We set off for London, ostensibly to visit with Clare's family, having booked a long weekend sit in Romford. James was born in the Romford hospital (although he doesn't remember it ;-) First things first .... a pie and chips from the chippy up the road.
Alita and Clare arguing over who should
get the biggest piece of pie
We had three cats to care for in Romford - Alita, a very friendly and lovable girl
And brother and sister duo ... Bindi and Goblin, a little shyer but certainly not backward in coming forward at dinner time.
Feeding time at the zoo
They were all very easy care which meant we could spend a couple of days with Clare's niece(s) and children as well as heading to a lovely lunch at a cousin's place out Wembly way. Lots of driving across and around London ... but at least we didn't have to do this in rush hour traffic. Perish the thought!
Grove Park Central (train station)
Next stop, Bardwell, a lovely little village just outside Bury St Edmunds (where James' Mum and Dad live).
Coffee with Chris (James' Mum) in Bury
What a treat we were in for. We were welcomed to a very comfortable and well presented terraced house by Flora, a Norfolk terrier
and Jazz, a (very patriotic) West Highland terrier
Waving goodbye to Mum and Dad
What a gorgeous pair of bookends these two were. We had lots of adventures in Knettishall Heath just up the road. We saw hares and deer and even an otter playing in the stream. Flora was in her element here with lots of sniffs and smells to keep her occupied whilst Jazz would really rather be at home snuggling on the sofa
... but happy enough to humour us all for an hour or so.
We did have an unusual incident at Knettishall. We were standing beside the car getting the doggies out of the back seat when the back window of the car simply exploded. Fair dinkum! Go figure. No idea why.
Martello Tower, Aldeburgh ...
the largest and most northerly of the chain of towers
built to keep out Napoleon.
We arrived back in the UK just in time to get ourselves to Leiston for our next sit. Jenny is a lovely friend whom we have sat for on a number of occasions. She had also recently moved to Leiston where we were to be close to the ocean, so we were pleased about that. Unfortunately, one of Jenny's dogs, May, had passed away (of old age) whilst we were away. So we would only have Trix to care for this time.
We were feeling torn about coming to the UK at this time of year. Whilst we were looking forward to seeing family and friends, we were not so keen on arriving from the tropics to the declining temperatures of the UK heading for winter. We travel with as few clothes as possible and as we are usually found hanging out in warmer climes, most of these tend to be fairly light-weight. Hmmm, op shopping we will go! Having said all that England, and especially Suffolk, really is a visual feast in autumn and one of our favourite times of year here.
One of the other reasons we love a good autumn is for the wild mushrooms. We found some we had never tried before in the church yard at Aldringham. We use the River Cottage Mushroom book to do our preliminary research and then both the internet and facebook group Mushroom Forgaging UK to identify everything before we eat them. Hey, and we're still alive! The most interesting and tasty of the newbies we found were the Parasol.
They are really meaty and formed the base of both an outstanding Beef and Pheasant Strogonoff (Jaime Oliver Stroganoff)
Parasols, Brittle gills, jelly ears, field mushrooms
Bay Boletes, Suede Boletes
Amathyst Deceivers ... pretty in a salad
As Trix was in her twilight years (at 14 yo) and her mobility wasn't great, we all enjoyed foraging around the forest and churchyard at her pace.
Another activity we all enjoyed together was, of course, fishing. We spent many hours wrapped up on the beach at both Thorpness and Aldeburgh well, feeding the fish really ;-)
Beach houses at Thorpness
We caught nothing of edible size but plenty of pin whiting and a few small bass and a rockling.
It is the expectation of the unexpected that makes it all worth while. Oh and the sea air and the pretty rainbows.
Which one is not a table decoration? These handsome
iguana are very common in Costa Rica. This does not detract
from the pleasure of seeing them often
Pretty (&) Extraordinary
One of the things we love most about Central America is the amazing wildlife we were lucky enough to exerience during our two housesits. The butterflies were surprisingly beautiful. This would be a great place to be a lepidopterist! But for us mere mortals ... it was enough to just enjoy seeing them every day. Our favourites were the ones in Costa Rica with the vivid blue on the inside of the wings (which made them extremely difficult to photograph) which you might be able to spot on our video.
See if you can spot the blue flashes
Here is a compilation of some we did photograph
Beautiful Birds
Then there were the beautiful birds! We sat and watched them for hours on end. Our favourites were the Macaws. They are very, very noisy and you can here them coming from miles off. To us, that is part of their charm.
Eating mamons in our tree
The red tanager is quite startling when you see the vibrant red on the wing as it flies by. We had an identification chart of the birds we were likely to see and it was fun to identify them .... mostly in our vast garden in Costa Rica.
Photos courtesy of google
One of our highlights was to sit back on the day bed and watch the Aracaris right outside our door helping themselves to the ripe papaya. We willingly sacrificed the papaya for just this reason!
Amazing Animals
Crocodiles are plentiful in the Rio Sierpe in Costa Rica and the locals tell us they are getting more prolific as time goes by. We saw at least one every time we were out on the boat ... sunbathing on the banks at low tide mostly. They are quite spooky though and never gave us any cause for concern.
Case in point!
Other cool animals we saw ....
Photos courtesy of google
Creepy Crawlies
We had leaf cutter ants in the yard in Panama. Whilst amusing to watch they were decimating the orange tree and simply had to go.
The ants encountered in Costa Rica were not nearly as innocuous. The fire ants drove us crazy if we tried to do the yard work without wearing boots. The house ants weren't much better, but at least they don't bite!
Pretty crickets in CR
Spiders weren't too much of a problem. Although Clare encountered a Wandering spider on the shower curtain in Panama and refused to pull the curtain for a week afterwards.
You can see why though ... can't you !?!?!?
David Attenborough of Central America - tarantula in the forest
Amphibians and Reptiles
We only saw three snakes in the six months we were in Central America. A big daddy boa sleeping in the rafters of an out house. A snake swimming it's way across the Rio Sierpe and a very cute vine snake as we were traipsing through some bushes on the beach in Panama. Suffice to say, we weren't sorry not to see more. Especially the dreaded fer de lance of Costa Rica. James did point out that there are only 500ish snake bites each year in Costa Rica!!
Vine snake
The most annoying are the cretinous cane toads we encountered in Panama. No redeeming features and we had to strongly discourage them from taking up residence on the deck.
Scram you filthy vermon
In stark contrast are the wonderful geckos (chit chats as we like to call them), that chirp in the rafters catching bugs. They really are very cute.
Jesus Christ lizards are fascinating creatures and living on the river in Sierpe we saw many - large and small. You hear them before you see them as they take off across the water when they hear you coming. We even had a baby 'pet' one on our deck which we watched hunting bugs every day. It grew quite a lot during our time but we never saw it attempt to walk on water. It just seemed happy in the relative comfort and safety of the home it had made in the shade sail.
We were also quite taken with the tree frogs. Here is one we brushed off the outside wall of the house by accident whilst cleaning once day. You don't usually see them during the day.
We had land crabs in our garden in Costa Rica
And plenty of sea crabs at Playa Las Lajas, Panama
But the piece de resistance of this group would have to be the iguanas. They are so much fun and not too spooky. The one in the lead picture just appeared on the deck one day we were visiting friends in Sierpe and stayed around for ages whilst we all took photos.
This big guy would come out on the lawn to feed
when the grass was long enough. He lived in the
big tree right beside that water tower in the pic
Things that go bite in the night!
Mossies, no-see-ums [what is a noseeum?] and other bitey things .... they are all out and about as night falls. We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't get bitten more but were careful to shut the screens and windows before turning on lights. James got bitten by something unseen and the wound took many weeks to heal completely. In fact, it came back twice after it looked to have cleared up. Clare went through a spate of getting bitten, again by thing/s unseen. The bites were painful initially and then sooooo itchy for about a week. Hey ho, could be worse. Could have been bitten by a snake!
And so it was .... we woke to the howler monkeys every morning in Costa Rica and went to sleep each night to the howl of the coyotees in Panama - neither of which we were lucky enough to see.
