A final feast

Today’s guest picture, sent by Bruce, shows his dog Guthrie in festive mood.  A dog after my own heart.

After the brief glimpse of reasonable weather, we were back to rain and strong winds today and there was no opportunity for bird watching at all.  There was a moment of excitement when the two jigsaw puzzlers swapped position….

…but that soon died down.

My sister Mary is an active person though so she and I donned waterproof coats and waterproof trousers and ventured out into the wind and the rain for a walk.  We stuck to sheltered paths and the force of the wind was quite bearable.  As the rain had also reduced its fury for a while, we quite enjoyed battling the elements.

I had Pocketcam with me.  It was well wrapped up in my pocket but I risked getting it out for a couple of shots.

Not the usual picture postcard view from Skippers bridge.

And I couldn’t leave a fungus unphotographed.

Although the weather has been pretty miserable this month, the little streams that tumble down every hillside round about have not been as swollen as I would have expected.

This little stream near the park…

…looked quite harmless though not so long ago, it brought down a mass of stones, blocking the path and requiring mechanical diggers to clear up after it.  Perhaps that truth of the matter is that although we have had a lot of rain, we haven’t had any of the torrential downpours that cause floods so we must be thankful for small mercies.

After our walk it was time for lunch (turkey soup, who would have guessed it?) and a quiet sit down.

The afternoon was spent solving crosswords and cheering on the jigsaw puzzlers until the 1000th and final piece was put in pace at last.

The picture is called Modern Rome and was painted by G P Panini in 1757.  It is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.  Curiously and inexplicably, the picture in the jigsaw….

…is printed the wrong way round.  Whether this was by design for some legal reason or just an oversight, it is impossible to tell.

When the jigsaw was finished, we had a final round of cards and laughter (more characteristic bad luck for me)  in the kitchen before repairing to the Douglas Hotel where our guests kindly treated us to a slap up farewell meal.

Altogether it has been a first class solstice celebration, brightening the darkest days of winter and lifting the gloom that the bad weather has induced lately.  The only sadness is that I am unable to round it off with a flying bird.  Still, one can’t have everything.