Butterfly Walk

Considering how bad a year it has been for butterflies, I feel privileged to be able to walk out my front door and within half an hour bag 8 different kinds of butterfly

According to me they are 1. Comma, 2. Large White, 3. Peacock, 4. Small Heath, 5. Small Skipper, 6. Meadow Brown, 7. Gatekeeper, 8. Peacock - unless, of course, you know different!

Isle of Wight - the other quarter

Last year we explored three-quarters of the Isle of Wight from 12 O'clock to 9 O'clock. This year in a 4 night break we explored from 12 O'clock to 9 O'clock in temperatures that seemed constantly around 30 degrees. This time we sailed from Lymington to Yarmouth and the drive from the ferry terminal to our chalet was less than 5 min

We spent the whole of the first day at Fort Victoria: resting, exploring, soaking up the sun & the sea air and watching the activity on the water

We returned to Osborne House with the specific intention of seeing Queen Victoria's bathing hut which annoyingly was within days of being open to visitors when we were last there. Apparently it was used as a chicken hut for quite a while before being 'rescued'.

We watched the yachts at Cowes - look how close they came to the beach - and us!

On our last full day we visited Colwell Bay 

 and Totland Beach

 before settling in at Freshwater Bay

and then on the way home we dropped in briefly to Carisbrooke Castle

 and met the donkeys Jill & Jim-Bob finishing their days 'work' and being taken to their field. [Apparently they are the star attraction - operating a treadmill which winds a capstan which raises a bucket of water from the well]

 We did not have time to do the wall walk or see the museum

 On the way home we promised ourselves we would have a stop in the New Forest - so we stopped at Hatchet Pond and mingled with the donkeys...

... and the ponies (and yes there were cows there too)

Hunstanton

As a way of breaking the journey to a funeral we hit upon the idea of staying a couple of nights at Hunstanton

Hunstanton Cliffs are made of three layers of rock - the chalk layer (white), the Hunstanton formation (red) and the Carstone (brown). These date from 100 million years ago when the climate was similar to the Bahamas today and tropical seas covered much of the land.

Apart from Hunstanton itself we visited Wells-next-the-sea, Holkham Beach, Binham Priory (English Heritage) Walsingham (home of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Shrines to Our Lady of Walsingham - where Granma used to go on retreat) and Creake Abbey (English Heritage). We discovered that apart from places with names Rogerstone and Peterstone in Wales there is also a Peterstone (but not Rogerstone) in Norfolk.

Ciara's blessing

We gave her a teddy

and Mum made her a fabric book