Everything Changes

This chap ( I don’t say little) decided to move into the garden. He keeps himself to himself, waits patiently to be fed, He has ventured a few times into the house but removes himself when he spies a human (me)

I am being patient, he will come around when he is ready. He knows his name (Duke) and uses the several makeshift shelters throughout the day if I am working in the garden and get too close etc. As the weather changed I opened up a more permanent shelter for him to sleep in which he uses.

He will often sit at the gates looking out at the world (and yes his colouring does match the gates) but makes a quick exit if people get too close.

He does like a comfy chair to snooze on in the sunshine.

This is my favourite photo of him,

This is his new shelter, of course Duke preferred the box it came in at first. I placed a step stool outside the open cat flap, to encourage him to use it.

Since the last few photos above were taken, Duke got a little spooked and has tended to only appear for food. I found out that he has found shelter in a neighbouring garage. He does come out when called (usually as I am walking away) and will follow me (he knows he is going to be fed)

Enjoying the Sunshine

August is nearly over, somehow I seem to have more cats around me than last year.

Who can ignore a face like this?

Sebastian getting ready for his daily walk

Benjie getting ready to follow Sebastian

Anything going?

It’s been a strange month, some days too hot, others a little chilly, I have had more time for myself to enjoy the sunshine and see how photos I can take.

Time now to go for my daily walk, I wonder what will I see.

Its Raining

It’s raining, its July and warm outside, yet it is raining. There has been rumbling thunder, a flash of lightening and torrential rainstorms for the past few hours.
As I sit in the open doorway of my Kitchen looking out at the rain I am reminded of times spent holidaying at my grandparents homes in Ireland during the 1960s and 70s.  Most days would be spent out in the fields, with my brother and sister and  the neighbouring children and my many cousins.  I was the youngest and often could not always keep up.
Rainy days would find me sitting in the open doorway of their cottage, book in hand, perhaps accompanied by one of my grandmothers dogs.  I could quite happily stay there watching the rain as it fell at let my imagination go wild.
I have recently come across some of my old school work, I can see how much the time I spent at my grandparents cottages influenced my writing then and how much it still does.  Then if I had a question about Irish folklore or history I could always ask someone.  Now of course he have google.

So now I am going to go back to watching the rain, with my cat by my side

Taking Time

To walk slowly along the roadside it’s surprising what you can see.
Recently I have walked around my neighbourhood with my camera, capturing shots of the roadside flowers.

Some times a tree trunk is not just a tree trunk , perhaps its a tree trunk  with a snail on it

Sometimes you get lucky and get more than you first thought as you press the shutter

I love to see ‘old’ walls

And if you look over the wall, you may see the entrance to the Secret Garden

 

Walk on by

On a walk along the riverbank the Canada Geese are likely to swim over to you to see if anything is going.

Not to be out done….

a swan swam closer

just to make sure I could capture his beauty.

As I walked along the riverbank I noticed this little chap watching me

And what you don’t see from this next picture

is that minutes before they all had marched together  across the grass to reach the riverbank.

And now buildings old

 

and new

of times past

 

In a hurry

to try out my new camera, I took a stroll along the riverbank

And yes that is my shadow, in the last of the summer sunshine.

 

Patience

I spend a lot of time just walking along the banks of the river (Great Ouse) during my lunch breaks and on the odd occasion or two a quick evening stroll before I make the mad dash home through the traffic. Always carrying a camera of some sort I get to take a lot of photographs of swans, geese (mainly Canada geese) ducks, the resident cormorants and of course the herons.

I find herons fascinating birds, they are so patient, waiting for the right moment, then quick as a flash they have caught their supper.

 

Where one Canada goose, the rest follows…..  They graze constantly, then one after another they synchronize their dive into the river, swimming across to see if someone sitting on the opposite bank has something for them.

The swans of course just glide up and down the river

Meet up for a quick chat (and a bite to eat)

Pop over to see what others are having for lunch

and then its Homeward Bound

 

 

Just another Day

For a walk around a Local Nature Reserve (LNR)

No visitor centres, no other people. Just Nature!

Alas no sounds of yellow-hammers singing about bread and no cheese.
Just the alarm calls of the pheasants and other ground nesting birds as I ventured too close to them on my walk.

It the distance I could hear……….. the roar of a train as it hurtled along the tracks.

In seconds it was gone.

Peace at last

After along walk around the meadow (always following the paths laid out)

I returned to my starting point, collecting only memories and photos.

 

A Walk on the Wildside

This weekend I took a short walk along a country road.

As the cars whizzed by I took the time to look around me, to see what is missed when you travel by car.

A Soft Day

My grandmother, and mother would have called today ‘A Soft Day’ It’s been raining on and off all day, more of a drizzle than showers.  The wind has died down, the temperature has dropped but it is not cold.  The sun is hidden behind the low clouds.  If you listen carefully you can hear birds singing.  Not the vibrant songs of last week, just the calls to one another. A solitary cat walks into my garden, no longer looking for shade.

As a youngster on holiday in Ireland, we would often experience ‘A Soft Day’  I would spend the day sitting at the front door of my grandparents cottage, on the little step (my grandparents lived in identical cottages’ sometimes reading the latest Enid Blyton book I had purchased in Woolworths in Clonmel (paying the taxes that bumped up the price by 6d) as I had read all the books I had brought with me.  Or filling in countless notebooks with short stories about children who climbed over the dry stone walls and met up with Leprechauns, Banshees and Pookas.

It was on days like this I could let my imagination run wild!

Funnily enough, today I have found my self sitting in the shelter of the doorway to my house, as soft rain quietly falls around me, wondering what could be behind the moss covered stone wall – letting my imagination run and jump wildly in the air. Maybe I will go and have a look!