Father's Day & The Summer Solstice!

I sacrificed birding to make scones, fruit salad and posh sandwiches for my Father this morning. I picked Lucy up mid-morning and did a mini shop for Mother in the Hardwick Sainsburys and then whizzed over to Hunstanton to buy fish 'n' chips, which was my parent's request. Lucy had bought tiramasu which went very nicely with my fruit salad! Vivien was working today, so unable to come over. It rained during the morning and the skies were gloomy again.

Lucy had made the biggest effort for Father's Day and bought a 'Best Father in the world' cup, and cute teddy holding a star saying the same thing 'Best Father in the world' and Thornton's chocolates. Vivien and I managed a box of chocolates each. So sad that Father couldn't see any of his presents or cards, but I spent ages describing the cards to him and made him feel the textures and diamante bits on one of the cards to help him. Mind you, he didn't need to see the chocolates and managed to work his way through most of the Thorntons Truffles!

I used Lucy for a trial run and tried to get her outside in Father's wheelchair. Lucy is quite a bit lighter than Father, so if I couldn't physically get her out over the threshold and down and up the steps, there is no way I could risk any attempt to get Father out. I managed to get Lucy+wheelchair over the threshold, but just couldn't do the next step, so had to abandon any idea of taking Father out in the sunshine. My parents have been offered a ramp to be built by Social Services, so that Father can be taken outside in the wheelchair, but he is totally against it and said 'It's not happening'. Everytime you mention it, he gets angry and upset. He won't give a valid reason why and this is stressing Mother out as she has sign on the dotted line soon and then there is no going back.

I bought a Non Slip Outdoor Step from Amazon this week for Mother's back door. She has had an old pallet there, which was covered in roofing felt and has lasted a long time, but collapsed a couple of weeks ago and needed replacing. This new step is plastic, but solid and is very good I thought, but its not as high as the pallet. Mother was not over happy about it, being as it wasn't that high, but best/cheapest I could find and it looked good to me, when I watched Mother walk out of the door and back again. The sun came out in the afternoon, which brightened things up and to our delight Lucy and I watched a Bullfinch feeding in the garden, only yards from the back door! Mother went to do some gardening, whilst Lucy and I kept an eye on Father. Later on, screaming and hysteria from the garden, got me running to find Mother shouting angrily at a Woodpigeon that was inside her greenhouse, having stripped her nasturtium flowers!! She was not happy. The bird managed to escape, luckily!

I was so pleased that Father seemed to enjoy my scones with a cheese and butter filling and also had some of the fruit salad for his tea, so it was worth doing. I asked Lucy if she wanted to go for a little walk, so I could get some birding in – but she didn't want to! Took Lucy home and arrived back at my house at 8pm. I decided to get the hedge done and spent two hours hours cutting the front and side (very long) hedges with hand shears and cleared it all up, finishing at 10.15pm! The longest day of the year and it still wasn't properly dark when I finished!

I now have birding withdrawal symptoms. Can't believe I have had an entire weekend and not been birding! I will have to get out in the evenings this week to make up for it!