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David
Stansfield and his wife Leslye live in Crewkerne, a small town in Somerset in
the south-west of England. They are both retired, David from airline
flight operations after 41 years at Heathrow and Leslye from local
government.
David and Leslye
moved there after deciding to leave the congestion and bustle of the
south-east of England near London where they previously lived. They
lead a very active life being keen travellers and gardeners. David
enjoys deep water
game fishing in the Atlantic and Caribbean and
has been very successful off the coast of the island of Madeira . Leslye is a keen line dancer and swimmer and was previously also a
teacher in modern and keep-fit dance. She holds a
judo brown belt. They are both
involved with Yeovil Cats Protection and Leslye runs their
newsletter and publicity. David runs their website
www.yeovilcatsprotection.info and manages other web
sites. He builds computers as a hobby.
They have four
offspring, Andrew, Margaret, Ian and Victoria and six
grand-children, Lilah, Robert, Ruby, Michael, Apple and Honey.
The family
all live in the south-west of England.

They
have two cats, Cassius a lilac Burmese and Cedric, a Silver
Burmilla. The
bungalow is on the slope of a hill at an altitude of 250 feet. At
the front, the view from the lounge is
across to some local hills with sheep and cattle grazing. There are
sometimes brilliant
sunsets across to the
west.
The back garden is
initially flat but
then slopes up steeply to the top. This
area has been terraced with railway
sleepers and part of it is a rock garden with a series of little
waterfalls coming down from 20 feet through small pools and then
into a larger pond
.
There is plenty of bird
life in the garden including wrens, blue tits, great tits, long
tailed tits, robins, thrushes, blackbirds, many kinds of finches and
a lot of other species.
Unfortunately
there are also buzzards and other raptors which will sometimes swoop
down and take some of the smaller birds and when this happens the
garden will be empty of birds for a day or so afterwards.
Fortunately the pond does not need protection as, so far, the
occasional heron in the area has not seen the large ghost carp and
goldfish in the pond which would provide a nice meal.
At th e back of the
garden at the highest point is a viewing platform with local views
and distant views of about 20 miles with the Mendip hills visible at
that distance. It is very pleasant, on a summers evening, to sit up
there with a glass of wine and watch the world not going by!!!
Occasionally there are hot air balloons passing over and
we used to get the Royal Navy
harrier jets from nearby Yeovilton air base
giving impromptu
air displays but now, our government with
doubtful wisdom has decided to scrap the harriers and we are now
limited to various types of helicopters. Sounds like a step too
far!!!
There i s also a covered
dining area next to the house where, in the warmer days, most of the
meals are taken. This area has a grape vine growing on the inside of
the roof which was extremely productive this year with about 40
large bunches of delicious grapes.
There is a small
vegetable plot which helps maintain a supply of fresh produce
throughout the year
There is also a collection
of cacti of which some pictures are available on this site.
CACTI Contact David
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