A brief encounter

The pictures in this blog are not very good but we are thrilled to have them.  It is a short blog.  There was one thing that the Minis had set their hearts on seeing before they left us.  It is something very difficult to find, let alone get pictures of.  Now they have seen this, so after a trip to the university to meet a Twitter pal, they will leave, having had a satisfactory experience.

We took the boys to a secret location, where they had to be very quiet and look upwards into a tree and wait.

OK, look very carefully and see the fluffy tail.  That is a red squirrel!!  These are the native British squirrel, they can only be found in a few places in England now, the island is one of them.  Most years we never see one.  Yesterday the Minis saw two!!  One would have been easier to photograph, but we didn't have the camera ready.  This one sat for a while staring at us.  They are much shyer than the grey squirrels that we see on the mainland.  The red ones survive on the island because we can keep the grey ones off, so they don't destroy the habitats.  They don't have money for ferry tickets!!  You have to be very patient and quiet to see these.

The Minis are very happy to have seen them.

The Minis are still here

The Minis will be leaving us very soon, to go to Berlin.  We have had a great time with them and really enjoyed their stay.  We wanted to give them a couple more adventures before they leave.

On social media trolls have a bad reputation, but there are nice trolls as well and the Minis went hunting for them, and they hoped they might see some red squirrels as well.

The walk got exciting quite quickly when they met this large, friendly dragonfly.  He told them where to go to find the trolls.

It didn't take long to find their first troll.  You can see how friendly this one is, as he allowed them to climb on his face, to pose for photos.

A bit further on and the Minis found that they were also on a trail where they might see red squirrels. We told them not to get their hopes up too much, as these chaps are very shy and seeing one here was unlikely.

Not much further on, and another friendly troll!!  This one told them they would find something surprising if they kept on walking the trail.

He was right, a bit further on and there was a deserted station platform, where somebody appeared to have left their suitcases behind.  The Minis found they were a good place to rest.

There was also more information about the trail.  This rather jolly troll gave them more information about trolls and red squirrels.

They went back the same way, saying hello to the friendly trolls and dragonfly again.  They didn't see any red squirrels but they were pretty satisfied with having met such nice trolls.

We had lunch at a garden centre, where we met this giant character.

He knows how to take it easy!  We hope the Minis will see a red squirrel before they leave, this week we will take them to somewhere where it is slightly more likely.  We also want to take them to the university to meet another Twitter pal.  Finally they will go to Germany.