My Somerset correspondent, Venetia was intrigued by this curious statue in Marseille on her recent visit.
The weather gods are rolling on the floor laughing at their own tremendous wit as they provided yet another 100% sunny day while I am still basically confined to barracks. My leg is steadily progressing but not enough to allow either walking or cycling of more than a few hundred yards at best. It was a day crying out for a walk in the hills.
As a result I was more than happy to welcome Sandy for a cup of coffee made from Thai coffee beans which he had been kind enough to bring back for me from his recent trip to Thailand.
While we were sipping and chatting, I wondered if I had seen an unusual visitor lurking in the plum tree. It had gone by the time that we got up for a good look but later in the morning, I saw this…
…and when I looked again…
… it confirmed that we had not one but two tree sparrows in the garden They are really attractive little birds….
…and I am always pleased to see them on the rare occasions when they visit us. We had one earlier this year and one last year and none (that I saw) in 2016 at all.
There were other small and attractive birds about too…
…and some larger ones.
I made lentil soup for lunch using green, brown and red lentils and enjoyed the result. After lunch, I got the washing in and went for a short and gentle stroll round the garden.
After a genuinely frosty night, some things were looking very droopy…
…and bent….
…and there wasn’t a leaf left on the walnut tree…
…but the daisies were unbowed ….
…and the Lilian Austin rose was glorious.
That cheered me up a lot.
Then I spent some unrewarding time at my computer and on the phone trying to contact firms that make it their speciality to be hard to contact. I found an entirely new form of customer torture when I needed to log into my account for a product that I bought many years ago. Of course I didn’t know my password and applied for a new one: “Success!” the website crowed. ” Your link for a new password has been sent to your email address!”
Great…except it hadn’t been sent.
I filled in a contact form to tell them about this. “Thank you for your enquiry, ” the website said, “A copy of your enquiry has been emailed to your email address.”
Except it hadn’t.
I sometimes suspect that the smart people who who design this sort of thing are practising to be weather gods in a later reincarnation.
The day took a turn for the better when Luke appeared for his lesson and showed a big improvement in his counting skills. Considering that we are doing some quite complicated counting, this was really encouraging. Basically he doesn’t have a real lesson. We just play duets and every now and again I say, “Do as I say and not as I do,” and he does it.
After tea, I went off to play trios with Mike and Isabel and had a very enjoyable time indeed.
It was -1°C as I drove home.
The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch. (The tree sparrows were too quick for me.)
Wonderful to see tree sparrows! I’ve never seen any here in seven years.
They are few and far between and all the more welcome for that.
“Customer service” is . . . frequently not. Sigh.
Deep, deep sigh. 🙂
It’s tough to see the flowers go but the rose and the asters look brand new.
It sounds like the company you were dealing with was sending emails to an old address. They should have asked for a current one.
I hope the sunshine holds until the leg is feeling better.
As the leg is improving, the weather is getting worse but both are going slowly.
The birds are all wonderful. We have a few Tree Sparrows in Illinois but they are confined to a locality I don’t visit too often. I feel your pain about the promised email links to reset passwords. Somehow the emails are anything but automatic and might show up an hour later. I have to go back and find out what happened to your leg since I thought you were quite unstoppable. I hope you are mobile again soon.
I am mobile but still pretty limited.
I share your frustration. Proceed with caution…
I will.
Amazing, very nice. Thanks!!!
Best wishes to you and your leg, Tom.
Thank you Mike.
As with everyone else, I hope the leg improves soon. I believe your usual excellent photographs are improving? I note several recently have been truly outstanding.
You are very kind Ken. It so often depends on the light being kind too.
Glad about the enjoyable musical interludes. Hope that leg continues to improve.
Good luck with that calf muscle, you are being very patient. That rose looked magnificent in your photograph.
Very curious statue, will have to keep an eye out for it when we visit. Hope the leg is strong enough soon, so frustrating!
Mustn’t grumble…..oh well perhaps a little.
Beautiful autumn pictures!
Perfect photo of the tree sparrow- what a delight to see them in your garden. Lovely photos too of blue tit and crow…looking out now for ear flaps and hairs over beak! Sad about the frost but looks as though there are still many more beautiful flowers in your garden that have stood up to Jack Frost and are flowering through.
Attila the Gardener is being kept busy carrying out the dead.
I feel your pain, great weather, and you’re stuck inside. However, you’re still shooting some wonderful images of both the birds and the flowers that remain. I hope that the good weather continues for at least a few days after you are able to go for longer walks or even a cycle ride.
I am not holding my breath. The weather gods will have their fun.
That statue is intriguing. I was rather puzzled until I read your interpretation. Sending healing wishes for the leg. You really ought to quit getting banged up so much! 😉
A fly could knock me over these days!
Nice to see the Tree Sparrows. We only seem to see them on the feeders at bird reserves these days. We don’t even have many House Sparrows round here.
We have plenty of house sparrows about the town but tree sparrows are a rarity.
Good to hear – house sparrows have had a tough time over the last few years,
Wonderful bird photos, especially the Tree Sparrows. I am told there are Tree Sparrows to be seen about a mile and a half from here but I have not seen them. The rose is looking beautiful!
I hope that you do see tree sparrows. They are birds that cheer me up as they always look cheery themselves.
Thank you, Tom; I hope so too.