Goldfinches in the garden

The FH and I had a beautiful surprise this afternoon when we sat in the garden - two dainty little goldfinches came fluttering down and pecked at something in the grass for a few minutes, letting us have a good look at them, before flying away again. When we moved in here, six years ago, there was hardly any vegetation as it was a bare new plot, and most of the neighbours were the same, but now we are getting more established and the wildlife is moving in - there has been a hedgehog family here for a couple of years, and we are now getting more interesting bird species beyond the sparrow and the starling.

The FH's sister and her husband arrived at 10.30 this morning and stayed for a couple of hours. There was much reminiscing, in which I couldn't really take part, as they all grew up together in Northamptonshire and a generation or two ahead of me, so I knew little of which they were speaking. I made the coffee and listened. They kindly brought us three bottles of wine from their travels in France, and the FH enjoyed their company. No doubt he will see them again in December.

This afternoon, after I had picked the YFG up from school, we made a trip to town, as there were a couple of things I needed to do: I fetched some glass for the verandah windows from the glazier, some breeder's pellets for the chickens from the feedstore and I also put a couple of cheques in the bank. My mobile phone was in dire need of a top up, financially speaking, so I dealt with that as well.

I didn't out the next batch of eggs in the incubator the other evening as it wasn't hot enough, but it has reached a satisfactory temperature tonight, so it has been loaded up with 10 Gold Partridge Orpington eggs and 2 Silver laced Wyandotte eggs. I ordered a new Corti 25 automatic incubator on Tuesday, so I hope that it will come soon as I have quite a few Brown Sussex eggs ready to give it a go.