Lapping The Meads

A real Thomas Hood sort of November day. Forgive me, I can't help invoking him every year as his words ring so true on days like this.

"No sun - no moon! 
No morn - no noon - 
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day. 
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, 
No comfortable feel in any member - 
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, 
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! - 

November!" 

Actually we did see a few birds at Kings Mead, including the white flashes of bullfinch rumps as they flew, plus four or five lapwings. I captured this peewit, as I call them, as it flapped up and away over the Kingsmead Viaduct which carries the A10 over the River Lea and the New River. 

We met a lovely man and his three Jack Russells in the valley and climbed back up the steep, slippery track to the road with them. He very kindly suggested that I should let Ollie off the lead so that she could play with his dogs, even though darling Foxy (Extras) is eighteen and three quarters. She reminds me a bit of my mother-in-law when she was in her nineties. The dogs got on famously together and Ollie loved the man. As he said, dogs know if someone is a dog person.