All sorts, and Halil Garden Help

Today Halil came past to help me in the garden, something I'm hoping will be a relatively regular thing on a Sunday and so I will do an update whenever he does come past. Lots has gone on so let's get into it.

New swing is super fun

A scary monster and Rosie

New boat on the front lawn

A snake that visited us

Enjoying the sun

New style of meal

This time I'm just going to go through the pictures and videos in order as there isn't so much to go through. The day after the last blog Rosie was straight out onto her swing, and she's been swinging a lot on it and loving it; I'm so happy  she is having such fun with it. Continuing the theme She drew lots and lots of monsters on the patio with her chalks, this one was supposed to "scare me out of my head". On the Saturday we pulled the new boat out and Rosie and I got it inflated to check it out, just on the front lawn.  Later that day we saw a snake by the green building; the first we've seen on our land for a while. My foot was starting to hurt that day and the next day I was in agony, but had to drive with Rosie to a play date which was great fun I just wish I'd not been in such pain. She played with the little girl of my friend and we picked cherries and just had a great time. On Monday I went with Halil into town to see a doctor and ended up at the hospital with lots of tests and even more waiting around. Eventually I was diagnosed with gout, which blows my mind, but at least I had some medicine and it did work fast. I got to chill with Rosie on the patio in the sun (and Dutch got involved) which put a smile on my face that I didn't want to have before because of the pain. This has now caused me to change my diet, which puts more pressure on Angela which is really frustrating.

I decided I needed to weed this section

Looking very much better

A storm in the distance

A hole in the clouds

Playing a fun game

More sun bathing with Rosie and the puppies

So much grass to mow

How is that even slightly comfortable

Onwards. I was off my feet for a few days and got so bored that one lunch time I went out and weeded one of the flower beds and got told off because the next day my foot was worse again. Silly me but I hate sitting around. Angela got to go spend an evening with our friend one night and I had lots of fun with Rosie. We were outside watching a storm come in, and marveling at the square hole in the clouds that appeared above us. Then we played some games and sunbathed. I also spent two entire days cutting the grass and almost bought myself a robot mower. I've noticed today that the tyre on my ride-on mower is totally flat so that's a bit annoying. I got to watch a very terrible film that evening and Xena fell asleep in a very unusual position.

A weevil in the garden

A stunning rose in our garden

Clearing more trees

Rosie's lovely Rose

The cutting is ALIVE!

Trying to grow an avocado seed

Time for some garden and growing pictures. We have had to do lots of watering and I saw an interesting beetle, maybe a weevil, on a thistle leaf. It was there for a couple of days. The roses have been doing really well, so stunning! We had a power cut one of the days so I was unable to work; I went out into the garden and did some more digging out of trees. The power came back on just as I finished, thank goodness. That evening I got a grab a picture of Rosie's Rose, that I bought while collecting my mum for her visit. So beautiful! Finally inside the vine cutting that I've been watering now for weeks thinking that it was dead but not giving up, it has new growth on it and by now it has four or five big leaves! I'm so happy about it. My new diet brought some avocado for breakfast and Rosie and I have planted two of the stones to see if we can grow them.

Some of our wildlife

Dutch hates being kept out

More chilling in the sun with Xena

A fun way to play with her swing

Face painting fun in town

In the park

Park exercise equipment

About to get pushed into the pond

In the middle of the pond

Angela on the bank while we float around

Our tortoise visitor

We're getting close to today now. Last week I took a lovely walk with Rosie around the garden and saw lots of cool things including a hairy caterpillar in a tree. We also camped which was brilliant and the day I took the tent down Dutch lay glaring at me through the fence - he hates being excluded. More fun with Rosie, she was shouting to me to go and see her on the balcony after school one day and I went to find she'd climbed on the swinging chair with Xena. She's been having so much fun with her swing, though not always actually swinging on it. On Friday it was National Children's Day here so after school Angela took Rosie to the park and I went down and joined them and watched lots of dancing and show, Rosie get her face painted, then we went to the park and finally had some food in town before heading home. It was really nice. Yesterday we were up and out to take the boat to a pond. We went to our mountain village however when we got there we found lots of people fishing and decided to not disturb them so we ended up back at our home village on the pond up the hill that we normally walk to and it was just magical. Rosie loved it and so did I. When we got back here was a large tortoise by our gate.

Out before it got too hot to do our weeding

I got this dug out over about 1.5 hours

Rosie's butterfly jar

Halil gets stuck in digging out trees

Cutting down the dead tree

A broken strap

It got up to 34 degrees

Cutting branches with an axe

Xena joined me in Thomas as I was pulling roots

We cleared loads in the two hours

And so we finally reach today. This morning before Rosie woke (she had an epic lay in) Angela and I both went into the garden and did a load of weeding which was really needed. I found a dead butterfly while I was weeding and Rosie was very sad so she took it inside and made a little garden for it in a bottle. Halil arrived at 10am and we went out into the garden and slaved for about two hours working together to remove trees by the side of the drive. It was very hot, and pretty hard work, but we got loads done and it was so satisfying. We ended up using Thomas to drag a load of the roots out rather than having to break our backs digging them out. Some were very strong and we broke our strap multiple times and in the end had to cut if off the tow bar as it was so tight from being pulled so hard.

The first storm blows towards us but misses us

Such a beautiful sunset this evening

After Halil went and I had some lunch I fell asleep on the sofa and woke to the sound of thunder. A huge storm was blowing in that I then enjoyed with Rosie on the balcony. Then a second storm blew over and this one hit us hard. There were two very very loud large bangs in particular where the lightning struck really close to us. Xena was so scared she ran and hid right under my bed for ages bless her. The storm lingered for quite a long time but did eventually blow past and the sunset was stunning as I sat down to start writing this. Now it's pitch black and this took me all evening!

So there it is. I think Halil will be back in a couple of weeks so I'll do another update then. Thanks for reading.

Getting Home

 The catch up continues as we get closer to the return of Bekir and Halil! Let's get to it.

Maisie was so filthy by this time

I had to treat myself to a Chinese

The Whisky I bought on Islay

Professionally packed boot

Mum loves her new chair

Dad's grave

After dropping Ryan at the station I went for a quick visit to the studio and then dropped past my mate John for a cuppa and a lovely chat sat in the sun in his back garden. Soon enough however I was back on the road and heading down south towards my mum's house. The plan was to stay a few days, get Maisie repacked and just chill before continuing my trip as unfortunately I couldn't head directly home. Maisie was absolutely filthy by this time, a month on the road will do that. I pulled everything out of Maisie into my Mum's front room (she was not actually home when I arrived, so that gave me a chance to get this done before she saw the mess I made) and then I spent a while packing everything back into Maisie which went very well. I even had some spare space! One of the items I'd brought from Bulgaria and left on my way past earlier in the trip was a gift for my mum - a swinging chair that matches one we have that she loves. With my repacking done I spent some time assembling it and since then she's had it blow away, fall apart, and also has had some lovely time sat on it. Soon enough it was time to move on, however, and I headed down towards the New Forest but made time to stop at the cemetery to see my Dad's grave. I do miss him.

A New Forest Pony having a roll

Memorial to the Royal Airforce in the New Forest

A robin came to say hello

Ryan driving (piloting?) his boat

Sun sets over the marina

Probably the best playground in the world

A StuG III

Yes, it's Fury!

Pitched up at Roundhill

This is where I camped with my dad when I was 11

I had planned to camp at the campsite where I had my first ever camping experience with my Dad (Roundhill) however when I called to book they had a problem with the toilets so I booked into another campsite which was really nice, but didn't have the memories. One good thing, however, was that just round the corner was the New Forest Airfields Memorial for WW2 so I strolled across some fields and spent some time looking around before going back to the tent to cook and sleep. The next day I headed over to Ryan's boat as our plan was to go for a sail before our trip the next day. Unfortunately, even though the boat was put back in the water after its maintenance without any problems it proved completely impossible to get any fuel so we just stayed in marina and chilled out. A shame, but it was great to finally get to see the boat. The next day we drove over to Bovvington Tank Museum and had an absolute blast taking loads of time walking around slowly and seeing every tank they had. I do love that place and I took MANY more pictures than I've put here. After this day out I dropped Ryan back to his boat then went over to Roundhill - yes they had managed to fix their toilet issues so I was able to spend my last night in the UK camping where I stayed with my dad. Brilliant! I took a stroll around the campsite and found the place where we first camped and had a great time remembering happy memories.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang out for a drive

Sitting in an early car

Beautiful Mercedes

Mr Bean's Mini

This art was so creative and clever

Cooking dinner at a services

The next morning I packed up the camp and headed a few miles from the campsite to Beaulieu Motor Museum. This was also a trip down memory lane as that first ever camping trip my dad and I did, we walked from Roundhill to Beaulieu only to find that the power was out so we were let in for half price. Shortly after, the power returned. This time I didn't get in half price but I spent many hours walking around slowly until I was exhausted, looking at everything that I possibly could. Even so I didn't exhaust all there was to see there - that place is incredible and worth a trip (though the ride on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at I think it was £100 per person was a bit steep!). I had lunch of fish and chips half way through my tour and walked all around and into most of the buildings and saw every car on display. Once I had no more energy I headed out to Maisie and got on the road towards Dover, though I diverted up to near Reading as there were road works and I really needed a few supplies so I dropped into the supermarket there. I had dinner in a services and made it to the ferry in plenty of time, getting over to the mainland and driving until I got to Belgium before parking in a services and sleeping in the car.

So good to see Cis and his family again

The sun rises as I head home

Beautiful Austrian Alps

Truck crash in cloudy Bulgaria

The next morning I was up and drove over to see my mate Cis for a BBQ. I was very early so found a secluded carpark in the village near him and read for a couple of hours before finally arriving, having a shower, then a lovely BBQ with his family and some of their friends. It was a very nice afternoon indeed and great to get the opportunity to see him again. I then headed back to a hotel near my work as I was in the office on the Monday for one day only which was great as I didn't open my laptop up at all. I stayed in the hotel again that night (and had a really nice meal with Stefan, one of my colleagues) but was up super early, about 4am, to start driving home. I missed the traffic around Brussels which was my aim and then decided to take a different route home to usual, going via the Austrian Alps, Serbia, Herzegovina and a few other countries I can't remember now. It was a very fast trip home (though very expensive with tolls) and I took only a few pictures the entire way, sleeping in the car for about 4 hours total and making it back in less than 30 hours including that sleep time. It was so good to be home!

So there it is. I'll do another couple of blog posts to capture interesting things that have gone on at home since, but mainly that is me caught up I think. Thanks for reading.