Busy Times

Well it's been a busy month, what with starting the business and sorting out the wedding.

Mum came to visit immediately after I finished work. She lives down in Somerset and it was really nice to see her. We spent a few days catching up and I took her down to see the wedding venue in all it's glory. As we have been keeping this a secret from most of the guests and the invitations haven't gone out yet, I won't mention where.

A couple of days afterwards Nick went to Eagle Heights for his Christmas present - Xmas 2007 that was! He loves birds of prey and I got him an afternoon flying one of the birds. He was supposed to do it in the spring, but as you know, events kind of overtook us.

He went out with the falconer (and his mad Pointer) and 3 other guys, plus myself and another lady as observers. If you know anything about birds of prey, you will know this is somewhat unusual, as they are all solitary hunters - except the Harris Hawks he got to fly, which hunt in large groups in a Matriachal heirachy (up the girls!). Each guy was given his own Hawk, 1 older male, 1 nearly mature female and 2 juvenile boys. It was really funny to see the looks of nervousness on all of their faces, with this huge looking bird on their fists!

We walked for a while and then let the birds free in a local field. They fly there regularly and know that there are extra tasty things in the hedgerows at the edge. The Hawks hunt the hedge in a sweep, leapfrogging down the trees. The young female was very observant of the older male, knowing that he has something to teach her. In time she will take the lead in the hunt. The 2 boys were a little more confused and kept landing in the field and waddling about like scary chickens.

Finally they did some flying to the hand (for meaty rewards, obviously). Each guy took his turn, his calling one bird, and then 2 at a time. I can't imagine having 2 birds flying at you at once. Did get a brilliant shot of one taking off though.

We went on holiday the week after, but I'll gloss over that as we had horrendous thunderstorms and torrential rain for 5 out of the 7 days!

Other than that it's been flat out making stuff and gathering the information to send out with the invitations. Who'd have thought that this wedding malarkey would be so time consuming!! Been going to Greenwich market fairly regularly, and I'm starting to get to know some of the regulars there, which is nice.

After making lots of promises, I'm going to *try* to do at least a weekly update, so at lest you'll have something fresh to read.................