I found my first swallow at last yesterday, right where I thought it might be. Hawking round the expanse of water as dusk fell, skimming the roof of the charabanc. Just the one though. Two prehistoric creatures also flapped in slowly, alighting in the marginal cover and adopoting the old man stalk, then stiffening into strike mode. I could make out an ever larger shape behind. A common crane or a large branch catching the dying light? It didn't move and wasn't in company so probably a common branch.
Should the swallow's mates arrive, along with the screaming swifts scything through the sky then summer will have come after all. Should we be eased a little out of lockdown, and providing the touted age limits fall right then perhaps the pond will still hold a few jewels come or soon after the glorious 16th. Still that awful guano on the drooping willow and a few carp cruisng but the gin clear water revealed no ravening hordes. No Alan Sugar gyroscope in the Dabbling Duck beer garden either. That first pint won't touch the sides, nor the lined up next one.
A bit futher down the road on my essential journey the trusty Sat Nav voice alerted me to a forgotten Norfolkcestershire treasure.
Dread to think what it will have done to the grass but the Little 'Uns love the pool. We are not on a meter thankfully and the filter unit is working well. Today is the first time in a fortnight they haven't been in. Mainly because it has rained all day. It needed too.
Look, no twigs.
Sunday had been warm enough for a meatfeast, but a bit hollow without the extended tribe in attendance. Might have to get the Engineer to knock up Mark III to cope with the fatted calves and the vegan equivalent when they can return prodigally from various corners of this Sceptred Isle. Even if it is in December.
The spuds will have been lifted for sure. Yet to break through.
It's a rum old do as they say round these parts.
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