New Hoppers Website

Our wagtails pics are a hit with the Cambria Trust boys, who sing their praises and ask could they show them on the Trust website and newsletter. Of course they can, especially if they then treat the nest with the appropriate respect and allow the babies to fledge before too many more visitors disturb them.

Dad finally finishes his web design course at the local Grammar School and, along with all the other "students" has a rather beginner-ish website up and running, plus the skills and knowledge to keep it going and improve it. Go look, if you like, on

http://www.kentishhoppers.org.uk

A lot of the stuff on it, you'll find fairly familiar. The "Hoppers" are Dad's 2CV cronies - the name of the local group of the National 2CV club, and the Cambria stuff you've seen before. None the less there's some rather nifty features - a scrolling collection of 30 pics of "Mademoiselle" being restored, via a link to our Flickr gallery, plus some video of 2CV racing via embedded html code. Plus pictures, google maps, stories and plenty more.

Wagtails on the starboard bow

Thought you might like these 2 recent pics of the Sailing Barge Cambria, currently under restoration. The barge hull is now well under way, with all the frames in making up the parallel rectangular part of the hold in place, and the boys starting now to form the more intricate curved sections at stern (you can see in the distance) and in the bow (under the camera man).

The baby wagtails are cunningly concealed near the starboard bow, down a cavity between the inner and outer skins of the starboard topsides, between 2 of the rotten frames. The shipwrights are aware of their presence and are studiously avoiding them, but think there might also be wrens nesting somewhere on the barge, as they keep seeing wrens nipping about with full beaks. There are so many likely holes in what is a seriously rotten, deteriorating old wooden structure, I'd not be surprised.

Deefski