This is interesting its a piece of artwork created by sand artist Andres Amador. He creates these patterns in the sand some of which span over 500 feet. The work involves raking the sand into intricate patterns. Andres first works on the designs in his notebook before working with the sand. The work has to be completed quickly before the sea washes the design away so the effect is only temporary. After all his hard work the artist is left with just a snapshot of each piece of work. Still its fairly impressive stuff.

I drink quite a lot of milk so was interested to read this article that suggests it could cut the risk of dying from heart disease or a stroke. According to the article scientists have found that drinking milk can reduce the risk of dying from heart disease or a stroke by as much as a fifth. The research which was carried out at Reading University found that milk could have more health benefits than just building strong bones and helping growth and that there is strong evidence of an overall reduction in the risk of dying from coronary heart disease, stroke and colo-rectal cancer.

My new garden has quite a few fruit trees in it, including various types of apples, plums and pears and I have already started using the cooking apples. I made some apple sauce the other day from apples picked the same day and it put the shop brought stuff to shame. Looking at all the fruit still on trees, I think I will fast run out of ideas on how to use them. Any recipe ideas will be appreciated.

A group of Somerset based cheese makers have launched the first piece of cheese into space. The mission which is hoped to be the first space flight by a piece of Cheddar launched a 300g wedge of Cheddar into the upper atmosphere. Unfortunately not everything has gone to plan and the GPS tracking system has stopped working causing the cheese to be lost in space. The organisers are now appealing for help to find the cheese once it lands.. It is thought it could turn up anywhere between Pewsey in Wiltshire and Hertfordshire.

This is interesting its a device that has been made by two Kenyan students which allows bicycle riders to charge their phone whilst cycling. The dynamo powered charger is designed to help people in rural areas who do not have electricity. According to the article people in some villages have to travel long distances to shops where they are charged $2 to charge their phone from a car battery or solar panel. The device is small enough to fit into a pocket along with a mobile phone. In Kenya bicycles are sold with a dynamo which is attached to the back wheel to power the lights. The lead can be switched to plug into the charger instead to power the device. It takes about an hour of pedalling to fully charge a mobile phone.

One of the best things about our new house is the large garden which is full of wildlife. On the day we arrived we discovered a hole at the bottom of the garden and were curious as to what might be inside. A few days later I came across a large fox sunning itself on the lawn and it now appears that we have a whole family of foxes. I have also noticed several squirrels and there are signs of hedgehog activity although I haven't actually seen one yet. We also have a variety of different birds. The most abundant appears to be the big fat wood pigeons and doves which sit in the tall trees surrounding the garden. I have also seen blackbirds, song thrushes, robins, green finches, coal tits, blue tits, great tits, wrens, crows, magpies, starlings, gold finches, woodpeckers, sparrows and some type of small hawk. As a keen birdwatcher I can see I am going to like it here. Once I have found where I packed the camera I hope to have some pictures of the wildlife so expect these to be posted shortly.

An orphaned elephant called Nellie has got a new lease of life after he was fitted with a false foot. The elephant lost his foot when he was caught in a poacher’s snare. The foot had become infected and it was thought that Nellie would never walk again. His rescuers cut away the infected tissue and cleaned his wounds before fitting the prosthetic limb. It will need changing as he grows bigger but it appears this elephant is very happy with his new foot.

Moving house can be quite stressful especially if you have pets. Having four cats this was one of the main concerns we had about the move. Not only did we have to get four cats into four boxes (a miracle at the best of times) we had to do it whilst they were stressed out because of the strange people in the house and we had an hours drive ahead of us to get to our new home. One thing that made the move easier was that we had decided to do it over the course of two days. On day one we locked our furry friends in one room in the old house. The removal men then moved everything out of the the other part of the house. Once they had left for the day we moved all the remaining furniture out of the “cats room” so that the following day the removal men could take the rest of our stuff and just leave us four cats in an empty house.

On day two the rest of the house was cleared very quickly and the removal lorry set off to the new house with all our belongings packed up. We then proceeded to catch the cats starting with Willow and Oscar, the most docile and leaving Lucy and Oliver (evil hissing balls of fur) until last. Surprisingly we managed the near impossible feat of getting all four cats into boxes within the hours and even more surprisingly we still had all of our fingers. We then packed the boxes complete with cats into the car and set off to the new house accompanied all the way by Oliver howling at the top of his voice. Just over an hour later we arrived at the new house, with Oliver still howling in protest. Once again we put aside a small “cat room” and put the cat boxes into the room. We set up a clean litter tray and some food and water, opened the doors of the cat boxes and put a sign on the door on the room reading “do not open cats”. With the cats taken care of we moved all of our things into the new home.

We then used the “cat room” as a base for the cats. Once the house was free of removal men we opened the door and gradually one by one the cats plucked up the courage to come out and explore. They were initially very nervous but curiosity quickly gets the better of even the most nervous cat. Now nearly a week later all of the cats have left the “cat room” and now spend most of their time sitting on the windowsill hunting the fat pigeons in the garden. The next step will be to let the cats outside to explore but we will leave it a few weeks before we introduce them to the outside.