Robin's Birthday

We took this on Friday afternoon. Anton, El, Jany & the kids came over. It was still +/- 30 deg. & hot, damned hot. Robin was happy though.

Next day (Sat) shot off to Domburg for a day at the beach. Everyone (except Andrew, got a bit sunburned due to unjustified faith in suncream ("only apply once a day!" yeah, right).

Robin helped make one of the two cakes....

More garden

The agapanth's are doing ok - though they're new ones as the others did not really survive the winter very well
Yes - we do have some apples.
The lavatera also in the side border upagainst the street wall (Grassbaan wall)
Meet your friendly neighbour

Beachtime @ Domburg

Some shots from Sat 30 May (Pentecost holiday weekend) from the beach at Domburg. Great day with free activities for the kids. Some shots of Robs, Chris and Steve with the skimboards. Roland and me surveying the situation...Janey taking photos & Rosa chilling.

Front Garden Doing Well

Came upstairs to find Bri standing (!) in the bedroom window.
Asked her not to jump - it wasn't all that bad.
Then discovered she was just taking some shots of the front garden as it is all flowering nicely. Oh well - the insurance money isn't that great anyway...
The pink spirea in the top shot is just full of bumblebees all day long.

Strawberry Harvest

The strawberry plant in the vege garden survived the winter just fine and has now gone bonkers. This was the first harvest - in the meantime we've had several bowlfuls. Some garden netting over the plants has managed to keep the birds away quite well.

Rhubarb is less happy - discovered that they are infested with aphids - so a good dose of bio spray and we'll see if they survive.

Carrots and parsnips busy growing away...

Underneath you see the patio table freshly oiled with linseed oil & turps. Actually quite fun work doing that over the last couple of weekends (scrubbing crud off & rubbing oil in).

28 April Lucca

We had a good look around the other big city in Tuscany (well one of...) Lucca - that still has a lot of the original mediaeval wall surrounding it intact. Great walk and we thought it was more interesting than Pisa.
And of course first opportunity to sample real Italian gelati (ice cream) Yum.

Chris Keeping It Up

Actually there were whole rows of folks striking similar poses and a grumpy guard keeping Japanese tourists off the grss behind Chris.