The weekend after we went to the Lake District it was very very wet. So wet that a lot of the Lake District was flooded and washed away. Most of the teachers from our school were down south for a conference, so we had the Hill kids (Morgan and Connor) stay with us for the weekend while their parents (Graham and Sheryl) went to the conference.
Amongst lots of playing on the Wii and the Playstation the kids had a visit (with Scott) to Donna Nook to see the seals, which all come in to have their pups at this time of year. The weird thing is that Donna Nook is the local RAF bombing range, so they have to be very careful to make sure they don’t drop any bombs where they might endanger the seals. If you look carefully at a couple of the pictures you’ll see the bombing targets in the background, surrounded by hundreds of seals. Unfortunately the planes didn’t do any bombing practice while we were there.
It was quite wet, windy and more than a little smelly, as the seals give birth in the sanctuary and don’t clean up the mess. Very slack on their part, especially as they attract lots of terns (which we would call seagulls) who all want to get their bit of afterbirth. Who’d want to be a tern?
The authorities fence off the area lest visitors get attacked by rampant seals which are anywhere from half a mile to a couple of feet away.
We’re told that the seal numbers rise dramatically around Christmas, so there can be thousands of them out there with their new pups. Boxing Day is when heaps of Yorkshire people come over to see them and almost outnumber the seals. Guess where we won’t be going on Boxing Day.
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