And another week gone!

I had all good intentions of doing a Friday's Fave Five post but that never happened.  Anyway here I am.  Sitting near a fan and watching birds fighting over our bird feeder in the garden - I spent ages on Saturday giving the feeders a good clean and then refilling them and the birds have been flocking to them ever since.  There were 6 parakeets trying to get on it this morning.  They're fun to watch but they are also very vocal.

I did quite a bit of gardening over the weekend.  Well tidying really - with all that was going on here I didn't even bother with containers this summer so I've moved them off the back steps and down to the shed.  

The only colour in the back garden is the lavender bushes which are in full bloom and, thankfully, attracting lots of bees.  I also did a bit of tidying in the front garden so that looks better too and the hydrangea there is doing well.  There's still work to be done out front but today I've been working indoors.

I think I've finally got all the "stuff" that came from my son out of the main house.  The garden room and garage are still dumping grounds but at least I feel the house is ok.  Especially as I'm hosting our "Ladies Lunch" on Wednesday.  A good incentive for getting things tidy and doing some proper cleaning.

I also managed to fix one of the kick boards in the kitchen which kept coming loose - it needed more brackets, plus I managed to clean out a drain in the back garden.  I will say no more about that lol.

But it hasn't been all work.

The Saturday before last we met up with one of Nick's sisters (Helen)and most of her family, including her 7 grandsons, at the camping site where we all used to camp before we wanted home comforts and switched to our annual "Big House" family weekend away.

It was nice to sit in the outdoors and do a bit of reminiscing about camping trips.

Tuesday night was a Knit and Natter evening.  Not a big group as some were on holiday but still a nice relaxing time.

On the Wednesday we visited the same sister at her home to deliver a bread machine to her.  It belonged to our DIL who had hardly used it so she offered it on our family WhatsApp group and it was quickly snapped up by Helen.

Friday evening I sat and watched the Olympics opening ceremony.  I think it was a bold move by the French to do it so differently and, while some of it worked there were bits that I could easily have skipped.  I'm glad I could watch it in the comfort of my home too, and not the pouring rain.

On Saturday evening Hubby and I went out to our local pub and then across the road to the wine bar.  We had a cheese plate in the wine bar which was a nice evening snack and we walked home to balance the calories!

We've chatted a few times with our American gang and it was good to get this pic of them all together again.

I forgot to press publish on this early so it's now late evening and I managed to fit a short walk in after dinner once it had cooled down a bit. (We're enjoying a hot spell at the moment.)  It was good to get down to the lake and see how big the cygnets have got over the last few weeks.  There are still 8 of them and they seem to be doing well.

And now.....it's time for bed!