News - contract extension

Things are now a little clearer. Simon was told by his boss a few days ago that he would like to extend his contract by a year (probably because he has not yet re-organised the department as he is planning to). Nothing is signed or sealed yet but it is good to have a bit more idea what we will be doing. We have therefore provisionally booked to go on leave on July 6th, spending a week on Ascension Island and then about 4 weeks in UK. This is a much nicer prospect than having to pack everything up here! We are only waitlisted on the flights so won't know until much nearer the time if we are definitely flying then.

So, what else has been happening? At the moment I only have a couple of shifts each week at work, but that can quickly change! I have been tidying up the garden and also doing a bit of gardening for our neighbour in exchange for Spanish lessons. I can now say "it is a nice day isn't it" and "please give me the blue pencil". We have had some cold spells but also some lovely warm sunny days. The flower bed I planted to screen the vegetable bed is still looking very pretty and the tree lupins in it are growing quite big.


On a sunny morning about a week ago I went for a walk from Gypsy Cove around Tussac Point and Engineers Point. The penguins have all gone from Gypsy Cove (although I did recently see a stray one swimming in the harbour). I saw this pair of Falkland Flightless Steamer ducks (also known as logger ducks) in Hadrassa Bay. There are a lot of them around but it is usually hard to get very close to them. The male has the more orange beak and paler head. They can not fly but 'steam' along the surface of the water flapping their wings and paddling their feet. They can be very pugnacious and territorial.


This is a pair of kelp geese. The male is the white one. They are usually on the shore line feeding amongst the kelp.


When I first spotted this on the shore I thought it was a skeleton of some sort but on closer examination it turned out to be a tree skeleton!

Visitor

Last Friday we had a visitor in our garden. In fact I have seen a few of them around the area over the past few weeks. A group of these cattle egrets arrive most autumns but they do not usually survive the winter here.


He (or she) was very busy pecking around on the front lawn and seemed to be catching lots of earwigs and woodlice. As the earwigs have reached plague proportions both inside and outside the house I would have liked to be able to tame him and keep him but they are very shy.


This seemed an even more appealing idea when I woke up in the middle of last night feeling something wriggling around in my ear - is this why they are called earwigs?

The egret was in the garden again today but looking rather bedraggled and sorry for itself as we had gale force winds. It did not seem to be eating anything and I suspect will not live much longer.