When is a Tree not a Tree?

When it’s a Mohonia , which is a Shrub. I’ve been searching for ages to find out what the Tree is outside my front room window. I’m on the first floor with a huge front room window with this lovely thing outside my window, just about a foot away. It flowers at least 3 times a year, and the birds love it. Especially the Blackbirds, Thrush’s and small birds, along with the bees. I’ve been asking all sorts of visitors if they knew what it was, I've been searching the Internet too. Then yesterday I found it, and it’s not a Tree it’s a Shrub, and a huge one at that!

The Mohonia Shrub has striking yellow flowers that then turn to the blue/black berries that the birds love so much. It smells very much like Lilly of the Valley and the bark has a snakeskin look to it. I just love watching the birds feeding on it, so close to my window. You could almost touch them, my next step is to try and see if I can photograph any through the glass.

I’ve been playing with my new toy, my NavMan. Tested it out with a friend yesterday. Chose a remote country pub for Sunday lunch, and it worked better than me! I’m hooked on it now and have used it for journeys I don’t really need it for as know the way. Its going to be a big bonus for my visit to Leeds at the end of the month and finding my relatives.

I adore going out for Sunday Lunch, and the place we found yesterday was lovely. An old English Pub in a nice Sussex village. I had the full roast and apple crumble and custard and ice cream for afters! Yum Yum. Then on the way back home we saw a Forest Walk sign and thought we would investigate as we thought it was near a lake we had gone past.

The walk was lovely through the Forest, but we needed a map really as we didn’t find the lake. However, along the way we did see two Deer jump out of the bush onto the track right in front of us, stop, then dart away. It was amazing and took my breath away. We walked about four miles, at a nice rambling place, but I wasn’t really wearing the correct shoes so by the time we got back to the car I had developed a blister or two. The forest was beautiful, so I'm going to do some research on it and then maybe explore it better with the right footwear.

So what else have I been up to? I’ve started working on my Family Tree, although a second cousin of my Dads has already done some of the work, there are other branches I want to add to it. It’s been totally absorbing and fascinating, and I’m hooked on it now. I’ve enlisted some help from my cousins to get more recent family dates so I can add their parts of the family. One of my cousins sent me a link to a site that has a picture of my mum aged around 10 with her sister and a friend outside their local cinema on a motorbike. It’s a picture I’ve never seen before, and very special as I don’t have many pictures of my mum as a child, and her sister who is with her died just under a year after mum did.

x x