Our garden Pheasants have got chicks

A visit to my stylist, feel much cooler after a hair cut.

Ahhhh...afternoon off watching the Royal Ascot gee-gees ahead of going to see "Yes" tonight; I have a second row seat right in front of Steve Howe - that'll do for me.   

Sitting out on the garden wall watching all the birdlife.

Buzzards trying to catch a thermal.
A Kestrel hovering over the field.
A Hen Pheasant having a dust bath whilst the Cock Pheasant wanders around making strange clucking noises.
A couple of pigeons bathing and drinking from the bird bath.
A male Blackbird feeding a juvenile, the juvenile then wandered off to sunbathe in front of me.
An endless stream of House Sparrows and Blue Tits heading for the bird feeders.

Busy doing nothing

Nice!

My bedroom window is right next to a hedge bordering a village green, and I must admit I'm sick of the racket in the mornings. Been pondering buying a plastic hawk to sit on the ledge over the front door.

We had the doors open to the workshop today and a small bird flew in (sparrow?). Had a devil of a job trying to get it out. In the end it flew into an internal window and fell to the floor, dazed, so I managed to pick it up and release it outside. Flew off straight away so no damage done.

Being able to take the recycling out in t-shirt and shorts, without a head torch on after 10pm. Then I went for a stroll on the village green to watch the bats wheeling round the trees.

The BBC reports that McCartney's Glasto warm-up gig at an 800 capacity venue in Frome was a sell-out.

     

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10958975/Rock-legends-Kiss-mistake-Australian-flag-Austrian-flag-Vienna-concert.html

On a a skiing holiday to Austria many years ago, the Ski rep said the in the film the Von Trapps were actually walking back into Germany. How true that is I don't know as I've never seen the ghastly thing.

Julie Andrews was a bit of stuff then

I've already posted this in the cycling thread, but I thought some readers who don't visit that thread might be interested.

While out on a bike yesterday I saw a couple of Spitfires, late in the day. And today, I managed to find flight data for a Spitfire that overflew Edingale and Lullington at 17:38 yesterday, at a height of 3950 ft. I pinpointed my position at that time using the track off my Garmin and I was about 420 metres to the north of it at this time, just to the west of Lullington.

https://planefinder.net/flight/GRRGN/time/2022-07-03T16:10:00.000Z/speed/1

This does match my recollection that it was going in the same direction as myself.

Apparently it belongs to Rolls-Royce, a Mark XIX. So it was actually a Griffon engine that I heard, not a Merlin.

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/iconic-second-world-war-aircraft-4736868

The one I saw later wasn't the same one, this one landed at East Midlands Airport ten minutes later.

Glad to know that Royces still own a Spit. I saw their Spitfire XIV overfly our offices in Derby in 1990. Sadly that one was lost in a fatal crash two years later at the Woodford Air Show.

My son and his girlfriend are in Madrid for a week to watch the Mad Cool festival. Just had a video of them watching Metallica. What's made my day is that my son has a really bad fear of flying. It started one time (he was 9) as my wife flew back to the UK from Cyprus with him. He'd flown before then, but for some unknown reason he went to bits. So for him to fly to Madrid like this is very courageous  of him. I know he'll be putting on a brave face for his girlfriend, but good for him.

I find, as I get older, I'm not that keen on flying, either.  Across the board, I'm generally a little more anxious about things as well...