A trip to the tip and a surprise lovely sight on the way of a flock of Lawings whirling around over a meadow. Lovely to see in bright autumn sunshine.
Made me smile all the way to the tip and back.

In the ongoing and – for me – fascinating family history research I have some new names….
Going way, way, way back to the 1600 and 1700s there are ancestors with these names:
Cornelius Friend, John Guzzwell, Henry Gripe. Thomas Ogier. Churchill Meadows. English Lavers. I wonder who they were and what they were like and what were their lives like. The family were mostly fishermen in Devon, so what was that like? Dangerous and difficult lives I expect.

Bought my first audio-book – Stephen Fry obviously… felt a brief review coming on
Buy it – snuggle into comfy headphones, stretch out on a squashy sofa and surrender yourself to a Fry’s ‘talkish’ delight. You deserve to surround yourself in his chocolaty voice and storytelling.

Mr Fry is not a God, he is only human but, he is a modern day angel of wisdom and words and wit. I aspire to his gentle erudition and ability to put into succinct words complex ideas and true emotions.

The Intelligence² Debate – Stephen Fry (Unedited)
Uploaded by Xrunner17. – Full seasons and entire episodes online.

GENIUS! They don’t do humour like this these days. He was funny AND clever.

Lasting impressions of our late summer stay-cation
Butterflies on the buddleia, summer shoe-horned into two weeks, sunshine, flowers, seaside, river gorge, steamer cruise and a lot of peace.

A Red Admiral landed on my leg and went to sleep. I kept still for ages.

Swallow dive, originally uploaded by Fi in Eden.

Thursday- poor Hector working. Jane and I had a great day. An archery lesson – I beat her ! At the farm venue they also have a fishing pond which was being skimmed by swallows catching insects. What a lovely sight.

Then we went to Trotters animal park and met some nice animals. Especially the gibbons and lemurs and marmosets. I had seen the falconry demonstration before but as last time loved it. John the falconer is mesmerising – his connection with the birds is a bit of magic.
After that we had cake and tea with Mum and I had a few minutes walk in Borrans Park on the lake shore at Ambleside and fed the ducks.

And a last blast on the two week holiday….. a drive out to the Solway Firth, along from Carlisle and to Bowness on Solway and a wander around on the foreshore and watching the tide gallop in. I saw a huge bird flying over the water and some few hundred yards away land on the marsh. I would love to know what it was. It looked dark and stood tall. I took this shot of Hector under the tide’s hooves.