Summer’s Finally Here
The Great British Summer, it’s finally here. As I write this, I am sitting in the garden with an ice cold glass of lemonade, laptop on my lap and soaking all the rays that the sun can provide me with.
I am fortunate really, prior to this week I had only taken 1.5 days holiday and with co-workers taking next available dates for the next two months, if I hadn’t taken this week I wouldn’t have had a break until at least September.
With my time off I have been really productive. Not wanting to waste all of my time laying in bed or doing things indoors, I took the opportunity to completely rid the front flower bed of every living weed and awful looking plant. This required a shovel, a hand tool set purchase and a very hairy man sweating his little bum off for a good few hours. For some unknown reason, either the landlords or the people who built the house had decided to plant some god awful green and yellow leafy plants that had roots that borrowed from here to Saigon. Using a bit of brawn and creative nous, the shovel was used in such a way the plants stood no chance and the bed was ridden of all life quicker than I could have expected.
In my rush to get it done I never took a before picture but below is the finished article and my self imposed reward for doing so:
Between finishing the front and back gardens I have taken the time to enjoy the tennis, most notably Andy Murray, even if he is a bit of an arrogant Scottish twat.
Tomorrow Katie and I are going to head up to London and celebrate (albeit a little early) our first wedding anniversary. We aim to visit a few landmarks, enjoy some nice food and hopefully see a show (if Katie has her way probably Dirty Dancing) but I don’t mind, time spent in London with Katie is always a day well spent.
Last and by no means least, I am going to be getting my third tattoo inked onto me on Saturday before myself, Katie and a few friends jaunt into the night for a Masonary dinner and dance. The tattoo is Katie’s present to me and I have opted for a tribal type tattoo that encompasses my entire right upper arm and part of my chest. Should be painful!
Tropical Wings
The sun was out, we were well rested, all we needed to do was to think of something that we could do allow us to continue enjoying the beautiful weather. Showers were taken, clothes were quickly put on and the decision was made to make a 3 mile pilgrimage to the World of Wildlife; Tropical Wings. For those not in the know, Tropical Wings is one of the UK’s largest tropical butterfly houses, that also keeps wallabies, lemurs, meerkats and a large collection of birds and insects.
We walked around the various enclosures, taking photos when we could. We spent a good few minutes talking to a Myna Bird who was intent on saying “Oh Wow!!” every few seconds. As we moved on, we looked at Kookaburra’s, Bird’s of Prey and monkeys.
One of our particular favourites was the Otter enclosure, where a family of Otter’s were taking turns at dunking their family member under the water. This was next to the Meerkat pen where Alexander Orlov and his folk were digging holes and looking out for any potential danger.
We spent roughly over an hour at Tropical Wings, leaving to grab a spot of lunch at one of our favourite local restaurants; The Old Windmill, in South Hanningfield. After that, it was a short trip to the supermarket for the necessities and then home to enjoy the sun on our sun loungers in the garden.
Steps were taken to minimise burning and on the whole we did well except I may have the beginning of a burnt snozzle. If you wish to view some of the pictures from our day out, they are embedded below for your viewing pleasure.