Donkey Day

We started last week with a visit to the Open Day at the Donkey Sanctuary....this was part of their Donkey Week, where they invite people to see the work they do on their farms caring for donkeys, mules and the occasional horse friend.

Note:  this is a longish post....I really want you to see the pix and videos I did there on the day - make a cuppa and sit back and enjoy......and I've added a couple of sketches I did there too....

This is at Town Barton Farm...(here's their Blog)

....up country lanes to the farm



View Larger Map

(this sign, which is about 4ft tall, was made by one of the grooms, Sophie, at Town Barton Farm...very cleverly done)

Gorgeous setting in the Devon countryside

We got to meet Rocky the Superstar -

a mule with his own blog!

and groups of other mules and donkeys

sketching them is difficult...they move about constantly...

Of course, the donkeys want to know what is happening with all these visitors and often get in the way of a 'photo shoot'  !!

and here are a group of mules running down the track
Everyone stood along the fence line to watch this.....









The work that the Donkey Sanctuary do for these animals is exemplary,
their care and well being No. 1 priority and it was a pleasure to see how happy
they are.

 ~A great day had by all~

(We then continued our journey, and stayed in Bournemouth
but I'll save that for another day).

******

The digger at work...

Following on from yesterday's post, I'm adding a couple of videos of the digger actually working

I hasten to add - In The Rain!

so there is one lurcher looking very wet and fed up in the first clip!
(sorry they are only very short clips though, the camera was about to run out of battery)...

 and the digger a bit closer....

Building Sandcastles

Most people imagine building sandcastles is a simple bit of fun





well it is.....but at Woolacombe they have brought in the big boys for the job of moving sand

into a mound....

in fact a long mound...

All in preparation for the beach huts

the Supervisor!

Arlington Court

Back in the flow...of helping out at Arlington Court. I know you will have seen plenty about this National Trust property before, but with the new season I thought I'd share some pictures with you.
I guess that some of you won't have heard about it if you are new to this blog.

We had a brilliant sunny day on Monday, thankfully there have been one or two of those recently.

The Harnessing demonstration is done in the Courtyard, where visitors can get close enough to see what is going on followed by putting the horses to the carriage.  Here we have David the Head Coachman talking to the visitors with Louise the groom, holding Solo on the left and Theo on the right.   The horses are both Gelderlanders a dutch breed.

Initially they drive off and warm the horses up in preparation for taking passengers:

Ilfracombe Gallery

Hi everyone

Just wanted to pop by and mention the Gallery I exhibit with.   If anyone happens to be travelling down this way during the next few months then do make this one of your visits

Opposite the Landmark Theatre so it is easy to find and as you see plenty of signs -
  you can't miss it.

They have set up a new Website here  and a Blog here   -   So if you are not able to actually visit in person you may like to see and follow online instead.   There is a Followers gadget.

Not William this time!

For a change I have sketched someone else's little dog and it isn't our William.  So don't tell William! he may get upset....

 

~this little dog lives on Dartmoor!~

Blogs that are not Updating

Hi everyone,

Just popped by to say that some of the Blogs I follow (In the right-hand sidebar)  are not Updating like they should do.   I chose the setting 'Most Recently Updated' and usually this works just fine, but for some reason a few of them are not jumping up to the top of the list when people do a new blog post.

Has anyone else had this problem?    My blog SketchingWilliam is also one of those that has not updated today!...Strange happenings or what.  I have cleared cache and cookies just in case, plus reset the Template, but to no avail.  It would seem this is a Blogger problem...so all I can say is:

"Please be patient with me.  I will get to your blogs, but perhaps just a little slower as I am not aware you have Updated with a new post".

Something amazing has happened

yesterday we had Blue skies...the whole day  yay!

 in one direction a few scattered clouds

 and the other way

 a few clouds peering over the hill

otherwise it was blue skies...took this picture looking straight up

see - I said it was amazing

Hope that wasn't Summer
still at least I have the picture to remind me!