Taking Time To Breathe.

Being a self-employed bod these days I don't tend to take time off unless I'm feeling pretty rough or away as obviously I don't get paid leave like the old days of working pre redundancy.However, I have managed to organise my housesparkling joblets so that I end up with every other Tuesday free. Of late I have started to sneak a bit of extra cleaning in for people or spend the whole day chasing my tail getting up to date with domestic trivia. It's a slippery slope so I made sure that I reclaimed this one and relaxed properly with some of my closest friends. Armed with tea making equipment and buns they took me on a route in the hills behind our town which was unfamiliar to me. It was glorious weather and quiet. I delighted in glimpsing two roe deer and a red kite which are still fairly rare up this far. I returned home refreshed and renewed.

Firstly please forgive my probable ignorance but this was the first time I have ever seen the flowers on an oak before. I was ridiculously thrilled at my little discovery!

Lots of other trees are flowering right now- here we have Hawthorn and Horse Chestnut [I think but not sure whether the latter has both pink and white flowers?]

King Alfred's Cakes fungus ie looks like burnt cakes. Again please correct me if I'm wrong!

A man of the woods....I love his face!

Bracket fungus of some description.

View across my town from the hill top and one of the ponds possibly formed from an old bomb crater.

Finally, these really are llamas- they are used at one of our local nature reserves to graze the pastures. Rather blurry I'm afraid as they were a long way off.

Arilx