Cold toes

I hoped for a crisp wintry scene this morning, but it's all muddy slush. I much prefer a hard frost to this. Juno's paw prints are particularly messy in the flat – he still doesn't know how to wipe his paws.

After the feeders were filled, I sipped my coffee and watched the animals arrive. The jay was straight at the monkey nuts and even prised off the one I pop on the tree for the squirrel – the jay's clocked that one, then. There were a few other "firsts" in this morning's gardenwatch. There's usually a pair of blackbirds, but this morning there were four males and one female. There was a male with a golden beak, one with an orange beak and two still with grey beaks. Juno was asleep in the flat, not going out (too wet under paws) and Dora wasn't anywhere to be seen so the ground feeders probably felt much safer out and about. Then, astonishingly, one of the male blackbirds whizzed by the feeder I fill for the parakeets grabbing a grape as he passed. The movement was so quick, if I'd blinked, I would have missed it. It's good to know that the blackbirds will eat the grapes, too.

In the evening, I met Ann at the British Library to hear Dame Jinty Nelson talk about women in Anglo-Saxon times. It was an interesting event and what's clear is that there are still many unanswered questions, but that the questions we've been asking so far may not be the right ones – more questions about women in medieval society need to be posed to be explored. We learned about Aethelflaed, queen of the Mercians, daughter of King Alfred. She brought peace to the Midlands without conflict and was respected and celebrated. One document calls her "a lord", which could be interpreted many ways. Perhaps she had the same respect as a man in the role of a lord or perhaps, as a widower and a women beyond menopause, she was not "woman" anymore and thus more respected, or perhaps she had all that respect when her husband was still arrived and they ruled equally. We can only imagine and speculate. 

We were shown the oldest surviving will for a woman in Anglo-Saxon England. This woman was very wealthy and had many items to bequeath to family members and friends. I must go to the Angle-Saxon exhibition that has this will and more at the British Library. I have 18 days in which to see it before it goes. On the list!

Ann and I had a coffee in the cold at St Pancras and enjoyed a couple of wonderful pianists playing on the free pianos.

It was snowing on my way home, and lying, but I'm sure it'll be slushy tomorrow morning.