No pedal but at least a tootle or two

My Somerset correspondent, Venetia was intrigued by this curious statue in Marseille on her recent visit.

I think it represents travellers who are just passing through!

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.)