Delivery Delights

I have such lovely little adventures when I deliver to customers.  Once the vehicle is loaded, it is a great feeling to be going somewhere new with my stone sculpture, to see where it will call home, and make sure it is installed and settled properly.

Yesterday I received such a warm reception and kind hospitality - after the placing and fixing was done, I was taken on a tour.  This started with saying hello to some gorgeous pigs - one of them a breed I had never seen before, a curly coated pig, black skinned with blonde hair - a Lincolnshire Curly Coat.  This one was moulting but you can see the curls on its ears!

These pigs sadly became extinct in the seventies, before the introduction of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, but we had exported many to Hungary and Austria where they needed hardy stock.  The Hungarians used the 'Lincolnshire Curly Coat' to cross with their 'Mangalitza' (a very similar curly coated pig) and the resultant cross was nicknamed the 'Lincolista'!  We have managed to get some stock back and started breeding them again in this country.

We walked through a natural meadow, full of wild flowers and heaving with butterflies.  Most I saw were the Ringlet butterfuly who's larva feed on grass.

Growing were lots of wildflowers and orchids.

Through the fields to the river boundary, wild yellow honeysuckle clambered tree branches and hung over the water, such sounds and smells, then on to a pond which had been dug, we checked the tin sheets for adders  - none in sight, but toads burrowing backwards out of view.  Damselflies darted and danced round the bullrushes in spectacular turquoise and red coats.

On leaving this paradise I was following briefly by a turkey family, who stopped in the drive to have dust baths.

I came home brimming with feelings after my expedition.  You can see what a lovely adventure delivering can be, and understand why it takes me much longer than I thought it would!  I wonder what tomorrow will bring?