Birds & bees

A Wild and windy morning gave way to a beautiful afternoon. I've spent a profitable few hours in the garden, mowing and digging and clearing around the big pond.on. So many birds singing, bees buzzing and the damsel flies are just hatching too. We have many sea-going swans here and this handsome pair had a lot of interesting things on their minds!! The tranquillity of this image belies what they were up to a few moments before. The water was quite lively and made interesting patterns.

An enjoyable Ladies' Book Club last night. We were discussing The Shiralee by someone who's name I've forgotten!. This was written in the 1960s, based in Australia and is a about a macho unreconstructed Aussie male who suddenly finds himself on the road, jobless, and with the added burden, as he sees it, of his four year old daughter. It's mostly written in dialogue and I found it very hard to get into, or to sympathise with the characters, but I was a lone dissenter as everyone else had enjoyed it. This month we have two books to read: The Preacher's Bride by Jody Hedlund (loosely based on the wife of John Bunyan) and Sister by Rosamund Lipton. I borrowed A Life Like Other Peoples by Alan Bennet, which looks very promising - based on his early life. The rhubarb and orange cake was surprisingly good - surprising because it had flopped a bit the middle!

We've been ploughing through the DVD series of the History of Scotland with the rather gorgeous Neil Oliver - he of the flowing locks and intense stare. We're up to the last bit now - phew, it's complicated!! Still, he was wearing a kilt last night which made focusing a bit easier!