it's a Painted Lady Butterfly. I live and learn.

Day 204 - July 23rd

Another school summer holiday photo today. I managed to capture a rare moment - all three kids playing together. They were on the trampoline engrossed in a game with a ball so I snapped them from an upstairs window whilst they were not looking.

Day 203 - July 22nd

We rediscovered a mini-diablo this afternoon that Steven received at Christmas. It proved quick tricky to get it spinning but surprisingly Lara was the one who had the most success. Perhaps because it was a mini-diablo and she's quite 'mini' it was more her size.

Day 202 - July 21st

Today the local council's 'Play Rangers' came to the village. They bought a trailer full of games, sports equipment and craft materials for the children to play with at the playing field so I took Lara along. She met up with lots of her friends from school and the rain actually stayed away for the couple of hours we were there. She had a great time and it didn't cost a penny.

Day 201 - July 20th

First day of the summer holidays and we went to the library. Lara wanted to take part in The Summer Reading Challenge so we signed her up, got her Quest Seekers activity pack and returned home with a stack of books to be read over the holidays. As soon as we got home she settled herself on the sofa with books and began.

Day 200 - July 19th

Feeling uninspired today. :(

This clematis is flowering for what I think is the second time this year.

Day 199 - July 18th

We went for a walk over the fields this evening. We are lucky in that our village has a good network of footpaths and bridleways so there are plenty of different places to go. Steven and Lara had great fun hiding in the long grass pretending to be wild cats!

Day 198 - July 17th

Today was the last day of the school year and so the 7 weeks school summer holiday begins. Not the most imaginative or exciting photo.

Day 197 - July 16th

A visit to my Dad's orchid greenhouse provided todays photo. He asked my to take a photo of this one 'cos he's particularly proud of it. Apparently its a White Egret Orchid, a rare Japanese orchid. It's called an 'Egret' orchid because the flowers are like a miniature birds.

Day 196 - July 15th

The lawn is covered in clover but with the clover come the bees. You have to be careful where you step. I'm getting quite brave at taking photos of bees as my camera and therefore my hands were quite close to this chap.

Day 195 - July 14th

Thanks to another 365er (Deb) today we did something new!

I've been admiring Deb's daily photos many of which have been of beautiful scenery taken whilst she's been geocaching. I had read about geocaching on UKScrappers before but Deb really inspired me to give it a go. So, having told hubby about it and persuading him last night to download a geocaching application for his iphone and registering with a geocaching website, tonight we all went out in search of three caches in out local area. We managed to find two of the three and the children in particular were really thrilled especially as one of them contained some goodies. From the selection of bits and pieces in the container we choose a geocaching button badge and replaced it with one of the dinosaur shaped eraser we had taken with us (being novices unsure if that was OK). Judging from the geocaching website others had failed to find the one that we had been unsuccessful in locating so we think that perhaps it had been removed at sometime. Never-the-less, we had a great time and are now planning where our next hunt will take us.

Day 194 - July 13th

Finished an altered lunch tin as an end of school year present for my daughters teacher. I've filled it with school supplies - pens, pencils, sticky notes, reward stickers, etc..



I used papers from the 'Teacher's Pet' range by Imaginisce, some BasicGrey letter stickers and ribbons from my stash.

Day 193 - July 12th

Today was forecast to be wet, but actually turned out to be a lovely sunny day. A little breezy but sunny and warm. This afternoon we decided to go the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park again. The Park is centered on the 'Brickfields', an area of existing and former clay pits stretching ten miles between the M1 motorway and the southern fringe of Bedford and includes Stewartby Lake. Back in the 1930s, Stewartby Lake was a clay pit and it remained so for some 30 years, until it was no longer required. Ten years later it was filled with water and the beginnings of a leisure facility were born. As well as the lake the Millennium Country Park comprises a Wetland Reserve and surfaced cycle, pedestrian and horse trails. Steven and Lara cycled round the lake whilst the rest of us walked.

There were lots of plants and wild flowers to photograph

..... lots of blackberries coming on

and even wildlife to spot..........

I googled this caterpillar when we got home. Apparently its a Cinnabar Moth Caterpillar which although common and widespread, its numbers are rapidly declining.

I think this rabbit was poorly. We were about 8-10ft from it but it didn't move a muscle apart from an occasional twitch of its nose.

Day 192 - July 11th

Today started out very showery but after it had brightened up and dried up we decided to go for a walk over the fields. We walked down a footpath that I probably hadn't walked down for 30+ years and ended up taking a wrong turning done a very overgrown path and then had to retrace our steps back to the beginning. Lara moaned virtually all the time because the grass kept scratching her legs so all in all it wasn't the most peaceful of walks. It was good to get out though and I managed to take some different photos. The photo of the corn will be my photo for today although it was a tough choice.