Saturday 30 November 2019

Apart from the weather ...

not much is happening here at Hambleden ... soooo ...
back to the weather!  
We've seen amazing cloud formations bringing that awful rain ...

fortunately with a few bits of ...
blue sky too!
The local heron is taking advantage of the swollen stream behind Still Rockin' to catch an early breakfast ... and talking of swollen water ...
this is a photo of the pontoon opposite our mooring.

The pontoons rise as the river rises, and when the height of the river reaches the water mark that is when the pontoon starts to rise.  

The River Thames started to subside a few days ago and the water fell a few inches below the bottom of the opposite pontoon but has since risen again.  
The above was taken on the 13th November and our pontoon is risen about 15" and was very wobbly to walk on.  

To date (29th November) all but 6 of the 49 reaches on the non-tidal Thames are still in flood (red boards) ... which reminds me of a couple of photos that I took last Monday (and forgot to put on the blog) ...
 this is the tail gate lock landing at Marlow and as you can see ... it's not a floating pontoon.
 And Marlow Lock House wrapped in scaffolding.  We'd been talking to one of the lock keepers a couple of months ago and he was telling us that the EA (Environment Agency) was buying back the lock houses on the Thames from private owners, refurbishing them and reinstalling  a resident lock keeper ... and I wonder if this is what is happening here.

Back at the marina I've hung out the bird feeders.  It took a few days for the birds to discover them and now, once again, the parakeets have taken them over.  It annoys me that the smaller birds and the woodpeckers keep their distance while the parakeets are in the tree but I must admit they are very clever and learn fast.  Like the one above which taught itself to get down the cord holding the apple so that he could eat it!  (Sorry about the quality of these two photographs, they were taken through a window which was wet from the rain as I didn't' want to disturb the birds by going up onto the deck.)
 Wednesday (27th) we woke to a chilly morning ... 
 and some blue in the sky! 

Hambleden Mill in the sunshine ... but it didn't last long ... and the rain came again!
This made me laugh later that morning ... the parakeets have caused the apple to fall and these two Mallards have found and are enjoying it!

3 comments:

Marilyn, nb Waka Huia said...

The picture of the parakeet reminded me of when David and I lived in Bromley back in 2004-5. we hung a couple of bird feeders from our clothesline, but the most frequent visitors were the squirrels who came paw over paw over paw over paw upside down along the clothesline then hung upside down to eat the bird food ...

Carol, I'm not sure if she's posted it yet, but our friend Bernice was putting on her blog how to make sourdough starter and how to make sourdough. She asked me to check it over for sense and ease of following. It looks quite a lot simpler to follow than Chris's one - I found his spreadsheets incomprehensible until I phoned him ...

Look up her blog - https://brvannini.wordpress.com/

I'm going to give it a go. I'll keep you posted - you let me know how you get on too, please.

Mxx

Carol said...

Thanks Marilyn, I'll have a look.

Carol said...

Me again Marilyn! I've looked through a few of the most recent blog posts and through the category 'Food' but can't find that recipe. Can you be a bit more specific please? Ta!