Green house girls

This winter my friend Claire and I have made it our mission to walk all the Green Lanes in Guernsey and yesterday we headed down one towards the south coast that neither of us had done before.  In an island this small it is amazing how often that can happen!  Well this lane ran along side an old green house, now sadly there are alot of empty ones here, but that wasnt the case, but it did take us by surprise.

It was full of cows!  Neither of us had ever seen that before, but what a sensible idea, it would be toasty warm in there over winter, the cows had loads of space, and it was only a short walk down the grassy lane to the cliff top fields. Cow Heaven.

Thank you Claire for taking the photos on her phone as I had left mine in the car.

What is the strangest thing you have seen a green house being used for?  And you can have wedding reception - sorry!  That's what Chris and I did ;-)

My birds are ready to fly!

As I was chatting about in greedy gannets as few weeks ago, I have been focusing a lot this spring on sea birds that call the Channel Islands home.  I wanted to choose birds with very distinctive looks, some are easily confused when looking at just their heads,

such as Cormorants and Shags (snigger....), Herring Gulls and Lesser Black backed Gulls etc. 

 In the end I went the Shag as it turns out he is more common in our waters than the Cormorant and has a more impressive quiff!

The Herring Gull, cause he's every where

(especially at 4 am last Tuesday when a huge mob of them were attacking our bin bags, never new they could be quite so loud, it was unbelievable! And not in a good way...)

 And the Gannet, beautiful colouring and very distinctive markings round their eyes and bills.

 I have decided at the moment to only have the Gull and Gannet turned into cards,

who knows the Shag (snigger..) might happen later!

 The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that the birds in the cards are facing a different direction to the original embroideries.... 

 ....that's because the muppet that I am, had wanted the cards to work as a set with the Puffin I did a few years ago, but did I check which way he faced.....no......

All of my cards and new embroideries will be on display down at Arts Sunday tomorrow on the Sea Front, I will be somewhere between the Tourist Information Office and the Weybridge, so please do come and say hello!

Greedy Gannets

My creative mojo is flowing again in stich as well as pen!

I wanted to add to my card range and one of my most popular is the Puffin,

so I have decided to concentrate on local seabirds.

My first to be tackled is the Gannet, an amazing bird that

dives head first into the sea at up to 62 miles an hour! 

Over here you tend to see them more round Alderney,

where you find the aptly named Gannet Rock home to 3% of the worlds population of Gannets.

They really are beautiful birds with very distinctive markings round their bills and eyes, perfect for my sort of embroidery.

But the unusual colouring on the backs of the heads

- very soft yellowy peach blending into the white -

proved impossible to achieve with applique and back stitch.

So I resorted to water colours and very slowly built up the layers of colour.

I don't do a lot of water colour, so I dug out my Mums old box, I love it, its so caked in colours, who knows how old some of the pigments are now, after all she has been gone for 20 years!

Really pleased with how he has turned out, right off to the printers and framers, will keep you posted!

pigeon ambush!

As you are walking down the top of Mill St be warned...

...the pigeons have set up an ambush!!!!

Its an old building that is rather run down and the gutters are blocked and so it makes a perfect bird bath or pigeon spa

So as they are having their morning bath you get your morning shower!!!!!

Criminal Cormorants

Tuesday was an absolutely gorgeous day

 and so we decided to make the most of the evening,

 and headed down to Saints Harbour with the kayak.

 

The sea was like a mirror in the shelter of the bay and we pottered off round the coast,

heading towards Icart Point.

You really get to see the cliffs from a totally different angle, discovering caves and little bays like this one. It has no access from land that I could see, but would be hidden at high tide, you can see the high water line in black running along the rocks.

another advantage of the kayak is its very quiet, so the birds are a lot more approachable.

Must say am rather proud of this evening sun shot.

this cormorant (or it could be a shag, but I can only tell them apart

when they are next to each other as to me it seems to be mainly their size???)

was making the most of the last of the days sun to dry his wings.

On the way back round we managed to creep up on this lot.  We have quite regularly seen cormorants like this, they look very striking and do remind of the opening scene of the original 'Italian Job' when the sports car crashes in the tunnel in the Alps and gets pushed off the mountain by the bulldozer, all the while being watched by this line of blacked suited and hatted Mafia men,

very sinister.

Annoyingly I could not find that image in Google, this was the closest I could get. 

But I am sure that the cormorants weren't having such evil thoughts as those Mafia men!

Then back into the calm of the little harbour

Thanks you Chris for making me get out there, it was brilliant!

Sea swimming and courgette cake

We are in the throes of a beautiful Indian summer, 

but being the end of September alot of tourist businesses are wrapping up for the season.  

One of those is the cafe at Moulin Huet, which is closed after today, 

So a beautiful morning encouraged us up and out for a swim, they were doing a cake and music party at 3, but that was also low tide, and the pull of a high was too great!

Down through the cool, green,, dappled tunnel,

 Till you started getting a glimpse of the Pea Stacks through the trees. 

and out we popped over this rocky, rugged cove, 

that in the past has inspired the greats such as Renoir

Very helpful and actually rather beautiful steps let you easily get down on to the beach.

Had a brilliant swim, it is still so warm, about 18 degrees, 

we pottered around the rocks, rode the swells, chatted with other bathers, tried to swim up on a cormorant and generally just enjoyed a good 20 min swim.  

Sea swimming pushes you so much more than any pool can, the wave, swells and tides challenge you, one moment you seem to be swimming and not moving, then suddenly you surge forward, 

you need to be aware of your surrounding, of the tides, of the weather. 

and boy it makes you feel alive and buzzing.

Thrift clinging on in the most inhospitable places

rats, forgot to bring a blackberrying bag.....

Exercise done, now cake!

How about that for a view from a tea room?

Now don't you agree, chocolate and courgette cake must be good for you?  

Maybe even one of my 5 fruit and veg for the day?  

And boy it was good, not sickly sweet, just moist and chocolaty with a nutty crunch, yum!

There's a lovely tea garden surrounded by a hydrangea hedge, which just encourages you to chill out and relax, like these French girls playing cards in the sunshine, loved their hats.

Though this little chap wasn't relaxing at all, very busy, hopping around, he obviously knew exactly the best places for cake crumbs!

Thank you Moulin Huet tea rooms for all the gorgeous cake this summer, and hope to see you in the Spring!

Happy Easter

Last weekend when we were enjoying our walk round St Saviours, we meet this lovely family.

I don't think I need to say anything, just enjoy!

Happy Easter