Dinner party with Katrina

Tonight we are having a dinner party with the other vet, Katrina. Below is the menu, possibly a bit overdone but thats what you can do when you have a lot of spare time.
Click on the picture for a better view.

More Birds

Today I saw a Yellowhammer on the rd to Offchurch. They are a really good looking bird like a yellow canary, but we don’t get them in our garden. They seem to hang around the oil seed rape fields which are the same colour.

We also now are getting more starlings, rooks and jackdaws in the garden. This is annoying because they are bigger birds and flock together and scare off the smaller birds.

None of the photos below are mine, I have borrowed them from other websites.

Yellowhammer

Goldfinch - I have seen these in our yard once - this is a male.

Jackdaw - from the crow family

Rook - an ugly bird that hangs around in groups and nests in colonies called "Rookeries". They are noisy and scare off the finches.

Starling. We have these in Australia and they are real pests.

Corinne's Birthday Flowers

Here is a foto of Corinne with the flowers and chocolates that her wonderful mother sent her from the Colonies. They are a beautiful bunch from the best florist in Leamington. It is Corinnes Birthday tomorrow and we are celebrating tonight and tomorrow and possibly all weekend.

Corinne looks a bit tired as she has just driven 1hr from wonderful (not) Birmingham after a full days work and a night on call.

Spring

Here are some pictures of spring in Hunningham. All the bare trees and hedges suddenly have leaves on them and the baby bunnies come out, the lambs, the birds are frisky the temperatures rise (23 today - amazing). It is really enjoyable being in the country to see the changes as they are much more spectacular here than in the city (shity).

A man made canal near our house. Built during the industrial revolution to move stuff about.

A lock in the Canal

A Canada Goose on her nest by the canal.

A local pig

Some Lambies relaxing in the sun looking very tasty

A fine example of a young female scottish horse vet - Katrina.

A male pheasant trying to hide in the Oil seed rape or canola as we call it in Australia.

New York - Finally

We have been a bit slack and slow but here is the final episode of our holiday in December and January. We spent the last four days of our trip in New York. We stayed in the Wellington hotel which is very central to all the goodies like central park, times square and much more. We looked all around Manhattan, took a ferry out to the Statue of Liberty, went up the empire state building at night, ate a few street vendor kebabs, had some great japanese and italian food, shopped, and did a lot of other touristy things. It is a cool place with a lot to see and very different from the others areas we saw in the US and Canada. We went to little Italy one night for a pizza, we caught the subway all over the place and we even saw the movie "Cloverfield" while we were there, which is set in manhattan. We found the people to be the rudest of our trip with very little time for slow aussies - But we loved it all anyway

Times Square at night - big, bright, busy, boisterous and other alliterations

More times square

Me in Central Park - shite weather while we were there.

A busy little NY squirrel gathering more oak leaves for his dram (squirrel nest).

The great big lady of liberty looking very green.

A view across the great lake in Central Park with a view of the mid-upper east side in th background.

Corinne - cold and tired and ready for a snooze.

Corinne devouring another kebab/pita bread type thing from a street vendor - they were very very good and only 2-3$