Europe Trip 2013: Last days in the UK [for now]

After my visit to Portsmouth [see previous couple of posts], I had another 3.5 days in the UK before heading off to Finland. Those days were filled up with clay pigeon shooting with my father, lunch with the family, then the next day off to a local bird sanctuary [the name of which escapes me, along with the photos which I seem to have lost... darn!].

The final full day started with babysitting my 2 year old niece. This was perhaps the most scary part of the whole trip, but I think that little Ferne must take after me - she was very well behaved and seemed to enjoy herself a lot :-). We spent about 2.5 hours out of the house - mainly down at the local park playing, then came back for lunch. What's more, there was no soiled nappy, and so my [proud] record of never having changed a nappy continues! Happy niece = very happy uncle!

Later that day we headed down to the "beach pond", which is just like its name - a pond with a sandy beach. Very popular and a good place for a bit of a swim, although we did see a snake in the water once. My sister says it was nothing to worry about - that it was not poisonous - just a pity she didn't sound convincing... Oh well! Oh yeah - the picture of a swan? There was one of them there also. I guess maybe the snake was safe since the swan was still alive :-)

Anyway, here is a very short video of the shooting then at the beach pond, a picture from the babysitting [yes, I did feed her while we were out!] and the beach pond's resident swan. Enjoy!