Not such an ugly duckling....

This beautiful swan appeared to be admiring its own reflection as I walked past on the river bank. I think perhaps it needed a moment to itself, as it's still keeping an eye on six cygnets (who are still at the ugly teenage duckling stage) - out of the original brood of eight. Its partner seems to have disappeared though I'm sure it'll turn up again eventually.

It seems to have been another action packed day. Alex and I were at Orton Pit be eight, as he's doing his work experience and I'd agreed to help him survey the next set of ponds that will be restored this winter. The poor lad was shattered, but we got around the ponds in good time and he went to join the site manager and field assistant, to spend the afternoon raking up reeds.

He spotted two interesting sets of fungi - a group of lilac-coloured blewitts and some young mushrooms Agaricus macrosporus, which are edible and good. Pete and I'll be feasting on them for breakfast tomorrow.

After a quick cup of coffee I took the dogs along the river and then returned home to paint the walls, before picking Alex up again at four o'clock. The painting was interesting... We usually tend to go for pale colours, but we'd decided to do one end of our living room roasted red. As we're working to a deadline we used Once paint - but it still needs a second coat!! The red looks good, but is a bugger to apply. And then one of our cats walked through the lid and left red paw-prints all over the kitchen surfaces. She now looks as though someone's impaled her back leg!

Once the painting and collecting were done, I spent a couple of hours doing English with Ben. None of my sons enjoys English as a subject, though they all love reading and are very capable when they need to be. But sometimes it does feel like squeezing blood out of a stone! Thanks goodness we're having a take-away for tea - I'm shattered!