Red Squirrel

Fridays are often a non-starter for blip with chores (laundering towels) in morning and in afternoon Mrs P gets home sharpish and we're off to do the weekly shop (M&S and Waterstones). Ever since we've been here red squirrels have been around from time to time in the small wood on a steep bank fronting the river Ness. But only on rare occasions in the garden. Anyway just as we were about to leave spotted him at the bird table and then by the time I'd grabbed a camera he was at the nut hanger. Got several shots - some a little better than this but I liked this pose.
PS: At Waterstones got Jeanette Winterson's "The Daylight Gate" about the Pendle Witches and also "The Dinner" by Herman Koch. As far as Jeanette Winterson is concerned she fell out of favour (with me) when she successfully claimed that unimportant people with the same name should not use the name for a website. Or something like that - it was quite a while ago and I've forgotten the details. Apparently she was asked to write this latest book by Hammer of horror films fame. It was the subject matter rather than the author that attracted me - Pendle Hill being very familar to me in the past. Of course when it comes to Pendle Witches nothing can compare with the book of that name by William Harrison Ainsworth and which I read avidly as a teenager although it's in a style many would not appreciate now. He wrote a number of historical novels (I remember "Guy Fawkes" and "Tower of London"). I think of him as a kind of English Walter Scott or a superior version of Tranter. As for "The Dinner" I haven't (obviously) yet read it but the reviews suggest it's a bit like "The Slap" - about an Australian/Greek child who was slapped for being perfectly obnoxious but because in these PC times you're not supposed to slap children however deserving, there were endless repercussions. I remember being slapped hard at school for having "an inane grin" but I had the sense not to tell anyone. They'd just have said I deserved it.