Live life outdoors

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day, and for me it certainly has been; but in a very awesome way. I got up this morning at 0200hrs as I wanted to kayak down the River Stour to Christchurch Harbour and watch the sunrise. To make sure I didn’t waste any time this morning I loaded the car up last night so when my alarm went off it was a simple case of get up, grab my shorts and shirt, give Mary a kiss and head out the door. Driving across the forest at such an early hour was wonderful, dipping in and out of pockets of mist and being enchanted by the wildlife. There were vixens out with their cubs, gentle fallow deer pattering across the road and lots of bunnies; everything from little one fluffs up to big four fluffs. Just as an aside a fluff is the official bunny measurement in the Flynn household! Seeing so many rabbits this morning was brilliant given how widespread rhdv2 ( Rabbit Haemmorhagic disease variant 2 ) is at the moment. Once at Iford I quickl...

How much fun can you fit into one Easter weekend? The answer is "a lot!" The weekend started with a roadtrip to Cricklade with my mum to go and see the fritillaries in the Nature Reserve there. This one meadow has 80% of the country's Snake Head Fritillary population and is an incredibly beautiful spectacle! When you look across the meadow there is a purple haze from the sheer number of flowers, then when your eyes adjust you can then begin to focus in on the individual flowers and see the intricate patterns on the petals, some like chequerboards. After our roadtrip it was back home and time to launch The Saucy Nancy III and Katie Kayak. Our first paddle was from Marchwood up to the Redbridge Causeway and back with my big brother (best brother ever). We went up on a rising tide and it was our plan to get under all three bridges ( a rail bridge, road bridge and the old stone foot bridge) to the landward side which we did. After a short break we were back...