Well its been a couple of weeks since my last missive, lots happened, eldest daughter moved back in with us – then has been in hospital for severe vertigo, inner ear damage – what a shambolic tragedy that was.

NHS wow, I used to believe in our health service, now I believe in the people who do the day to day work in each area but the management and the joined up service are either incompetent, self serving, arrogant or none existent. All this results in error, lack of care, blocked beds and additional cost for no better reason than they are all chasing government targets and ruled by bean counters ( accountants – the grey suits that cream off the top ) rather than by service and a duty of care. But anyway – she is home now, I only had to threaten them with being sued for her to be seen by a specialist and to get her home. It only took two weeks in a hospital bed for no reason apart from ENT insisting she was an out patient so refusing to see her even though she was still in hospital as the doctors said she was not fit to leave hospital! 

I also went to Falmouth to pick up youngest and bring her home for term break and then we had a couple of weeks of non stop doing – work, hospital visits, flat cleaning to move eldest back into home etc. Well it was that or get bored with all my spare time doing nothing.  

We did manage to get a day or two out in the period, Slimbridge and Cerney House Gardens. Unfortunately it was a bit grey and overcast so not the best weather for Cerney House – still to early for the full Tulip show they have but a few were open and there were other plants that were showing well. Slimbridge was as usual nice – so far only the Hawaiian Geese, the Nene, and a Coot have chicks, all the rest are just getting started. 

Nene

Red crowned Crane

Flamingo

Having a sleepover party with friends

Male Eider duck - the Frankie Howerd bird

diving for seed

Mute Swans

Ahh - Swan Lake

Then of course we had to take youngest back to Falmouth – stopped off at RHS Rosemoor Gardens on the way down. A lovely garden that will have to be on the list for a future visit, the azeleas and Rhododendrons were in full bloom as were the Magnolias, not on the same scale as Wisley but nice. The lower story plants were in good show with superb fields of fritillaries and other woodland flowers   

Fritillaria

Snowflakes

Euphorbia

Fern - new growth

Erithronium

Wood Anemone

Erithronium

Water course to lake

Verity - oh sorry Squirrel

and of course no trip to Cornwall is complete without a trip to Eden. Getting a bit blasé about the tree frogs now and the Roul Rouls but very few lizards and Gekos, but boy it was warm, a really sunny day so the Tropical Biome was toasty. 

They were doing Chocolate in Eden – no surprise for Easter – in this case it was education as to the history and the trading value of chocolate, so you got tokens as locals who grew chocolate a bit of history from a ‘local’ then as you walked through the dome you traded it for ‘gold’, then traded that for money from the Conquistadores, apparently Verity was untrustworthy,  then traded that into a certificate in a chocolate house with the proprietor then traded that into modern chocolate – interesting and educational and at the end the children got chocolate and a few will remember some of the history.

Chocolate seller

Fungi

Geko

Lizard

Robin - yeah okay but it was singing

Whites Tree frog

 Ah well then back to work, but what the heck it pays the bills so we can do the days out.