Nature's bounty

This morning, after dropping Mike off at school and popping into work to pick up any post, we all drove to the doctor's surgery at Guilsborough as Sophie had an appointment for a blood test. As we neared the village of Hollowell we saw signs saying that the road was closed so we had to embark on a long diversion to get back to Guilsborough. I was not pleased! However we ended up being only five minutes late which was a relief!

When we eventually returned home Keith and I set off with two bowls to go blackberry picking in the fields near our house. It was an absolutely glorious morning and the sky looked like it had been given a good wash by all the rain from last night. Everything was dripping so we both got pretty wet as we tramped over the fields. We managed to find lots of blackberries and I saw loads of sloes as well, so I'm tempted to make Sloe Gin this year as I've done previously. We met a woman walking her dog who didn't know what the sloes were, so we had a chat about making the delicious drink, which is really easy, although I did advise her to wait until after the first frosts.

We walked for about an hour and returned home with wet jeans and purple stained hands! We're going to make a blackberry and apple crumble as we've had a few apples from the tree growing in our garden.

It was that time of the week to make our meal list so we sat and did that before briefly sitting in an absent neighbour's garden and soaking up the sun. Our friends are away this week so we called around to check up on things and sat and enjoyed the views over the fields. A huge flock of birds kept wheeling about and landing in the trees before all flying off again and then settling in the fields...strange behaviour!

As the afternoon wore on the sky became a bit cloudier so it was off to Tesco (again!) to do our big weekly shop when it was nice and quiet. When we returned home the children descended on our purchases like they'd never been fed before!

Keith and I went to the pub in the village in the evening and sat in the window watching the world go by. We can't believe how busy the village is and how many cars speed past!