Normal for Norfolk..........: Alison and I have not entered a Mothercare store together in some 22 years and it felt very, very odd.

After the April rains (not showers) and despite the June winds and downpours we have been really busy over the last few weeks in both the B&B and the Cottage although bookings are thin on the ground for the rest of June at present.
We are, however, not despondent as we have recently signed up with an additional Self-catering holiday cottage agency and hope that this may lead to more bookings. There is a smaller and less well equipped cottage right opposite our house which seems to be continuously booked and I know that the same Company handles their bookings.
We are further boosted by the great feedback that our Cottage guests have given us at the end of their stay and some have even gone out of their way to repeat this on Trip Advisor.

The school holidays have meant that we get bookings from young families and so we have started looking at buying things like stair gates, cots and high chairs. It has been a long time since we had to buy such things and my goodness aren't they expensive? We have bought 4 stair gates and none of them fit the narrow stairs and so now I've ordered an even narrower gate which hopefully should fit in. (We are returning and getting our money back on the others). But the price of the high chairs and cots are crazy. Alison and I went to Mothercare at the weekend, now that was an odd feeling I can tell you. We probably have not entered a Mothercare store together in some 22 years and it felt very, very odd. I had forgotten just how much crap you 'could' buy for your baby and clearly how expensive it all can be. The cheapest high chair was about £40 which seemed fair enough to a tight old man like me, but to pay £350 for one (John Lewis) is just bonkers. It is called a "bloom Fresco Loft Contemporary Leatherette Baby Chair, Ivory White, Black Snakeskin Effect" for crying out loud the baby is just going to dribble, cover his face in the food and then puke it back up over your Ivory White, Black Snakeskin Effect! I may not remember much but I do remember there was a lot of dribbling and puking. £350! Madness. Just buy a £2.99 paddling pool from Morrisons, stick the baby in the centre and leave a pile of food for it to slubber it's way through. This is what my son thought of it all when he was just a babe...

Then there is the cot. The cheapest is £100. Well that seemed a lot until Alison pointed out that it does NOT include the padded sides, blanket, pillow or even the mattress! I think if I was a young dad today I'd make my own just like Frank Spencer's crib, or...... I'd clean all the food and puke from the paddling pool stick a bit of foam (from the market) in the middle of the pool and wack a £3.00 car rug (from Halfords) over the sprogg and be done with it! Alison says that it is probably for the "best that you don't think about adopting a baby". Hmmmppp.

I seem to have a mountain of work to do, so much so that I have created a massive TO DO list again to try to understand the scale of work and to be able to prioritise the tasks. 101 points on the list and that is with one of the points, for example, being "work through the garden list" which consists of over 80 tasks in itself! Don't get me wrong I am not overwhelmed just fully employed. Another one of the 101 items is to plan, write a specification for a builder, electrician, plumber and myself, then organise quotes to carry out works which will result in a 2nd B&B en-suite bedroom, access to the loft and most importantly a bathroom for ourselves. This is a sacrifice that we have had to make for the last 18 months in order to provide an en-suite for the main B&B room. Please do not misunderstand me, WE DO BATHE! But around the B&B and holiday cottage bookings which, luckily, have been nicely spaced out.. This is going to be a big task and so if we can get all the trades to agree we intend to shut down the B&B operation throughout October to get the job done. This is the third and final phase of the big tasks in our grand plan to renovate The Old Bakery however there are then several smaller scale phases that will happen as and when we can afford to do them.

Now to the garden.....

Well the garden always looks its best in the spring and this year is no exception despite the howling gales. The exciting news (for those of you that have been following the life and times of Percy, our pheasant) is tht Percy has found himself a partner.... AND IT'S A GIRLIE! Who knew?

For the first time, about a week ago, he was strutting his stuff on the pavement at the front of the house, right under our windows. Now this represented a major change in his behaviour, we'd never seen him at the front of the house before and he seemed to be limping with an air of cockiness, like he was saying "who's the daddy then!"
Only a few minutes later and he was in our back garden with a bird, I mean a chick, a dame.... a hen pheasant. Oh yes my boys scored.... back 'o' the net! I immediately knew it was serious when he was clearly introducing her to his beloved mirror as if he was introducing his best mate. "Come on darling, come and meet my reflection, he's my mate, he's great he is. We get on brilliantly, he's just like me and whenever we are together whatever I do he does exactly the same, you'll love him.... HELLO! LOOK, HE'S GOT A GIRL FRIEND TOO AND SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE YOU! How weird is that then?"

So after 9 months of visiting our garden, through the heavy snows, the shooting season and the whole of the Leveson enquiry Percy finally spent another hour in our garden with Patricia then they just disappeared no doubt to start a family and a whole new life for themselves, leaving me to feel proud and yet a little hollow inside, I'll miss old Percy.

During those awful gales and floods of rain our Blue Tits were due to fledge but because the weather was so bad we do not know if they actually did so or not. The nest box is ominously quiet and we are hoping that they left the nest ok. I will have to check in a months time and I am hoping not to find a grim scene within.

On a far brighter note we have a rather special pair of birds building a nest in our grape vine. On Sunday, whilst having our breakfast out on the patio, you know as one does, I spotted an unusual bird which I first thought was a Whitethroat. Alison noticed that there was two of them and that they seemed to be building a nest in the vine. A closer look and a double check in the bird book quickly told us that they were a pair of Spotted Flycatchers!

They have been doing all the right things (they must have read my bird book) including continuously using a specific branch to leap off and catch flies from, making a nest in a creeper and the nest being made in a shallow cup form from moss. They are lovely to watch as they launch themselves from the twig when they see a passing fly and snapping it up in a blink of an eyelid.

I am however in a bit of a quandary as I would love them to stay and have their chicks but on the other hand I would hate for them to lay their eggs only to be scared away when I mow the lawn or when I have to prune the grape vine or indeed to be scared off by guests enjoying the garden. So for the moment I have put off mowing the lawn and will enjoy their presence for just another couple of days but then it will be business as usual and if they stay well that'll be brilliant but if they go, well that would be sad but sensible.
Meanwhile here are some photos, firstly a Blue Tit with a spider for its chicks then a poor paparazzi photo of Percy and Patricia saying their fond good byes followed by the amazing Spotted Flycatchers...