It's Friday

I thought as it was Friday I'd look back at five things that have made me smile over the last few days.

 1.  Young water birds.  The black swans at Trentham Gardens have cygnets.  Meanwhile at the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust headquarters at their Wolseley Nature Reserve we saw a moorhen with a chick, mallard ducklings, Canada goose goslings and a nest too, full of eggs,  mother goose moved off the nest to stretch her legs and then went back to sit on her eggs.

2.  The Tamarisk Tree in the middle of the garden has gone from dark pink to light pink almost overnight.

 This coupled with all the pink and mauve aquilegias has made the garden take on a pink hue.  I love the tree at this time of year.

3.  A visit to the library and three lovely books to read.  I'd read about 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine' in several places so when I spotted the book on the recommended book shelf I picked it up.  The other books I'd had on reserve and both arrived together.  I really enjoyed the first Roz Watkins book I read earlier this year so I was pleased to find her second one again set in the Peak District with the same rather accident prone detective DI Meg Dalton.  I also enjoyed reading Ali Smith's books 'Autumn' and 'Winter' so I'm looking forward to the third one, 'Spring'.

4.  Yesterday we met with three friends from Nottingham, one of whom was celebrating a birthday, at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire.  We had lunch in the Carriage House cafe and then a leisurely stroll around the gardens.
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I didn't take a lot of photos as we were all busy chatting and taking everything in, enjoying the views of the Derbyshire countryside and each other's company.  I'm hoping to borrow a few of Paul's photos to add to mine so that I can write a post about the visit later next week.

5.  Last week we met with my second cousin and his wife in Bakewell, Derbyshire.  It was a damp, cool and rainy day.  We visited the Old House Museum and then drove out to the village of Great Longstone.  After lunch in a pub in the centre of the village we visited the church. 
 

We were looking around in the subdued light when a lovely lady arrived to do the flowers.  She switched on all the lights for us and told us a bit about the church and pointed out the main features of interest.
 

Again I didn't take many photos but somehow the rain added to the beauty of the church building and the lovely cottages and gardens in the village. 

I'll be back in a few days with a post about Thornbridge Hall.