Easter Visit - fourth day

Tuesday started off sunny, but cold.  Michael came out with his camera while I was seeing to the ducks, I'll put in some of his great pictures:

 

Candida and Hedda are in the water while I'm still filling the buckets and Captain is standing to attention....

                                     ... and Lane and Anke are already on their way to the field.

This photo of Michael's looks back towards the bottom hut and pond.  The two dead twigs in the
foreground are the remnants of my beloved "Daisy Bush" which was killed in the severe winter of 2010/11.

At the hut near the house our 10 came out as orderly as ever, ladies first, nothing like the wild exit our previous lot used to do. Notice the nice muddy ground?

 
















In proper ducky fashion the drakes stand by while the four ducks dive into the nearest bowl of breakfast goodies, after that it's a free-for-all.

Both groups of ducks having been seen to we set off for Beacon Hill for our walk.  The sun was out, but there was a chill wind which was really fierce when we were up on the trig point.  We were well wrapped up and Pine had borrowed one of my hats - which she looked great in!








                Just setting off from the car park.

I'm trying to hold on to my hat while checking if the camera, set to self-timer, had not been swept off its perch.

This is my favourite photo of the visit, I think it's a real good one.  John is pointing out the views which are great in all directions - here are some more:

                                      The arrow in this photo points to the Carillion in Loughborough.

At the point where, on one of our previous walks, we'd seen aeroplanes being shaped out of tree trunks, we now saw a lot of benches being made out of them:

Two engineers appreciating the work.

We saw some of the Alpacas, but no pigs could be seen at the farm.  

 

 And we were absolutely delighted to see some bluebells out - the normal time for them is the end of April.

 
 

On our way back to the car park I messed up the position of the camera for the self-timed shot, so I've inserted that group picture into the volcanic rock scene where it was taken.  For the final picture on Beacon Hill I wanted to get all three of them on with the Beacon in the background, but Pine is much like Annie in that she tries her best to get out of shot.  She was backing away step by step, but I was faster backing with the camera and got her on, see below:

Pine takes great pictures, lots of hers are in this blog.  From the start of travelling around in England she developed a passion for features she doesn't see in Germany, like stone walls, interesting gates, and      CHIMNEYS!  Because of this, John took us through his home town of Ibstock on our way back from the Beacon where he knew there lots of interesting chimneys.  Here are some of those Pine photographed ......

 

 ....... and she also saw an interesting gate which looked like the entrance to a secret garden:

Back home we saw that the strong winds had blown our new solar lamp into a corner and the silver balls into the frog pond.  In this picture Pine is going to try and fish them out again.

We had hoped to pick up fish&chips on our way back home, but they were closed.  So we cooked a quick curry with left over turkey and accompanying cucumber cooler.

There seem to be rather a lot of photos in this entry, so I'll put the afternoon's pictures into the next blog.