Milton Keynes housesitting - Not on many peoples visit list, but it has a lot to offer. Here's what we've found so far...

The Concrete Cows of Milton Keynes

We certainly did have a busy time back at mums. She, Joan and I went to the Withybed open gardens, discovering bits of Alvechurch I didn’t even know existed. Lovely gardens, not too fussy much more cottagey than I expected, but all on many levels with lots of steps, so by the time we finished up at Jan and Paul’s (from Jordan) for tea and cake we felt we’d earned our cake. Fortunately Jan had lots of volunteers so mothers washing up services weren’t required. Monday was clothes shopping and Tuesday was food shopping (for mum before we went away, after keep fit, and Clair the cleaner) followed by a trip to the cinema to see Elvis and out for a Mexican meal. We were really pleased than Joan could join us, as was she - she’d managed to get Keith to the cinema to see Top Gun, but didn’t think she’d manage it again!

Smokey cat. The cutie we're looking after for just over three weeks

Wednesday we came to our current Housesit in Milton Keynes for the lovely Smokey cat. He’s very handsome and very chatty, though he is getting on in years which sometimes shows as he walks up the stairs. He is such a sweetheart, rolling over to give you his tummy whenever you talk to him, but he is having the odd naughty moment, he came in the other evening to wee on the kitchen floor!

Here's the quite cute little robots who wander around Milton Keynes, negotiating themselves past obstacles to deliver groceries, coffee and take-away food. It's very amusing watching them trundle along

Here's one waiting to pick up a coffee

Milton Keynes is much like Redditch, a new town with lots of green spaces all connected via bridges and underpasses so no ‘big road’ crossing is required. What they have done here to take full advantage of this is to introduce delivery robots (have a look at this youtube video: click here). They will bring stuff from Costa coffee, the co-op, Tesco and various other small places, like our local chip shop, this would be really tempting except it gets such shocking reviews on Google! We will have to order something at some point! They are fully autonomous, finding their own routes, and their own way round obstructions. They will even sing to you when they arrive! They are also very cute, and there is something joyful about seeing this little thing trundling along the pavement or passing overhead on a bridge, all on its own.

On our Howe Wood nature walk. One of the sculptures was missing so Jackie filled in

A feisty bluetit after being 'ringed'

We’ve walked (here's a couple of Relive videos with photos: click here; and here; and here), and Brian has run, round Shenley Wood our local (plus a Saturday 5km Park Run at the local Linwood Woods: click here), and we visited Howe Park Wood on Saturday for their ‘Love nature’ day. I know these things are aimed at kids but we had very interesting chats with a student studying moth behaviour, and a woman from the bat society who had a baby bat at home that needed feeding 5 times a day. Various other people were concentrating on talking to the kids, so we thought we’d walk in the woods where we came across the bird ringing people. They had a net stretched across an opening in the woods to see what they could catch. The same woodpecker, for the second time, just after we arrived , so he didn’t get re logged, but then a little young blue tit, so new ring, wingspan measured and weighed. Most undignified, an old film canister gently placed over its head, all the way down so only its tail feathers were showing, when it was all turned upside down and put on the scales! Didn’t seem to bother him! After a photo call he flew off as if nothing had happened.

Here's the young woodpecker that flew into the net twice on the same day

Having it's wing measured

Sunday back to Birmingham for rehearsal for the Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies, with Corina, a local student. Of approximately 400 people at the rehearsal the previous week what were the odds that the person that sat next to Brian was going to be a nondriver from Milton Keynes? As Marshall’s we are now getting a good idea of what we are doing, and how we are manipulating the athletes, though we still have no idea of what the actual dancers, floats, cars and other people are doing. We ran through the whole parade with bits of string the correct length to represent the number of athletes for each country. It all want very well. Nathan directing from the watchtower, rather than the middle of the field of play, got quite emotional. What we don’t know yet is how we all get off the field. Hopefully that will be this week!

He's just had a ring put on his leg. Doesn't he look cute!

Monday we had a lovely day out with Caroline. Her last exam was Monday morning so we were allowed to kidnap her afterwards and take her to lunch and the climbing wall. No photos as we were all busy, but a really good afternoon.

And here he is being weighed. 10.5g. It's a bit undignified isn't it!

As we dropped her off we did ‘steal’ some flour for our dinner last night, yummy chicken leek and ham pie, a joint effort, my filling and Brian’s pastry, it might not win a beauty prize, but it just melted in the mouth. Tonight will probably be another joint effort, the plan is Chinese pork and prawn steamed dumplings, yuk sung and crispy seaweed! Wish us luck!

On our walk through Loughton Valley Park on the way to see the Concrete Cows (see first photo). This is the remains of a Bancroft Roman villa. I didn't know there were Roman remains here. And the people who built Milton Keynes thinking it was a new town were wrong weren't they - the Romans got there first! 

At the back of Milton Keynes central shopping area is Campbell Park an extensive open space with an  interesting layout and a number of sculptures to view. It's very well kept and has a high point with fabulous views all around. We're walking along Midsummer Boulevard here, created when the town was first laid out in its grid fashion. It's apparently just off true compass points as they wanted to align this street (and the grid pattern of the town) so that the sun will rise along this boulevard on the summer solstice (eat your heart out Stonehenge!). The circle in front is a sculpture called The Rose and, in the distance is a cone called the Light Pyramid

The posts in The Rose represent significant events in history. This is a silly one, the date the Concrete Cows were first installed in Milton Keynes 

The Light Pyramid on a suitable high point. There used to be a basket beacon here until is was removed in 1995 after being struck by lightning

Smokey making his way upstairs. He doesn't like to do it all in one go!

But he does manage to scale the fence to go off on his wanderings. Here he is just returning

Carefully climbing down the fence

Its very tiring!

Here's some photos from rehearsals last Sunday. I didn't take so many as they are all pretty similar. Number 118 is Marcia who joined in between Jackie (117) and me (119). Not sure who 116 is

You might have noticed in the previous photo bits of kit around the edge. We're assuming they will have parts in the opening and closing ceremonies but no idea what. The structure under the arched cover (supported by four containers) is intriguing. The white drum has a lot of words relating to Birmingham and seems to be winding round the smaller reel in front. Not sure if these will be projected onto a screen somewhere for people to sing along to. I'm just guessing, I have no idea

Here's a few more of them. Nice coach and a giant car with a load of cogs on  top. Further left are a load of old British cars that we think will be used to tow all these. There are a few Land Rover Discoveries and some old style minis (not the newer BMW minis) 

That's it for now, so it's bye-bye from us and Smokey cat