Herefordshire Week 131: Tuesday 28 June – Monday 04 July 2022

Ladakh Prep. Smokin’ Stockley Coppice.

Tuesday morning I completed my Air Suvidha registration for entry into India and then printed out my Ladakh paperwork:

UK NHS Vaccination Certificates
Air Suvidha Self Declaration Form
Photo of indian tourist visa (to go with my printed copies of my passport page)
Virgin flight details
Exodus final joining institutions
Travel Insurance certificate

Also set up 2FA for my hotmail account so that I don’t get caught in the hotmail / gmail fatal vicious circle. Saved copies of key docs to my phone and put them in a folder for Phil.

Walked to EH over the common with quick chats with a couple of AD folks en route including N from ADC. Cows, sheep, ponies, rabbits and wild orchids en route – and dad outside The Temple waiting for his Probus club speaker.

I was in EH for a blood test – booked yesterday! I’m eating a lot more cheese WFH so I reckoned a cholesterol test would be a good idea, just to check. Unfortunately the nurse couldn’t get any blood from my tiny veins so I’ve had to rebook for next Tues and wear warmer clothes to get the veins up!

Stockley Coppice has been smoking acridly and continuously since they started burning the brash a couple of days ago. Handily the weather is cooler and cloudier so having all the windows closed isn’t so much of a problem. A digger was out on the slope as I walked past so I am hoping they’re dealing with it. But on my return journey the digger was gone and the piles continued to smoke….

Usual work week. No VWW but we did do Family Zoom on Thursday.

We drove over to Crickhowell and Llanfoist on Friday, for my Crickhowell Walking Festival photography prize presentation at Beacon Park Boats. Fabulous canal boats – super smart in their forest green paint and gleaming brass livery. Quite tempted by the idea of a narrow boat holiday.

Home via Waitrose where our purchases included a very limp and forlorn looking green plant (reduced!). After a good hour or so soaking up water in the washing up bowl it looked much better, and was in full health come Saturday. Should have bought some of the others!

A lovely evening at The New Barn, tucking into curry from The Taste of the Raj – dad’s treat. Jean was on Nanny duty.

Overcast still on Saturday so I spent a satisfying couple of hours, sorting out kit for Ladakh trying to minimise as much as possible. Packed up a couple eBay sales too – including my St Andrews undergraduate gown. Trimmed the wisteria, rehung the plaque for our wedding plum, read in the conservatory. K&N came round for 6pm drinks, which lasted until almost 10pm. Smashing! An hour of Glastonbury then bed.

Sunday, after a slow start, we did Bacton Backwards. Back at base, Phil rescued another young blue tit from the cherry tree netting, and later in the afternoon another one that’d had managed to get into the conservatory. I mowed. Leftover curry for tea.

I spent Monday in the garden, bonfiring in the morning and cutting back / clearing the alpine shrubs next to the tree house in the afternoon and early evening, and sawing down the dead / dying hawthorn tree that leans over the path there. Very satisfying.

Heron at the pond. Four buzzards. More molehills!

Lots of shouting “ARGHHHHHH – SQUIRRELS!” at squirrels on the bird feeder, and occasionally chasing after them with the pump action water guns

Lots of apples, pears, walnuts and hazelnuts on the way.