I am getting a bit sick of things biting me, a few weeks ago it was an insect bite on my finger, and since then I have several other nasty insect bites. Now it appears a spider has bitten me. I first noticed the bite on my leg on Sunday morning and since then it has got bigger and bigger. It's different to a normal insect bite, in that it has distinct fang marks surrounded by a large raised red area. It is starting to go down a bit now, but its still very itchy. In some ways I will glad when summer is over, at least all the biting and stinging things will be gone. Still, it could be a lot worse.

A farm in Wales is offering people who stable their horses their, a webcam service so they can check on them. The system will include a night vision camera so that worried owners can be sure their prized ponies are ok twenty four hours a day. Each horse owner will be given a password to access their particular webcam, so they can check up on the horses from anywhere where they have an internet connection.

A rare river dolphin that was thought to have become extinct might have been spotted. The dolphin was thought to be extinct after a team of scientists spent five weeks searching for signs of them, and found nothing. They now have video evidence which confirms a sighting of the rare dolphin. This find has prompted scientists to launch an effort to try and catch the last remaining dolphins so that a breeding programme can be started to save the species.

I took this picture of Oscar the other day and it came out with glowing green eyes.

The recent wet weather in the UK is good news for badgers. The reason is that the wet weather loosens up the soil causing earthworms to come to the surface. As a badgers diet is made up mainly of earthworms, this means they have an abundance of readily available food. Other creatures that are likely to do well this year are hedgehogs, foxes, frogs and birds, all of which eat earthworms and slugs.

Regular readers will notice it is a little late in the day and this is the first blog entry of the day. Just to put your mind at rest I am still alive but have had a rather busy day, mainly due to purchasing a new printer from Dell coupled with all the usual daily tasks. Anyway after many phone calls and emails from the helpful people at Dell my new colour laser printer is now on its way and I will review it here shortly when it arrives.

I just opened a bottle of Araldica d’Aria Pinot Grigio, 2006. This is a really nice fruity white. It has a lovely crisp flavour and is great for drinking on a hot summer’s day. I gave this wine a four star rating out of five, although its possibly a four and half, it really is good and only £5.99 a bottle.

A couple in Ashford in Kent have an unwelcome visitor in their garden. A grass snake they have nicknamed Sid is feasting on their fish. The couple have around 200 goldfish in their pond, but Sid has been visited daily for his fish supper and the number is gradually going down. Grass snakes also eat frogs and newts and are good swimmers so catching their prey is not difficult.

It has been a while since my last cute cat picture, so for all those readers that love cats, here is a new one. This is Lucy looking very cute, playing in some carrier bags.

I just opened a bottle of Fenwick Estate Barossa Valley Semillon Sauvignon Blanc, 2006. Personally I liked this wine, but a word of warning; it’s probably not to everyone’s taste. The wine is very dry and has a sharp, crisp flavour with citrus undertones. This really is a wine that needs to be chilled to perfection in order to fully appreciate the flavour. This wine was from Virgin wines and came with useful tasting notes that ask you to rate it out of five. I gave it a rather good four stars, but bear in mind if you don’t like dry wine, you will find it too sharp. At £6.99 a bottle, it’s a good buy.

I read this article today about a giant spider web that has appeared in a park in Texas. Scientists think the web was created by social cobweb spiders which work together. I don't think I would be going anywhere near it.

A zoo in Austria have has a surprise arrival in the form of a baby panda. The unusual thing about this panda is that it is the first panda cub to be conceived naturally in Europe. The arrival of the panda came as a surprise as an ultrasound a few weeks ago showed that Yang Yang was not pregnant. The first zookeepers knew of the arrival was unusual noises coming from the panda enclosure. Unfortunately, on a sad note the body of a second cub that didn’t make it, was also discovered in the pen.

I read this article that suggests we may soon be able to buy wine in cartons similar to the ones that usually contain fruit juice. The cartons will contain the equivalent of two glasses of wine. Regular readers on my blog might have noticed I like wine, so will probably expect me to welcome this idea. Quite the opposite actually, wine is meant to come in bottles. I have a hard problem dealing with wine that comes in a bottle with a screw top, mainly because it often does not keep so well. Wine in cartons is a different matter; I don’t see me picking up a carton of wine to go with my lunchtime sandwich or buying one to drink with an evening meal. I will stick to buying wine in bottles, with proper corks.