Live life outdoors

Oh I do love a Bank Holiday weekend. Just the pure joy of a long weekend so full of potential! So much to do and all the time in the world to do it! Saturday was an absolute cracker. We, Mary and I, headed off to the Garden Centre to get some replacement tomato plants. We had planted some out at the beginning of the month and lost the lot. We think it was a combination of weak plants (we left them in a heated propagator too long and they bolted) and sun scold. Anyway, regardless of what it was we lost the lot. We had some other plants that are doing OK hanging on the fence; even have a couple of fruit on them. I had also bought on some giant plum tomato seeds which I had brought on slowly and had been given a few plants by our friend Emma. We now have 24 plants so fingers crossed we will have a good crop of toms again this year. In the afternoon it was time to go and play pirates with my brother, Paul. As our alter egos, The Wessex Wyverns, we had arranged a Splash Mob – a Ge...

Today was one of those days that I’ll remember for a long time to come! About a week ago I had arranged with some friends and my better half to go kayaking on The Hamble. Yesterday afternoon whilst Mary was busy elsewhere I got the car packed and the kayaks loaded ready for an early start. We set off at 8 ready to meet James and Kiah at Lower Swanick. The sky was blue, and the weather warm. Once at Swanick Mary and I got the kayaks set up (and in the case of The Saucy Nancy II inflated) just as the second Dynamic Duo arrived. We got everyone down to the water and got launched and just chilled for a while whilst our 2 man (person?) team got settled; after a few adjustments and a quick change of paddle we were off. Going up through the marina to start with and then under the bridges (road, rail and motorway).  As we passed the pillars of the M27 bridge we noticed something unusual, there are oysters growing there and some...

I took off to Charmouth yesterday (Saturday) with Emma, a very good friend of mine, to go and walk in the footsteps of Mary Anning and look for some fossils. It was a beautiful day and we took a very leisurely drive down, arriving in plenty of time for the talk and guided walk that was booked. I've never been to Charmouth before, been past it so many times, but never stopped off there. So glad that I have now and will definitely be going back again; and soon! The talk at the Heritage Coastal Centre is very family orientated but no less interesting for that. After the talk it was down to the UNESCO World Heritage Site to see what we could find. Apparently most of the fossils on the beach at Charmouth are the result of a very large cliff fall in 1956. After a slow start we were soon finding lots of bits of belemnites, a type of squid, that lived over 100 million years ago! There is also and incredible amount of sea glass on the beach there as well. As the time...