Apologies, but we had our reasons

Sorry not to have posted yesterday or have warned you that this would be a day late.  There are a number of reasons, the primary one being a day out in Chinon meeting up with someone I've not seen since I was at school.  She was staying with the Chinon One, and we went out for a lovely, leisurely Sunday lunch before wandering down to the avenue of trees by the river Vienne.

This wonderful line of trees never fails to delight, particularly when it is sunny, and even when there is bad jazz going down.  We love jazz of many sorts, smooth, nu (yes, it's a thing), trad, but not so much "experimental who needs a tune?" jazz.  Still they had a good audience.

We did distract ourselves for a while, admiring the river, looking for kingfishers and taking a photo of the Eiffel bridge (yes, that Eiffel), but in the end, we couldn't stand it, and went home.

During the week we spotted a new bee orchid, but no more since then.  I think the very dry April really didn't help them this year.

Another thing we were on the lookout for during the week was the latest stash of bantam eggs, as Bridie the Freeloading Bantam went broody again.  They were quite easy to spot in the end, so much so that she has got bored with sitting on them and they are now waiting for us to find a way of getting them out so they don't explode and stink out a few gardens.

The pumpkins we planted out a while back are now getting serious about life, and we finally put out the two cucumbers I managed to set off a couple of months ago.  The frame John has set up for them is a bit Heath Robinson, but using stuff that was lying around.

The overwhelming preoccupation of the week has been the health of our little black cat, Spooky, who lives at The Shack.  He really didn't enjoy the hot spell, and that seemed to exacerbate an issue with his throat, which became very inflamed.  He had injections, then he was taken into intensive care at the vet for IV medication, hydration and oxygen.

Unfortunately, even with all that support, he wasn't making any progress, so this morning we did the right thing, leaving a big panther-sized hole in our hearts.  Here is Spooky when he was on form and looking magnificent.

So that's my lot for today, let's see what else this week brings!

Have a good week!