Golf in the Antarctic

I don't know about Life in the Algarve, it is more like Life in the Antarctic at the moment.
Played golf yesteday, well tried to at any rate.

I made the foolish decision of playing in shorts and a polo shirt, well it is July in the sunny Algarve.
Half way down the 1st fairway, I realised that I had made a mistake and needed at least a sweater, by the time I got to the highest point, I needed a thermal vest as well.

The sun was out with not a cloud in the sky, but the wind was blowing a force 9 double hooley with the wind chill wiping a good 10-15 degrees from the 25 out of the wind, which there wasn't anywhere. Luckily I found a wind cheater in my bag and other put on wooly fleeces.
It has been like this for the past 6 weeks, apparently due to the Gulf Stream/Jet Stream being lower than normal on its path across the planet and there seems no end to it.

A ball that normally traveled 200 metres was lucky to get 150 metres into the wind with the club buffeted and blown all over the place on the back-swing.  We had air shots, (not me I hasten to add), knobbled shots, (will have to own up to one of those) and a few that didn't even reach the ladies tee, because as you know, ladies being the weaker sex, always tee off far in front of the mens teeing area gaining such a huge advantage. Sometimes they are half way down the fairway, but that may be classed as sexist, I don't see how when its a fact and far be it for me to be provocative, ( I can already feel a few choice words coming my way).

My best shot was hitting the ball from the tee and sending it 200 metres in the wrong direction, it wasn't a bad shot, it was the cross wind, honest.
Once on the green, the ball was oscillating on the spot and if moved once you had addressed the ball by grounding your putter behind the ball, should incur a penalty but I guess not many, if any counted it.

Needless to say when the scores were announced they were all low, but sadly still higher than mine.

The flag on the old 14th green struggles to stay in the hole

Home Sweet Home

As reported a little while back Dino the budgie, took off on a little adventure and was missing for an hour or so. It may have been a gust of wind, (although I have to say it has never affected me enough to make me want to go AWOL for a while), or he just might need some need toys and therefore some new stimulation.

I had been putting off building him a house in his room for some time, somewhere were he can go and chill.

Dino's new house

I begged a piece of drainage pipe and cut the entrance hole and  fitted the the necessary attachments so that he could climb in and out.
I left his new "des res"around the house for a while for him to see and get used to and he was inquisitive from the start. He soon made it his own by enlarging the hole, pecking here and there and once I had given him a few sheets of paper to shred and make it more comfortable, he moved in and seems as pleased as punch, in fact I think its fair to say that he loves it.
He has always enjoyed playing with golf balls in the past and so I included 3 in his house for him to play with.
His instincts are obviously kicking in as he is now sitting on the golf balls and must be thinking that that are eggs and is  trying to start a new family, I am looking forward to a few baby Titleist's in a couple of weeks time, could be a nice little earner.

Cats and pots

Not happy with the current layout of the flower pots and containers on the terrace at Whittaker Towers we decided to splash out and buy some new ones.
As some of the pots are quite large, I thought it best to prepare them before putting the plants in, in fact I was well in front of myself as we hadn't even decided on the type of plants that should go in them.
So I drilled the holes and loaded the bottom with some crock to help with the drainage and then half filled them with compost.
Fortunately I had recently had another bulk delivery from the local council which I use to fill half the pot before putting a better grade compost in the top half.
Unfortunately, the next morning before I had chance to put the plant in the pot, I was too late, Stig had made himself a nice comfy bed and couldn't be persuaded to move out.

 A couple of days later when we had finally bought the desired plants I had to resort to a bit of bribery with a tasty tit-bit for him to move out, which always seems to do the trick with any animal and I quickly got the new plant in place. Poor Stig was now looking for a new place to camp out, looks like it didn't take him long as he quickly found a shady spot to have a snooze.

Lost, one large budgie

I was out in the garden the other day with Dino our Blue & Gold Macaw(affectionately referred to as the budgie), who always likes to help with the odd spot of soil chewing to help his digestion when I noticed that one area needed a bit of extra help in the water department.  I went off to start the irrigation after I had put Dino on a branch in a nearby tree. 
When I returned a couple of minutes later, Dino was not on the branch and he was nowhere in sight.
After a few calls of his name and some quick searching, panic was beginning to set in and a nasty taste started to arrive in my very dry mouth.  I went back to the house to check there, nothing and  explained to my wife what had happened. We both continued to search and checked every part of the garden, over and over again, nothing.

Baring in my that this is probably the only bird in the world that hates flying and chooses to walk everywhere, I knew he couldn't be far away, but after more calling his name, searching and whistling, he was still nowhere to be found..
I searched the adjoining fields on each side of the house where the grass was around 4 foot high. I checked all the treetops and surrounding vegetation, there was nowhere within 300 metres of the house that I hadn't searched. I went back to the place that I had left him, now some 30 minutes ago and tried to assess which way he would have flown. The wind was quite strong as it had been for the past couple of weeks and today it was coming from a northerly direction. Assuming that a sudden gust could have caught him unawares, it may have lifted him from the branch and set him on his way and he could well be somewhere down wind.

As I mentioned earlier, Dino chooses not to fly but when necessary, he can and obviously he has today but how far has he gone. Surely he can't have gone far as he will not have much muscle in that area and being a big bird needs a good flap to get some elevation.
The first house we came to had a large white van in the drive and as my wife went to knock on the door, while waiting for someone to answer,  she turned around to see Dino hiding under the van trying to get some shade out of the blistering hot sun, which could have been another reason for taking off from his position in the tree, he hates the sunshine. Macaws are originally from the Amazon and are not sun loving birds, they prefer to be high in the tree tops surveying all before them but in the shade, anyway panic over.