Badgers

The week was all about work and dancing and friends coming for dinner (Chris on Friday night and Jane and David on Sunday).  Our culinary skills were in action once again! Our treat was a trip to see badgers in their natural environment on Saturday evening.  We drove down Tiverton way planning to go for a pub meal only to find that in this part of Devon pubs don't really exist and so we settled for a fish and chip meal at Morrisons (supermarket) which was on a par with what you get from a motorway services.  We regretted not taking our normal picnic. We drove down many country lanes to the farm house and parked in a disused concrete pad - surrounded by barns - I suspect this was once a milking pad - but now tall grassy weeds grow through the cracked concrete and the barns were crumbling and disused (all except for the very end which was painted a bright yellow and called the "Visitors centre").  So we were in the right place.  Pity we didn't take the camera but instructions were: no camera, quiet clothes, no talking, no kids, no perfume or aftershave, dark clothes, no talking etc etc.  The badgers were great.  While sitting quietly in the ground level hide we saw them munch through the peanuts left strategically by the window.  They looked at us at times but realised we weren't going to harm them (they did run when they heard me cough - thankfully only twice).  Certainly worth the visit.