Saturday saw me and Dad stay local and visit Fort Luton again for this years Classic Car show. Quite a small event but it stayed dry for our visit and we partook of the burger stall for lunch along with a cuppa to keep us from running on empty.
They have a museum as well housed in the tunnels, it's quite an interesting place to visit and is literally on the doorstep. Only open for certain events but worth a visit.
So this off Friday saw me, Julia and James pop along to the Big Cat Sanctuary Open Day - roarsome!
These are a few from the M50 and Sigma 18-250mm lens but kinda wishing I'd sucked it up and taken the big gun 70-300mm along on the 77D. Think Julia managed to get loads of really good stuff whereas I struggled to get the bars to disappear.
Once of the best images was this little Bumblebee on one of the local flowers ;-)
We had the afternoon there and it's an interesting place, only open for a couple of weeks I think in July and then closed to the public the rest of the year whilst they concentrate on conservation.
Mostly big cats as the name implies, they had a birds of prey demo but unsure if those birds reside at the park or not.
Julia has a keeper for the day experience coming up hence the reason for trying to squeeze in a visit. Tempted by the photography experiences but they are expensive and unsure what access you gain on them and whether my glass is really up to the job...
So for the first time since buying my Galileo Thermometer in the local Yard Sale, it's shown a different temperature - 23C was the bottom floating bubble rather than the 25C!
Now this isn't too accurate by any stretch of the imagination and I'm still trying to really grasp what it's telling me, but suffice to say that as the temperature cools down the bottom bubbles start to float up and then once it heats up again they sink.
Gonna be interesting to see what happens to it as the Autumn and then Winter temperatures start to creep in...
So had a few outings in my holiday second week, Tuesday as it was supposed to be so nice and sunny we headed to Mount Ephraim Gardens only to find when we arrived that they don't open on Mondays or Tuesdays :-(
Struggled to find anywhere else around that area that was open so ended up at Riverside Country Park. Dad realised he'd left his sandwiches in the fridge so had to get the Café chap to know him up a cheese sandwich!
We spent the afternoon wandering along some of the pathways snapping on the cameras as we went. Back to the Café afterwards to tea and biscuits before heading home.
Wednesday, because we weren't too sure about the weather we headed to Tenterden for the K&ESR and a trip around Bodium Castle. We had a diesel train out and a steam train back. The stations look interesting and I think you could spend quite a bit of time checking out each station along the route and never visit the Castle. It turned out hotter than expected and no rain!
Thursday finally found us at Mount Ephraim Gardens, had the odd shower but we stood under the trees and we had gone prepared with macs and I wore wellies for the wet grass. Unlike many of the other visitors huddled under small umbrellas whilst it tipped it down!
It's a lovely garden and it would be good to actually visit it for once without rain. We struggled to understand why, during the summer months, that they wouldn't be open every weekday. Especially as the other local garden in the area, Doddington, was also shut the same two days - ridiculous.
Anyway it was a good but somewhat tiring three days - sometimes wonder how my Dad does it!
So Friday saw Dad, Tedster and myself head along to the RE Museum as rain was forecast and we still have time on our annual ticket left over from the Wartime Christmas event last year.
Had a really good day wandering around, there's lots to see covering various facets of the Royal Engineers throughout history. We grabbed lunch and a snack there and it was relatively still quiet as the kids were still at school.
Still on hollibobs for another week but it is fading fast...
So this little one is my rescued wallflower from the driveway last summer - sooo pleased that it has survived and even started to produce flowers. I'm not the world's best when it comes to gardening, I try my best but don't always succeed in getting things to grow but this is just perfect.
My neighbour whose plant this almost certainly seeded from gave me it's proper name, Antirrhinum and I think she's right that Bunny Mouth is a common name because when you press the sides of the bloom together it's like a mouth opening. Snapdragon is another common name. Love the colour of this and when it's bigger I'll look to transfer it into the garden.
