We were up bright and early today as there was a big day planned that we were looking forward to. Today we are going to Rosliston Forestry Centre to see a Falconry Show. We had a fantastic drive to the Centre along some very pretty country roads and arrived at the Centre right on time for the start of the show. The first part was in a very large barn type building where we were all seated around the edge and this was for the Owl Show.

We started off with a very tiny little bird - the smallest of the owls and we were able to handle her and feed her as she flew onto our gloved hand. We saw a number of owls (all with the best names like "Allan", "Stella", "Apollo") and they got larger in size until we reached the largest owl which could not be handled except by the bird handlers themselves. It was a great show which we enjoyed immensely. We then went off for a short break and got ready for the next one.

The next show involved birds of prey. We started with very tiny birds and lo and behold, they had a kookaburra amongst the birds. I duly introduced myself to him, but he was more interested in the food I had on my glove. We were told that kookaburras lived near swampy water areas (not quite true!!) and only laughed at mating time (also not quite true, they didn't really want to hear our stories of all the kookas that live near us on electricity poles and wires and let us know when it's going to rain!!! Probably it's a case of this kookaburra was raised in captivity in English conditions, whereas ours are native to our land). The show was fantastic though, and went right up to a huge Tawny Eagle named Thor. We were able to hold and feed most of the birds and it really was informative - a great morning actually.

When we arrived home, Monika and Joseph were here to greet us with bags of huge pumpkins. We were in for an afternoon treat - NO......not to eat, but to carve.

We laid newspaper all over the dining table and picked out the outlines of the pictures we would carve into the pumpkins. Monika and Joseph showed us how we had to do it and we set about cleaning the insides of the pumpkins and imprinting our designs on the outside and then carving them out. It was great fun and while we don't celebrate or mark Halloween in any way, we thoroughly enjoyed our creative afternoon.

We put tea-light candles into the carved pumpkins and set them on the table for photos and they really did look amazing. We enjoyed coffee and cake and a chat together and Monika and Joseph made their way back to their car and home, but we decided that as it got darker, we would light up the outside of our Lodge with our creations. So we put the pumpkins onto the railings outside and lit them up, but as it was quite windy and we didn't want them to fall onto any passing deer in the night, we later took them down, but I think we will be able to light them up each night before we have to discard them when we have to pack our bags to leave (very sadly).

That was a day that tired us all out. We had a very light dinner of nothing much and John had a lovely snooze in front of the tellie before we all went off to bed. A very good day!