A week with Michael and Peaneh

They arrived safely late on Monday morning, only a little delayed by road works.  We had pizza for lunch and then went on a tour of the "estate".  Peaneh [I'm writing what Alexandra calls herself this way in the hope that it will help English pronunciation.  It's not 'pine' or 'pain', she derives it from the strip cartoon "Peanuts"] took many great photos of our garden, field and the ducks and I'm putting in just a few of them:


                                              Caught in the act: ducks escaping into the mown field!

Nearly all the young trees in the top field are growing well, we helped them a bit by pulling out grasses and weeds poking out from within the protective sleeves.

                                             From top to bottom, Billie-Jean, Tuts and Ben in the frog pond.

5 of the girls shading from the hot sun. 

On the right, Honey frightened out of her hiding place. 

 

Tuesday lunch had long been booked at my favourite restaurant, the Lakeside in Moira.  We enjoyed great food and afterwards took a walk around the adjoining Shortheath Water fishing lake:

 

 

On Wednesday Michael, Peaneh and myself took part in a 3-hour guided walk around Coleorton while John was at the Luncheon Club managing without me.  This Heritage Walk was part of the Festival of Archaeology and led by Robert Smith, Secretary of our Coleorton Heritage Group.  We started and finished at the King's Arms where we also had lunch afterwards.

  
                                                 

                                                           

After John's return on Wednesday afternoon we took a little trip to Staunton Harold intending to take tea at the nice little café there, but it was so hot and crowded there that we returned home after going around Staunton's garden centre.  John had driven the long way round to Staunton Harold, through the imposing avenue of limes and the grounds of Caulke Abbey, and Michael and Peaneh liked it so much that we went back there
on Thursday late morning:

Deer we only saw from a distance.  While we waited for our very well guided tour around the house Peaneh took lots of photographs of the beautifully adorned drain pipes and chimneys to add to her "collection".
We went around the gardens, and coming back towards the house felt too hot and thirsty to visit the grotto which is now open to visitors, instead we had a quick bite of lunch in the restaurant.

Work is still being done, you can see the scaffolding.  We were amazed to see one
of the workmen curled up on the ground at this corner of the house, fast asleep in the blazing sun.

It had been decided to have a "grill feast" on Thursday afternoon, to start making use of some of the presents M&P had brought with them,  a fantastic electric barbecue and various marinated steaks and sauces. Peaneh baked the potato bread she had prepared the night before and I made a potato salad.

The day before the two of them had cleared our very overgrown patio behind the house from grasses, weeds, ash saplings and huge Valerian of all shades of pink and white.  They now set up the electric grill, tables and chairs and Michael did the grilling.  We definitely had far too much to eat on a lovely, warm afternoon in the shade while watching our ducks coming surreptitiously around the corner of the house - they are a nosey lot!

I was so busy enjoying myself that I quite forgot to take pictures of the feast, and I appear to have lost the 3 photos I took of M&P cleaning up the patio on Wednesday evening.  The place looked like this ...

... and now on a damp Sunday morning it looks like this:

Yes, amazingly it rained during the night and it has been drizzling all morning!

Friday morning, after John returned from showing his brother-in-law the way to Ashby hospital [where his wife is recuperating from a hip operation] we set off for Bradgate Park.  We first parked at one end and walked to the small museum and café where we stopped for a drink and some very nice toasties.

 

Then we walked back and took the car to the opposite end of the park where we saw lots of deer close to, and which was crowded with families paddling in the river and having picnics in the shade.  We walked as far as the ruins of Bradgate House, birthplace of Lady Jane Grey who was queen of England for just 9 days and was executed at the tender age of 16, poor girl.

 

 

On the way home we decided to pay a brief visit to Mount St. Bernhard's Abbey to have a look at their lovely rose garden and browse in the monks' souvenir shop.

On the photos above from Friday afternoon you can see the first few little clouds appearing in a sky that had been cloudless all week with the sun blazing down.

Farewell photos of Peaneh's very handsome bear Bruno who goes everywhere with her, of M&P sitting at the breakfast table, and Peaneh showing the crystal grape puzzle she managed to put together in the wink of an eye, she's such a clever girl.  That puzzle was part of my gifts to John for our crystal anniversary, June 2012!  John had never looked at it, I had tried for several days to put it together in June 2013 and then given it up as a bad job as I convinced myself that part 5 of 50 odd was wrong ......

Saturday morning was remarkably cooler with a cloud cover and the sun only managing to glimpse through now and then. We all went fruit picking in the morning for M&P to take raspberries and red currants home with them, they packed, we had lunch using the fabulous electric grill again for gammon steaks, and at 3 pm they went on their way home - where they've arrived safely now, we've just heard by phone, early afternoon Sunday.

It has been a truly lovely week with the two of them and the weather was unbelievably hot and sunny [it turned to rain last night].
The one upset we had came on Thursday morning when I realized that Bless was the duck that was missing. I had put all three groups to bed the night before, and I had a feeling that there weren't the right numbers that had gone into the shed.  I kept looking around the corner of the garage to see if there was a late comer running up, but no.  I convinced myself that I had counted wrong, after all they're moving around constantly until I shut the door - and when we checked in the morning it was Bless that was missing.  We of course spent ages searching every hidey hole in the garden in the vain hope that she's stopped outside on a nest, but she had ALWAYS gone in at night even when she had made a nest near the house wall.  We debated this way and that, whether it had been a fox [although we have seen no sign of any for months] or whether a dog had killed her and the owner had taken the evidence away or even whether she had been stolen while we were out.  None of it makes any sense, but Bless is certainly gone - and she was the one that almost got killed when the big clamp holding the heating lamp had fallen on her as a baby ....

More sad news from America, my friend Pam had to have her drake Vincenzo put down - Aspergillosis and suspected cancer.  I feel for you, Pam!