Things I have seen recently

Simon left yesterday evening to fly to UK for a week as he has to interview potential investment managers on Wednesday. He will also be able to spend some time with Hannah and Kati and their families. As I only have 2 shifts at work this week I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with some blogging. However most of my photos are on the laptop which he has taken so I spent most of yesterday uploading photos so I can now write about them.

Today has been sunny and I have spent most of it in the garden digging and doing other jobs. I have sown a first row of sugar snap peas and put cloches over them.

These photos have been taken on local walks since we came back from our holiday.

The tussac grass flowers in early spring, although only some plants seem to flower.

When walking along the coast between Tussac Point and Gypsy Cove one day I heard a roaring in the tussac above me. I decided it might not be wise to be between the source of the noise and the sea so skirted inland and found this bull sea lion amongst the grass. 2 of his wives were resting a bit further on and another was swimming in the sea.

This was washed up on the beach at Surf Bay and I have seen other similar ones. I am not sure if it is a kind of sea-weed or a sponge. At one end of Surf Bay is a headland called Hookers Point with lots of rocks at the end of it. When the tide is low there are interesting rock pools.

There are lots of these attractive sea-anemones in some of the pools.

One day I spotted this strange creature, looking rather like an underwater armadillo. It is a chiton or coat of mail shell and it sticks to the rocks rather like the limpet next to it. The smaller creatures on the rock are isopods which look very like woodlice but are good swimmers. They vary a lot in size.


Off the end of Hookers Point are some large rocks standing vertically out of the sea and probably about 15 feet high. Usually there are rock shags perched on them but one afternoon a couple of weeks ago there were 2 sea lions sitting up tall right on the top. We have no idea why they were there or how they climbed up the almost sheer rocks.

Mount Longdon

May be the thoughts of spring were wishful thinking. Today is cloudy, very cold and windy!

Last Saturday Simon and I went for a walk along Wireless Ridge and across to Mount Longdon, a hill we have not climbed before.


There are various bits of military hardware left from the conflict on Wireless Ridge.


Mount Longdon can be seen in the background in this picture.

We were walking into the wind and crossed some quite boggy ground between the hills so it was fairly tiring walking although only 51/4 miles round trip.


There are a lot more reminders of the war on Mount Longdon including another gun and this Argentine hideout, where you can still see an old shoe and blanket.


There are also a lot of memorials to the 23 British soldiers and many Argentinians who lost their lives here in June 1982.

Spring

Once again sorry for long abscence of blogs. Really will try to catch up a bit soon,

Today felt as if spring might be here. The sun was shining and only a gentle breeze. Having finished work early I spent the afternoon digging in my vegetable patch and even sat outside to write a couple of letters (was still wearing my thermal undies though!).


When Simon came home from work we drove out to Gypsy Cove and saw our first penguin of the season looking very sleek and plump.

He did appear to have quite an itch though so I expect the fleas in his burrow were also pleased to see him back.

By 6pm the temperature was plummeting and the wind picking up.

Larks and newsbirds

I have worked my 2 nights and am busy today trying to catch up with jobs at home. I still need to pack for our holiday.

Yesterday morning after I came home from work I drove down to Surf Bay for a walk on the beach. It was very calm but cold. I took a few photos of two of the birds we often see there and in our garden.

These are long tailed meadow larks, also known as military starlings or robins. They are often in flocks, feeding on the ground but sound rather like noisy larks.


This is a dark-faced ground tyrant. They are often called news birds because they fly up close to you and look as if they are going to tell you some news or want to hear some gossip.

Last night and this morning we had cold sleety rain and a bitter wind. The surrounding hills are now all snow-capped. It is hard to believe that by tomorrow evening we should be enjoying tropical heat on Ascension Island!

Leave and judging art

Well our flights are now confirmed and we have our tickets so we will be leaving here early on Tuesday morning and flying to Ascension Island where we have booked a self-catering cottage by a beach for a week. We will then fly overnight to UK arriving on July 14th. I am working tonight and tommorow night so will be quite busy until we leave.


This morning we helped judge the annual art exhibition at the infant junior school (a job which last year I vowed I would never do again!). This year we had year 3 which was much easier than the reception and year 1 we had last year.




The children had each done a self portrait of themselves with another person or animal, an Egyptian treasure box with printed designs on it and a model of a sculpture they had designed for a corner of the school yard.

After we had judged our class we looked round the rest of the exhibition. The art work was all of an extremely high standard and also included things produced by the children who are educated out in camp.

Elephant Beach

We have just spent the weekend at a self-catering cottage on Elephant Beach Farm near Cape Dolphin. Having had snow showers on Thursday and with more forecast I wondered if we were going to make it but it had largely thawed by Friday afternoon, although the roads were still quite icy in places. In fact it was an amazing drive out there as there was a full moon and a clear sky so the mountains were all lit up in the moonlight.

Ben, the farmer had put a joint of beef in the oven for us so there were delicious smells in the cottage when we arrived and it was good to relax. Saturday morning we woke while the moon was still in the sky and were able to sit in bed watching a partial eclipse.


Later in the morning we drove a short distance and then walked to Elephant Beach (which is not on Elephant Beach Farm!). The beach is probably about 2 miles long and backed by sand dunes for most of it's length. Washed up at the top of the beach are skulls and bones of hundreds of whales, mostly quite small ones but there are also some huge and very old looking bones embedded in the sand.


Ben said when he was young as many as 50 or 60 pilot whales would beach at a time.

There were some large ponds behind the beach and we saw 5 black-necked swans on one of them as well as lots of geese.

Today we spent a relaxed morning at the cottage and on our way home took a detour up to Salvador, which was an interesting drive up a very indented stretch of coastline, where we had not been before. The roads were actually a lot more slippery with mud coming home than the ice when we went on Friday.

San Carlos 2

We woke on the Sunday morning to a hard frost but another sunny day. Before breakfast I took a short walk down to Blue Beach, scene of the first task force landings in the conflict. It was an amazingly calm morning.


I enjoyed a stroll on the beach and watching a group of two banded plover feeding at the water's edge.


There were also a group of crested ducks dabbling around.


Just behind Blue Beach is the walled cemetry where some of the British casualties are buried and there are plaques commemorating the many who died at sea.


After breakfast Simon and I went for a walk from Blue Beach around the headland near the settlement and watched a sea lion swimming in the bay. We then walked along the pier with it's old rails where the bales of wool would have been wheeled on trolleys down to the boat.


There were lots of shags on the end of the pier, curiously segregated.


Rock shags on the left


and imperial shags on the right.

In the afternoon, after we had packed up, we drove around to the other side of San Carlos Water to Wreck Point farm and then walked to Ajax Bay. This was known as Red Beach during the conflict. There is a small colony of gentoo penguins here and they were bathing in the sea and coming ashore.




There is a complex of derilict buildings here, the remains of a mutton refrigeration plant which was never economically viable and only used for a couple of years.

During the conflict the buildings, most of which have no windows, were used as a field hospital, known as the red and green life machine, where many seriously wounded soldiers received initial treatment before being transferred to the hospital ship Uganda. Two large bombs actually entered the building but failed to explode and the life-saving work continued around them. The buildings are now considered unsafe and you are not allowed to enter.


However you could see inside some of them where the remains of boilers and meat processing equipment can be seen.


By the time we got back to the car the sun was going down and we drove up to the telecommunications mast on the Sussex Mountains and stopped for a cup of tea whilst watching the sun set over San Carlos Water and the mountains of West Falkland. A lovely end to a super weekend.