Lavender festival

We spent the morning dismantling the second aviary and reorganising all the spare wood, wire, bricks and tiles. I seem to have acquired expertise as a builders labourer, and am now a dab hand with a wheelbarrow. There is so much fencing etc i think we could open up a secondhand builders yard.

It has been very hot again - is it ever going to rain? - and we abandoned our demolition to take Ian's Spitty (1968 Triumph Spitfire) for a local drive to see the lavender fields .

We drove through Eynsford (just up the road) and were pleased we didn't live in a tourist village . The river and the ford were packed with day trippers complete with gazebos , and there was even an ice cream van parked by the bridge. People pay a premium to live in this beautiful village in the Darent Valley only to be bombarded by hundreds of visitors when the sun is shining.

We continued to the Hop Shop and were met by thousands of people experiencing the lavender harvest. There were lavender tours, massage in the fields, lavender products and freshly cut bunches of lavender on sale in the barn, pizza truck, coffee a go, and wonderful lavender in the fields.

We decided to avoid the vineyard as the thought of hundreds of noisy customers waiting for a glass of vino was not appealing.

So home again - no more demolition - but relaxing in the shade of the thatched gazebo with a bottle of rose watching the chickens sunbathing . This is the life.

.