Things what’s happening in my life..

It’s ages since I complained about Google so I thought I’d mention my hatred (I know GB – one should never ‘Hate’ anything) of the fact that when one goes to someone’s profile their list of blogs followed appears before their personal details.  In the case of novelist DeborahLawrenson  who follows about 2 million blogs I found it a bit tiresome.  Especially when one gets to the end and finds the ‘complete profile’ is the same as the one on the blog so all one has learned is the list of blogs the person chooses to tell you they own.

And while I’m in a moaning mood I should mention the Mad Blackbird who goes berserk from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. – non-stop.  He’s a bit of a pain in the neck.  I am loathe to suggest the demise of any living creature but if someone were to ring its neck they might be ensuring its defective genes were not passed on to future generations.

And before I go on to happy things I’ll mention the weather.  It’s been raining.  And raining. And raining.  It stopped yesterday afternoon but this morning we have heavy, threatening clouds again.  Come on summer, give us a break!

On the good side I’m spending quality time with my daughter, son-in-law and brother and the only work I have to do is pull my duvet cover back up when I’ve got out of bed.  I’m being waited on hand and foot and chauffeured around.

On Tuesday we went to Otter Nurseries for a look around and a coffee / crossword (of course).

Daughter-who-takes-photos

 À la Ronde

Then we went on to a National Trust property called À la Ronde, near Exmouth.  Having seen a picture of the outside it intrigued me but I never expected it to be as fascinating as it was.  One visit is definitely not enough. Sadly Friend-and-son-in-law-who loves-otters was working and could not be with us.

The National Trust has got so much more customer friendly over the years.  Not only can one now take photos inside most of their properties but in this case one could have played the piano (once used by a concert pianist)…

Give us a tune, Marcheline!

 And there were chairs which one could have sat in had one need to.  They weren’t all marked with huge ‘Do not sit’ notices as they would have been years ago.  Well done the NT.

 Monkey Puzzle

And in the grounds Daughter-who-takes-photos and I were delighted to see a Chile Pine (aka Monkey Puzzle) with cones.  Not something I can recall ever seeing before. 

GB

 

The marvellous design of the floorboards – to compensate for the shape of the house.

Looking up in the central room.

In this ball you can see some of the doors off the main room.

 The house is full of shells in every form possible including shell pictures and the marvellous shell gallery which goes all the way around the third floor (not yet accessible to the public but visible in part from below and in its entirety on a comuter screen).

Part of the shell gallery

 I don't know where we are headed today but no doubt it will be somewhere interesting and bloggable...  See you soon.