Daft bunnies, squirrels and a new shop
You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion, or challenge the ideology of a violet. Hal Borland
As we’re not able to get away for a holiday this June, we decided to take the time off in short bursts instead, having a couple of long weekends where we vowed to try and get proper holiday-style days out – with picnics and everything.
Thankfully, for our first such long weekend, there was gorgeous warm weather. It had been fabulously sunny over the weekend, but by the Monday and Tuesday, it had gone a bit more cloudy and humid and oppressive instead. But we managed two proper full days out and without resorting to coats or waterproofs, which is always a bonus.
We went first to a new place for us; Mere Sands Wood Nature Reserve in West Lancashire, a Lancashire Wildlife Trust wetland nature reserve and it only cost £2 for parking all day. It was a lovely place that we’ll certainly visit again. You walk in a loop around the mere, mostly in woodland and there were bird feeding stations and hides at suitable positions, where you can sit and look at the various wildlife using the mere. There had been kingfishers in residence a couple of days earlier and we sat waiting for a while at their favourite perch but didn’t see any evidence of them. Regular visitors who came into the hide said they hadn’t been seen for the last 3 days and must have moved on. Shame, I would have been enthralled to see them that close, I’ve only had two fleeting glances of a kingfisher before.
As we were already near the Merseyside coast, we headed off to Formby Point where there is a reserve for red squirrels and we haven’t been for a while. It had been a hot day and the National Trust wardens in attendance said it was too hot for the squirrels, so they hole up in their dreys during the day and come out when it cools. As it was now around 5pm and there was a nice sea breeze, we were hopeful for a siting. Thankfully, they did decide it was time to emerge and find some food, so we did see many of them scampering around in the trees. They make it a little easier to spot them as their claws do make a scratching sound in the trees, so if you stand still and quiet, you can locate them by sound. They move very fast though and many of the photos I got were of disappearing tails or a blur of movement.
The little chap I did get decent photos of (below in the gallery), albeit it a distance up a tree, seemed quite curious about me and kept coming back for a look, so that made it easier for me as at least he stood still for a few moments.
New shop:
The time came when I could put it off no longer. My on-line shop was using a shopping cart system that was now three whole generations behind the times. Google tell me when I advertise, that I’m missing business because I don’t have a mobile phone compatible site and well over 40% of my advert-clickers do so on a smart phone (which means that they probably don’t actually ‘click’ anything at all). Add to that the impending PayPal increased security requirements, I decided it was time to look that elephant in the room right in the eye. I might even go right over there and give his damn trunk a tweak!
So after much hair pulling and gnashing of teeth, my new, smartphone responsive and now fully secure site has been officially launched. There’s a great deal to it and it takes a huge amount of work to get it how you want it, hence not much new jewellery to report. Fine tuning pages for the new design will be a work in progress for a little while yet, but all the major stuff has been addressed – and I believe it’s working well.
If you’d like to try it out, I’d welcome any comments as there’s limited value in my own testing as I know how it works and what to expect and if you would like to make a purchase, there’s a launch coupon for 10% off across the shop (gift certificates are excluded, minimum spend £10), valid until the end of June 2016 – just enter LAUNCH10 in the appropriate box in the basket.
Gallery:
You’ll need to view the gallery to see the daft bunnies.