Sultry day, the strident trill of a wren cuts through the air like a knife. Banded demoiselles flap lazily by the river or perch on the grass, occasionally taking to the wing for a desultory dog fight. Had a long philosophical chat with the farmer. He thinks the land will go to developers, he doesn't want it to happen any more than I do, but he has no choice. He has worked there all his life and remembers the days when it took five men all night to achieve what now takes him a couple of hours in a tractor, no wonder there are so few jobs.
The house martins are still collecting mud from their puddle, the word keeps turning...
Thursday 28 June 2012
Monday 25 June 2012
Country Diary of a 21st Century Woman
I am absolutely hopeless at keeping up this blog! I started out with good intentions, as we all do, but that's about as far as it got. I think I know what the problem is, I am trying to make it perfect, interesting thoughtful pieces with beautiful well edited photographs. It just isn't going to happen! There are so many things that I wanted to say that have been left unwritten because I didn't have time to sit and compose that perfect prose. Important records have been lost in the Twittersphere or buried in my Facebook timeline - time for a different approach. From now on I am going to try to write about the things I see as I see them, not wait until my thoughts are finely polished and well illustrated. If no-one but me reads this it doesn't matter, but perhaps it will help me to remember when I saw the first swallow, and that sometimes (like today) the sun does shine and, just for the moment, all seems right with the world. Let's see how it goes...
House Martins
I've always loved house martins but I've looked at them with a fresh eye since I read Stephen Moss' description of them as 'little killer whales' - I laughed at first, but I can see what he means! This morning, while I was walking the dog I took a few minutes to sit on a bridge in the sunshine and watch our local birds collecting mud from the edge of a big puddle by the gate, as they have done every year for as long as I can remember. They nest under the eaves of the houses just down the road from me and I see them every day in the summer as I walk down to the fields. I would love them to move a couple of hundred yards to my eaves, but it seem that, like me, they are creatures of habit.
House Martins
I've always loved house martins but I've looked at them with a fresh eye since I read Stephen Moss' description of them as 'little killer whales' - I laughed at first, but I can see what he means! This morning, while I was walking the dog I took a few minutes to sit on a bridge in the sunshine and watch our local birds collecting mud from the edge of a big puddle by the gate, as they have done every year for as long as I can remember. They nest under the eaves of the houses just down the road from me and I see them every day in the summer as I walk down to the fields. I would love them to move a couple of hundred yards to my eaves, but it seem that, like me, they are creatures of habit.
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| View from the bridge |
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