Winter Visitors Arriving

It's a little calmer and warmer today, grey but not actually raining. Down at the creek this morning (half tide again) there was a larger than usual variety of visitors, but almost all alone; one swan, one kingfisher, one jay, one robin, one crow, one sandpiper. The sandpiper is a regular winter visitor, seen for the first time today. This is the third winter I have seen it at the creek, but there only ever seems to be one. There were quite a lot of ducks, as well. A mallard with what seemed to be three half grown ducklings, and two gadwall. A grey mullet was floating idly with his back out of the water, then suddenly leapt a good foot clear of the surface, somersaulting before diving back in. I wonder what upset him?

The beginning of winter?

It's very autumnal now, indeed it's equinoctial, with gales and rain and general misery all round. It wasn't too bad in the morning; when I went down the coombe with the dog it was grey but still and dry. There were eight swans and George the Goose milling about in the creek, which was at about half tide, plus the usual egret and a lone Gadwall drake. It was so still for a moment there that I could see the swans' reflections, but as I was watching them there came a clanking of halyards from the boats on the Tamar, the wind starting swirling under the viaduct and the rain came down! And came down, and came down... And the wind has got stronger and stronger all day, as well.

I was trying to stave off the inevitable afternoon walkies when I had a phone call from Tom, who had a job for me, so I went to pick it up on my way to Churchtown with Ty. Churchtown was a mistake today, it is far too open and exposed to the weather. I wore the yellow waterproof but had made the mistake of going out in jeans because I was calling in to see Tom, so by the time I had been once round the top five fields my legs were completely soaked. And my car keys were not in my pocket. Definitelynot there. I spent a good few minutes fumbling with cold wet hands in pockets full of plastic bags, but nothing. Nothing for it but to go round again, hoping I could find them...

Off we set again, although I still couldn't believe I'd dropped the keys, and continuing patting myself down, sort of, while keeping my eyes on the ground. And eventually found a lumpy bit of coat lining, which proved to be my keys. The hole in the pocket they had slipped through was so small as to be almost invisible, and took me a long time to find before I was able to retrieve them. As I eventually got into the car the rain stopped, which was adding insult to injury. The small god of walkies is a mischievous god, sometimes...

Catching Up

Where does the time go? Apparently it's two weeks since I wrote anything here, although it seems much less. And it's not as if life has been completely free of incident...

Well, the good weather is partly to blame. We had over two weeks without any rain and (mostly) with sunshine. I was easily tempted into more dog walking than usual, gardening, etc. I have planted 50 daffodil bulbs, which is a lot of work in the stony shaley claybank that is my 'back garden' and the even stonier but flatter patch at the front. I also acquired a beautiful blue and gold glazed pot from a boot sale, which has been planted up with a blueberry (currently with glorious bright red leaves), daffodil bulbs and pansies. This has been parked next to the front door, and one of the pansies already has a flower. Other gardening has mostly involved the removal of montbretia to try to give some space to put other stuff in, and lots of overdue weeding.

Last weekend was the last of the good weather, it would appear. On Saturday we went to a 50th birthday party and it was still warm enough for it to be held in house, marquee and garden. The dress code - posh frocks and flipflops - was interpreted in some interesting ways, particularly by some gentlemen who had DJs with bermuda shorts. Long red velvet sleeves with ruffles are not ideal for barbecuing mackerel in the dark, I must say, but the results were delicious!

On Sunday Ty and I went through to Plym Bridge to meet the gang for a walk. There were ten walkers, three dogs, one cyclist and one neighbour who met us for lunch. We went along the cycle route which is mostly a disused country railway (including quite a long tunnel) five miles to Clearbrook on Dartmoor for a very pleasant lunch in the garden of the Skylark Inn and back in time for tea (well, icecream from the van before it closed for the afternoon). It was very easy walking as it was almost all flat, but we did have one or two problems with cyclists who seemed to feel walkers were not allowed (not true) or that it was acceptable to come up behind people at full speed and barge straight through. Don't bicycles have bells any more? We were walking responsibly, keeping to one side of the path, keeping the dogs under control, etc, but still had a couple of uncomfortable moments.

On Monday the weather changed. It's gone distinctly autumnal, very windy and quite cool with showers of rain. Not quite cold enough to put the heating on or get out the bit quilt, but I am sitting here wearing woolly socks and a fleecy jacket over the Tshirt and leggings I wore for pilates class tonight. Ron's brother came down on Monday for a couple of days - it's a pity he missed the Indian Summer.