Victoria with her Silver Medal

This is Victoria with the silver medal she won at in her weight category, under 44 kilos at Berkhampstead. It does not show the black and cut eye she received during her last fight, but she did beat the girl who, unintentionally, did it.

This was a judo competition!

Nikon??

Victoria visited today to show us her birthday present from her parents; a new bicycle. I was going to post a picture of it, but decided that this one was a better blip of today's events.

Victoria often visits on Satudays and she and my husband do all kinds of things, from looking at pond water through a microscope to making hot air balloons which actually fly. Today has been wet again, so they were looking at film Nikons, which my husband sometimes uses; she was fascinated. She does not realise how much she learns without even trying when they have these sessions together, her maths has improved so much and she gained a much higher grade than was expected of her.

Left Overs

It has been raining quite hard all morning and there is no way I am going outside to take blips in this weather. 

These are some of the left-over gluten free cakes from yesterday; they are here today, but will be gone tomorrow!

Birthday Cake

Today was my granddaughter's thirteenth birthday. It was not a full blown party, she is having a sleepover, with some friends, sleeping in a tent in the garden at the weekend. Today was just for Victoria, her brother and parents, plus me and my husband and two Italian children. They are children of our friends in Livigno where we ski each year; they are here for ten weeks while they improve their English.

We visited this afternoon, to have an early supper of pizza and birthday cake. It had to be an early tea, as she had a judo training session this evening and birthday or no birthday she was not going to miss that. She has a competition on Sunday so needed to train this evening.

This shows her 'grown-up' birthday cake, white icing with white roses and a pink ribbon as well as candles. We actually sang 'happy birthday' twice and had two lots of cake. We had afternoon tea when her brother was at home with gluten-free fairy cakes as he would not like to miss out on cake. Both her brother and myself are coeliac so, as always there were gluten-free cakes to indulge in. We had to have these earlier in the afternoon as her brother was playing in a cricket match for the village cricket team and with such a short cricket season, no way was he missing that.

Red Rose in Bud

Another blip from the garden as my back is still limiting how far I can walk; not far. I hope the physotherapy will work wonders on Monday, but suspect it will take time.

The weather has been odd here today with lots of cloud and some rain, This poor rose bud already looks battered, but has fared better than many in the front garden.

Cuckoo Bee

I think this is a Cuckoo Bee (Bombus (Psithyrus) vestalis), but I am not absolutely certain.

The sun came out today and with it came lots of bees to gather nectar from the flowers; at last I am able to post a blip of a bee.

Orange Flower - Maybe Crocosmia

I think this might be a Crocosmia, which apprently is part of the Iris family. It comes up every year in a great big clump and produces these beautiful orange flowers. It looks as though it should belong to the Lily family, but similar images found on the Internet, state that Crocosmia are part of the Iris family.

It is quite dull here again today and quite changeable, but no rain so far, although little sunshine either. Perhaps that is just as well as I should be doing other things, rather than being out in the garden.

Mini Italian Cup Cakes

No, I did not make these they were seen on a market stall and looked delicious so I decided to make them my blip of the day.

It has been very wet here and despite still having back problems, I went with my granddaughter and other family members for her birthday lunch; this is when I spotted these cup cakes.

I am late uploading today's blip as I have been watching the Formula One from Canada, on the television, for the last five hours. Those of you who also watched it will know that the race was 'red flagged' for over two hours.

Female Chaffinch

I have not been out much today as I have once again damaged my back which means walking is limited. I was able to sit at the open kitchen window and take blips of the birds visiting the garden. I took so many and then did not know which to choose, but finally settled on this female Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs.

Great Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopus major

I had lunch with my daughter today and took several blips of the wildlife in her garden. I thought this juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopus major was quite good, although it is not as focused and clear as I would like it to be.