Storm Francis Arrives

August

Earlier in the month we took advantage of a beautiful early evening to take the paddle board down to the beach, the tide was coming in and it was dead calm. You could see the jagged rocks beneath you as you paddled out and it was quite spooky how the underwater landscaped changed and the large rock outcrops loomed up from the seabed. This was our second outing at Greencliff on the SUP, the paddle was quietly magical.

Our four fledging swallows from the garage have chosen the worst day to fly. The parents are still coming and going through the broken garage window, but the youngsters are sensibly not yet venturing out, limiting themselves to the eves and pooing on all our belongings. They need to hang out another day before the weather calms.

Lots of welcome visitors

We were so pleased to have friends come and join us this month. Sam’s friend camped in the garden with his two daughters and bravely survived two quite windy, wet nights. They christened our shower block and loved the wooded walk down to the beach with a possible sighting of a Gruffalo! Friends from Henley also visited for a few days and we made the most of the coastline with walks and surfing at Westward Ho! The surfing was such fun we went twice!

Our Intrepid Adventureres

Ollie dog was very excited to have his cousins visit from town, Harry and Tilly joined us for a windy walk over the fields and down to the sea for a dip – although Harry had to be carried over the larger pebbles at the beach and made it clear he did not enjoy the barley stubble scratching his tummy.

We discovered two huge milk churns in the hedge behind the tractor block, I asked our youngest and his mate to investigate. They heaved the churns over the top of the earth bank and the lids had to be knocked off with a hammer. Inside was the smelliest curdled milk EVER! It which might well have been there for 27 years as the churns were marked as from the Torridge Dairy which was last running in 1993….

Before the storm hit we spent a day picking apples from our eight apple trees of unknown heritage. We gathered about 100 kilos and delivered them to the lovely people Miriam and Jake at The Court House Orchard in Dolton (https://mcgjuice.com). Two days later we collected a gorgeous slightly pink apple juice which is very fresh and a little sharp. I prefer it with fizzy water, but the rest of the family love it undiluted. Now with Francis shaking the trees we have had another 35 kilos of apples fall today, so may well be visiting Miriam and Jake again as there is only so much apple and blackberry crumble you can eat (apparently?!) From the abundance of the garden we are also poaching pears in port and eating plumbs – yummie!

New animal species we have discovered this month include a toad, oyster catchers on the rocks and fox (or at least the evidence of a fox which Ollie dog sniffs out regularly and rolls in so it is rubbed into his neck and shoulders). Also a suspected sparrowhawk has been terrorising our pigeons. We found a dead one (pigeon) on the drive with its breast eaten up and today he or she struck again, we watched it kill a pigeon in the back corner of the garden. First (certificate 18 warning) it ate the brains, then came back and ate the breast, then came back and took the whole lot apart from its intestines and a few feathers….