Wednesday 20th and catch up

No further babies, but brood-crazy Billie-Jean is still sitting on a clutch of eggs. From all I read in the forum, a duck hell-bent on breeding will sit on small apples, light bulbs, fir cones .... anything egg shaped. I'd better keep an eye on those eggs, I've heard they can turn black and explode creating an unimaginable stink!

I put down breakfast dishes for the mummies and for the babies - they didn't care which was which, they dived into both:

With all the excitement over the babies I've skipped over one or two things from the end of last week. There was our village Jubilee Celebration combined with the Viscount Beaumont School Summer Fête on Saturday, which was a great success in spite of the weather and for which I baked cakes [the Bienenstich turned out to be particularly popular]:

I never got around to taking photos on Saturday during the fête, but a friend of ours printed a few out for us. Didn't the children and parents do well to brave the horrible weather and do their parade from the King's Arms pub to the school? The sun did come out a little later, all the stalls and exhibits were visited well, a vast amount of food and drinks on offer was consumed, the dance band was truly excellent - all in all it was a great occasion to bring our wide-spread village together and the fête was hugely enjoyed by everyone.

Even the float lorry was in
red,white and blue.

The Friday before the Fête we had the most violent hail storm, the fiercest I've witnessed. Don't know where the ducks hid during it, I only saw them when it was nearly all over:

That same Friday morning I made the mistake of leaving the netting to the baby enclosure open with a bowl of spaghetti and other goodies [intended for the 13 in the shed] standing just outside. Both Billie-Jean and Gertie dived into it, followed by the then four little ones, who happily gobbled up everything their mummies dropped. And before I could stop them the two big girls went into the pond for a swim and the babies went in after - so they've had their first swim!

I was still panic stricken because of the one baby that drowned in the food bowl for the grown-ups, so I shunted the babies to the shallow end of the pond and they got out very well. I've not let them out there since, but pretty soon - if there are no more hatching - I'll let all 8 out to enjoy a swim [under supervision].

Annie, you mentioned that you thought the biggest white duckling was very similar to Jedda, but I think this little one that drowned and escaped on its very first day was more like him:

To my mind it looks a bit like Joseph did as a youngster [remember, the "green goddess"?], apart from the dark head:

On the other hand, in this photo from the first day the one you're on about has darker markings on tail and back than Joseph did. Oh well, we shall find out soon enough what they'll all look like, they grow up only too soon!

After all the wet we've had and then a bit of sunshine the garden has literally exploded into growth, we can't cope! John has done a fantastic amount of mowing, hedge trimming, planting and weeding - I've only done a little bit [like filling a wheel barrow in 10 minutes].