Yesterday, we enjoyed: stair rod rain, sunshine, thunderstorms, hail, windy gales, chills and heat. British weather, eh? Nell and I were out and about for an early walk, whilst it was still dry, well, barely spitting with rain, and we marched the lanes and the canals keeping a fair eye on the gathering storm clouds. We found these on our route…
…a mass of wild sweet peas smothering a hedgerow. The photo doesn’t do them justice; they were quite magnificent. I found them more awe-inspiring than Nell, who was busy chatting up a nice lady standing on the tow path, holding her boat’s rope and waiting for someone coming through the lock downwards to complete their passage, so she could continue her travels upwards. We had a chat about how clever cockapoos are at learning things, and we parted company with ‘Blessed be!’ which is a nice witchy farewell.
The swallow babies have fledged. Sadly, the smallest of the gang of five has died, gone to find its wings in birdie heaven. I found it by the French doors, puffing away. I don’t know, because it was smaller than the others, whether it was just worn out after its maiden flight, but I scooped it up and held it for a while and then returned it to the nest which is the only thing I could think to do. When I checked on it a few hours later it had died, so I removed it from the nest and buried it with blessings.
Since then, the other swallow babies have swooped into the house three times, and one of the wagtail babies has made an appearance in the kitchen, too. I have no idea why this is happening, because it’s not been a ‘thing’ in previous years. They seem to be flying in from the fields and turning right into the kitchen rather than left into the laundry. I expect they’ll sort themselves out. In the meantime, I shall continue to rescue them so Nell doesn’t get taste for fresh baby birds. As long as they don’t start bringing in clumps of mud and start building nests above the Aga we shall be okay…
I saw four hot air balloons making an early morning flight. And a mother duck leading half a dozen baby ducks across a busy roundabout, which gave me a bit of a heart-in-mouth moment.
Nell wrote a letter today to her new paw-pal, Cracker. Cracker is a nine week old Cavalier King Charles spaniel who belongs to a little girl I know. Anyway, the aforesaid little girl sent me a photo of Cracker yesterday and Nell said, ‘We should buy Cracker a welcome home gift and send him a letter!’ On account of Nell not having access to her own cold hard cash, I obligingly purchased a small dog toy, and on account of Nell not having prehensile thumbs I obligingly wrote the letter for her, and both toy and letter were parcelled up in a box and will be winging their way to Cracker tout de suite.
And now I am planning a Midsummer celebration for the end of the week. I am keeping fingers crossed for the weather to be at least dry. I have purchased a small fire pit and shall write some wishes on paper to burn therein. I shall make some nice food to share with lovely people, and sit up as late as possible into the night. And I shall do myself a Tarot reading and meditation to see where the next six months will take me.
My heart continues to grow lighter as I roll with some changes. Just for today, the sun is shining…
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