A Happy Event

When the phone rings in the middle of the night it is a bit scary but this time it was good news.

Felix Richard John Gallé was born on Friday 13th October, weighing in at 7 1/2 pounds with strawberry blonde hair. Our first grandchild!

Both mother and baby are doing well in hospital in Toulouse.

A different afternoon

We checked the weather forecast this morning and decided that it looked like a good day for staying at home. So we didn't. We spent the afternoon at WWT Slimbridge watching wildfowl.

It's our way of avoiding the crowds and it works. Most of the time we had the Holden Tower hide to ourselves with views across the Severn estuary only occasionally obscured by driving rain. There is something very cosy about sitting somewhere dry and secure and watching nasty weather go by outside.

There were a lot of Canada Geese and Barnacle Geese on the marshes with a pair of Greylag Geese. We could see waders on the Severn mud but they were too far away for easy identification, just possibly Bar-tailed Godwits.

On our way to the Holden Hide we stopped of at South Hide and had a close encounter of the Scipidae kind. A different slant on bird watching!

Wet but not miserable

I only spent an hour or so at the mill today.

First I went to see the doctor to check the progress with my eye. Good news, it's getting much better. I think I already knew that.

I then drove out to the mill to lend a hand. The weather is pretty fowl here today so most of the work was inside. I did a bit of brushing down for a short while but then the opticians called to see if I could attend for some tests.

Back into Stourport to the opticians. More tests with apparatus the doctor doesn't have. More good news, no permanent damage. That really is good news that I wasn't sure of before!

It was time for more eye-drops so I went home instead of back to the mill and spent the rest of the afternoon researching suitable web directories to submit the recipe site to.

Signs of recovery - Iritis responds to treatment

Just one day's medication has made an enormous difference to my eye. The pain has almost completely gone and the vision is improved. Normally I would have spent all day at Shelsley Watermill but I only visited the site for a couple of hours this afternoon to take some photos for the blog.

Check out the days progress at www.shelsleywatermill.com and I have added the photos to the PicasaWeb album as usual.


When I walked into the farmyard from the mill it looked as though there was a carpet of brown feathers. By the time I got the camera out of a zipped up pocket the numbers had thinned out a bit but I caught 12 or 13 pheasants on camera.

I can't remember seeing as many pheasants around as I have this year, probably because I haven't been out in the countryside during the working week as much as I am this year, but there do seem to be an awful lot of birds around.

A bit of a fright! Iritis hurts.

When I woke up this morning I couldn't see out of my right eye. Just a blur.

It's been a bit sore for a few days, but today it really hurt. Saw the doc at 10 o'clock (out of one eye anyway). Apparently I have iritis which is painful but treatable. I should get the sight back in the eye OK in a few days.

I now have various drops to put in the eye at intervals and after 5 hours or so they do seem to be working. It hurts less anyway.

If you are reading this because you want to know about Shelsley Watermill I have copied all the past entries onto the mill's own website that has its very own restoration blog. In future I will be blogging the about the mill on that sight and about everything else on this one.