Millions of Midges

We've never known a year for midges - there are millions of them (or least that's the way it feels) and they are voracious.  Any outdoor evening activities are pretty much out of the question unless you keep on the move and even then you're still flailing around like a demented windmill brushing them off and shooing them away. They're around during the day too but not quite so much, early morning seems to be the only time that's relatively midge free.  So we're stuck indoors saving up for a midge-munching-machine.
Every cloud has a silver lining and this population boom has brought a bonus with it - bats!  We've had a pip and a brown long-eared as regular fly-throughs with some munching on route, the long-ear even roosted in the garage for a few years.  This year there have been several bats flying around every evening, at least two pips plus a couple of bigger bats which we originally put down as the our usual brown long-ear plus a friend but on watching the flight patterns it soon became apparent that it wasn't a long-ear at all. Out came the bat detector and clicks were heard at 25kHz, quick check and yes, it's a noctule.  We think that's a first for us, so bat species now number three! 

It's turned out dreich today which may have driven away the midges but doesn't really invite you to go out and about so instead we put together a CJS weekly for you, 12 pages this week with 30 adverts for paid posts (including some in the new style, see Monday's blog for more) plus 11 for voluntary placements.

You may have noticed that it's the middle on Wimbledon fortnight, the rain kind of gave it away. Which means that next week KH is ensconced on the sofa with strawberries, pimms and maybe even some bubbles watching the yellow fuzzies in SW19 and if the weather behaves putting the garden straight in between matches. Leaving the Team to deal with the new ad rates, new advertising deals, new invoices, the loss of google reader and, and... so be kind to them and don't ask them any difficult questions!