Swallow ergo Summer

Cracking day what? This chap was actually on a wire over the Innocent Path this morning, with a horrible dreich background - I'm sure I can rescue this some more in Photoshop later tonight. It was his expression that I (and Mel) liked, and which convinced me to use a less-than-technically-wonderful wildlife shot.

Anyway, Innocent Path? There were a couple of policemen talking to an older lady cyclist on the cyclepath this morning; she set off a little before I got there. As I passed I realised I knew her from the commuter challenge and asked if the police were looking for anything in particular (she was looking into the bushes at the side as she rode along so I thought it might have been someone had chucked some drugs or something and they were asking if anyone had seen anything). Turns out she?d been flashed! She was straight on the phone to the police, and given they were in Craigmillar they were there in minutes. Apparently spent 45 minutes going over everything with them...

The best laugh of the morning was provided by BBC Breakfast - for once not something to rant about. Smug and Superior Susanna Reid (to give her her full title) had a political reporter on the couch (careful now) talking, I think, about the full coalition agreement to be published this very day. She wanted to know what to look out for in particular. "And what are you keeping your..." pause... more pause... "watchful eyes on?"

Why the pause? Well she was speaking to Gary O'Donoghue who just happens to be blind. She'd caught herself in the middle of a figure of speech, which if she'd just gone with nobody would have thought twice about, but you could tell she suddenly realised what she was going to say, that she didn't want to use 'keeping your eye on', and in blind panic turned that into 'watchful eyes'. Marvellous work there.

Not too bad a day in the office. Feeling like I'm being listened to (a novel experience) and views taken on board (hell, the office manager was even taking notes on what I was advising), and a walk in the sun at lunchtime. Tonight sees Mel's dad round for dinner since it's his birthday (though we're out again tomorrow night to Ondine, mmmm!).

We'll see how long I last - 5.30am start, followed by 1h30m sat in the garden calming the chooks down after another fox visit. Despite the good weather we're going to have to start keeping the chooks in their hen houses over night again rather than out in the runs - not for safety, the runs are perfectly (touch wood) fox-proof. Or at least have been for two years. But because we can't have that noise every morning, and this fox is pretty regular now.