of chocolate & falcons....

The first bird was up & singing extremely loudly at 3.48 this morning. It sounded as though it was right outside the window? It was promptly joined by all the others trying to out sing each other. By 4.20 they had gone back to sleep & everything was quiet once more. Peace & harmony returned but my sleep pattern disturbed.

Once day time proper, so to speak, began things seemed to go a tadge bumpy for most of the morning. The shop answerphone died very badly yesterday so needed replacing pronto, the new one, [care of amazon & next day delivery], arrived, so that involved setting it up, programming it with all the phone numbers, answerphone message & other such geeky stuff. Then when the phone did ring everyone fought to answer the pesky thing. Telephones l find annoying at the best of times, they always seem to ring at the most inopportune times, with questions like' do you have any vacancies for this weekend?' ' NO' or 'are you open today?'...'er - yes'.

Other visitors this morning came in the form of our local regional food group lady who filled us in on all the relevant info for this weekend's food festival. We are being sited next to the exit from the food theatre, so if l have a moment spare[huh fat chance] l just might be able to sneak under the tarpaulin if no one is looking! They are expecting 13,000 visitors. Help, that's going to mean one hell of a lot of scooping folks, I'll have a right arm like Popeye! I'm doing the Sunday stint by the way. Harry, hubby & geo are on the Monday rota.

You'll be pleased to hear that the chocolate ice cream has all been made, all 300ltrs of the lovely stuff. Harry even managed to show a group of CIEH Advance Food Hygiene students [suitably kitted up in whites & natty blue hairnets] the intricacies of ice cream manufacture. This morning they were making 120ml pots & this afternoon it was the 4ltr napolis.

Today, finely it has felt something more akin to summer, blue sky AND warmer temperatures, this brought with it groups of pensioners out for an afternoon drive who just happen to pass here for a cup of tea, loo stop & off course an ice cream, we even had the minibus from the Special Needs Centre who are regulars.

The final details of the Hawk Walk have now been sorted out & put into place with a visit from Hawk Man this evening. He's going to bring 4 birds & conduct the walk with Arthur the eagle owl. The chap is more than happy to organise the event himself & is as l blog surveying the area for points of interest with his Lanner falcon. Exciting or what. l saw Jemima Parry Jones fly one at the Game Fair years ago, boy did that bird motor!