For The Past Few Days,

I had noticed that the 2 jays were not eating the peanuts on the window sill,

 and now I know why, they had copied the blackbirds and were eating peanuts from the ground,

 in the aquarium we now have had a number of baby shrimps, and looking at this one with her eggs, we will be having a few more next week, this is a red rili shrimp, (Neocaridina davidi), and the good news is that one each of the bumblebee and cherry shrimps have eggs,

 the peace of the morning was shattered by this,

 and then a long pole with an attachment appeared in the window,

 it was the gutter and drain cleaning crew, doing their yearly rounds,

 we watched a few game shows in the afternoon, then time for our evening meal, a salmon salad, with many thanks to Steve and Kai for the home grown radishes,

 taking the plates into the kitchen, I noticed the fox was waiting,

 so out with the peanuts,

 in the evening at 8.00 we were all outside,

along with the neighbours, clapping and banging saucepans, back indoors one from Poirot, 

then our film for the evening, Robert the Bruce, not Bruce the victorious, but Bruce the beaten, the story revolves about his early defeats and his subsequent hiding from fellows Scots who were out for his reward, as he struggled through injuries and winter, quite watchable if a tad slow, happily as the film finished a late night New Tricks began, after that as the midnight hour approached we were off to bed.

After Posting The Blog,

doing my morning exercises, and taking a shower,

 it was time for breakfast, we had a quiet day, reading the latest on the lockdown, and seeing if today's expert on the worldwide crisis was more or less knowledgeable than yesterdays expert, 

 in the evening time for a sherry,

 a starter tonight of pork pate with sourdough bread,

 'Cheers!',

Diana took this photograph of me when I was miles away, 

 for our main course beef stew and dumplings, delicious!

 another 'Cheers!', 

 whe Diana was in the kitchen she mentioned one of the fox's was back, 

 they are starting to train me well,

 when they have eaten all of the peanuts they sit down and wait for me to throw some more, we then decided on our usual 3 games of cribbage, the score ended up at 3 - 0, I will not say who won, but Diana lost,

 on to desserts, Diana's favorite, sticky toffee pudding with fresh cream,

 which rounded off the meal nicely,

having a look in the aquarium, one of the shrimps had shed it's outer shell, we normally listen to music for the rest of the evening but today decided on 2 films, 

firstly Battle of the River Plate, or as it sometimes known,

 Pursuit of the Graf Spee, a true story that really happened and as far as I can tell it stuck pretty close to what really happened, for the actual story have a look here, it is an interesting read,

to round the evening off, Mary Queen of Scots, a interesting film again, 

but not a patch on the 1971 original, but still entertaining to watch, with the end of that we were then off to bed.

During The Afternoon,

we watched a couple of films,

both black and white, firstly The Sound Barrier, a great Boys Own story, and that is what it is, we often accuse films for distorting the truth, and this one is no exception, but fun to watch,

we followed that with what was a true story for the most part, a long forgotten film, Battle For The V1, it follows a mostly true story of how heroic Polish resistance fighters found and sent information on what was going on at the Peenemunde rocket research laboratories, to give you some idea of how important the information was that was passed on by the Polish resistance, the UK's Bomber Command in the first raid sent 596 aircraft - 324 Lancasters, 218 Halifaxes, 54 Stirlings -- which dropped nearly 1,800 tons of bombs on Peenemunde; 85 per cent of this tonnage was high-explosive, Bomber Command's losses were 40 aircraft - 23 Lancasters, 15 Halifaxes and 2 Stirlings. This represents 6.7 per cent of the force dispatched but was judged an acceptable cost for the successful attack on this important target on a moonlit night, a interesting movie that many seem to have forgotten,

 on a happier note, time for my evening pre-meal sherry,

 mussels in garlic for our starters,

 followed by our main course,

 pork chop with all of the trimmings,

 ah! the last of the birthday cake,

'Cheers!',  

 after Diana gave the ground cover plants a hair cut yesterday, today I clean the aquarium glasses, inside and out,

looking down from above we can now see some of the shrimps, we spent the rest of the evening listening to music, with just one New Tricks before we were off to bed.

Over The Past Few Weeks,

one of the orchids has been producing a flower spike,

a  big one,

 having measured it the stem is over 2 foot long, 

 there are 2 of them in fact, the orchid is known as a Pacific sun spots orchid, (Oncidium catatante), which we bought on a day out to McBean's orchid farm,

also looking like it was going to flower, 

 was one of Diana's succulents, 

 I have no idea of what the flower will look like,

 saying there was one, in fact two were flowering, we had a quiet day indoors, just watching a few television programs, 

 in the evening our meal,

 pate to start, 

 Diana mentioned the fox was waiting for food,

 so I threw a few peanuts for him,

much to the annoyance of the crow,

 he did not move from the lawn,

 and chased the crow and magpie off,

 next I tempted the fox with a couple of slices of ham, but quick as a flash the crow was down and grabbed them both!

 I then realised we had three foxes visiting the garden, the one that was here now, the one with the white on the tail,

 and this one, that had a bad case of mange,

 on to our main course, beef stew,

'Cheers!',

strawberries, meringue and cream for dessert,

 Diana decided the aquarium needed a haircut,

 so scissors out, 

 some of the ground cover plants had grown a little tall, so a trim was needed,

 whilst throwing the odd bits of plant away, I noticed the fox was back waiting for some peanuts,

 trim over, one of the red bee or crystal red shrimps was out, 

 time for a Jamaican coffee,

 with a Dominican rum to finish, 'Cheers!' we listened to music for the rest of the evening, I had bought a few CDs and added them to our play list, some of the ones I had bought were Holst, The Planets, a collection of classics and a 3 CD set SKA, which still seems to be popular today, as the midnight hour approached we were off to bed.