Sunday 10th April 2011

So, last night after watching Norwich lose for the first time in ages live on TV, we sat down in the dark to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 which arrived in the post that morning. As expected it was even darker than previous films in the series, and we were joined on the sofa by most of the cats, even Molly who did want to lay with us but rewarded strokes with hisses and swipes of her front paw.

This morning we went out before nine to head to the other side of Ashford to visit Kings Wood, where we were hoping to see some bluebells. As it turned out, we were probably a couple of weeks too early for them, the wood was carpeted with what seemed like millions of bright green bluebell plants, but very few in bloom; we shall have to go back in a couple of weeks.



Anyway, so we headed down the Alkham valley to check for potential sites of poppy fields, before heading out onto the M20. Traffic was light, and although there was some high, wispy cloud, the day was bright enough.

We parked the car, with just the vehicles of early dog-walkers and cross-country cyclists there before us. We headed off along the path, passing dozens of small plastic bags, which dog walkers had put their pets poop, but rather than take said bags home or disposed of them in the corrective manner, had just tossed them in the undergrowth. Bastards. Why just do half a job, tossers?

Anyway, a few hundred yards from the car park, the poopy bags thinned out and it was just us and the woods. Until a few months ago, works of sculpture, wooden sculptures, were scattered to discover, but the works of art did not last much longer than 5 years, and some have been removed and so the new visitor is greeted with a woodland clearing with a sign telling the name of the sculpture and no sculpture. It happens. We hope that new works will be placed in the wood in due course.



Elsewhere, the woodland floor is carpeted with bluebells plants, tree stumps and other such woodland stuff. We saw no wildlife, and no deers which we saw last time, but the walk was pleasant, I was slobbered over by a French dog, a golden retriever, who was very pleased to see me, the non-dog-lover of us two.

After a couple of hours we returned to our car, and headed back towards the motorway. As we were hungry, we went to Sainsbury's to get lunch and dinner. We picked up a selection of samaosas and onion bahjis to go with the salad pots and headed home. even hungrier.



And that is it; we chilled out for the afternoon, I watched football a bit and messed around with some of the shots I had taken. and now we are listening to various podcasts on our internet radio; we writing and Jools beading. It's not rock and roll, be we love it.