Addendum to last week

Michael very kindly sent me some of the photos I seem to have lost:

 
16.7.2013 These two show us waiting for our dinner to arrive.  We were glad of our window seats with view on the lake:

The 3 photos I took of our visitors intent on doing some gardening - they'd even brought their own gloves! They cleaned up the patio at the back of the house on Wednesday evening, 17.7.  We had our grill feast there the next day.

 

Michael  - or Peaneh - must have been a bit vigorous with the big wobbly broom *lol*.  When he tried to secure the handle yesterday the head broke in half!

No, it was riddled with woodworm ...

Michael, since their visit in 2012, had been desperate to try out John's tractor mower and finally got his chance:

Our berry harvests are being processed continuously, both here and in Germany.

Peaneh's mum had sent a big bag of jam sugar with our visitors because she had heard of my disaster with the red currant juice and sugar I burned.  This lot of strawberry/gooseberry jam I made in a few minutes - and it was nearly as delicious as the pot of strawberry jam Peaneh had brought with her!   In the background of the photo you can see the fabulous electric grill.

Peaneh "only" needed 2½ hours to strip the berries off the stalks of the red currants they'd picked on Saturday morning before their departure....

My kitchen this morning, before letting the duckies out.  Eggs for their breakfast are boiling in the saucepan on the stove, on the left of it stands a bowl full of red currant juice filtered through last night and on the island is the jelly bag with the berry pulp filtering the second bowl full.  We managed to strip all the berries off the remaining 1½ bushes - with interruptions saving ourselves and Dotty from the thunderstorms - I think we had about 6 kilos.
In the foreground of the photo stands the large sieve nearly full of raspberries which I picked early this morning off the bushes near Dotty's pool - so I wouldn't scare her while she's out there.  I was really chuffed with her yesterday as she had a brilliant and long preening session standing up.  And when I put in a bowl with fresh water she actually did that snake-like movement that ducks do, diving into the bowl and shaking the water all over themselves, it'll do her eyes good, I think.

While doing the fruit picking yesterday late afternoon I suddenly realized how quiet it was again, just like the day before, no ducky noises at all.  So I mounted a search all around the garden, checking all their favourite hiding places and even looking to see if they'd gone under the stile into the field next door - NOTHING!
Have you checked in the field, John said.  Well, I thought I'd secured the fence at the gate with wire  -  but there, in the distance, about where the 'nature pond' [just a dirty puddle at present] is, I could see a long neck stretching up. AHA!
John drove them back for me and took the two photos below.  When the little tykes arrived at the fence I could see them slipping through in three places, and checking there later I could see that my wires had been broken.  Who does that damage?  So far I've not seen any animal committing that nefarious deed...