Catching up.

So much for my new year resolution...looking back I said that I'd photograph and describe my finished bits and pieces as soon as they were finished. Mmm....well that didn't happen so I'm back to having to do a little catch-up again.

But before I get on to knitting, look at this



It was left for us as a little "thank you" present from our neighbour's sister after she and her family had stayed in our house at Christmas time. It looks lovely doesn't it? But what you don't know is it was filled with totally tdf chocolates - eaten before they could be photographed (sorry) and more than that, the box and lid were entirely chocolate too!!



The box didn't last long either..




It had a little label saying it was made by "Patisserie Ayrole", our favourite chocolatier in Chinon and home of another speciality of the area - the delicious tarte vigneronnes. Ok, it's an apple tart but made special with a Chinon wine jam glaze and crunchy caramelised pastry base - extra special.


We didn't only eat chocolate and tart this Easter! We did lots of walking - knees, hips and backs permitting-



We loved walking along the little tracks and lanes with our grandchildren and there like here the season was well advanced with lots of blue skies and hot sunshine so there were bumper crops of dandelion seed heads that seemed to have appeared magically overnight.

But what we were all looking for was the hoopoe. A very striking bird with a rather strange monotonous cry-in fact cuckoo-like in its monotony and in its signalling of Spring but unlike the cuckoo its appearance is quite striking. I'm not sure about copyright issues so I shall just give you a wikipedia link to its photograph so you can see for yourselves.

At the end of the holiday everyone but me had seen it at least once. Hopefully when we are next there he will be too as he's a Summer visitor like the cuckoo, so I may be lucky.

The other Summer visitor arrived a week after us - in fact during the first week of April and after that we heard him singing each night .

It was a nightingale.

We were able to make an absolutely definitive identification by comparing his song with the nightingale recording on the RSPB site. And when there was only one bird song in the sky it was easy. He sang every night from about midnight until 6am-ish. And as we became familiar with the song we were able to distinguish it from the other bird's songs in the daytime. But we never saw it.

Knitting next time....