Scene in town

We were going down to friends in Avoca for dinner yesterday, so after work I had some time to fill in before meeting C at his office. I got some bits and pieces I needed, and some wool to knit a baby sweater for friends who have just had their first baby. I've plenty of wool here, but a lot of mine is not as smooth as I'd choose for a newborn. Then I walked through Stephen's Green, hoping to find a couple more pictures for last week's Fall Splendour photo challenge. Alas, it had got fairly grey and overcast by then, and with two shopping bags and a big bunch of sunflowers as well as my backpack, taking photos wasn't the easiest thing to do. But I had a lovely time watching this swan grooming itself.

This decorative painted swag was on a pub on Baggot Street, and the building is the old Royal City of Dublin Hospital - it had got nice and sunny again by then.

Still no Greek photos

One litre of milk was lost in the taking of these photos...
C is very fussy about milk - he looks at the date on the lid, and if it's even a day over he will be very reluctant to use it. Me - I go by smell. If it smells OK, I'll drink it or have it on cereal, but if I had milk in my tea (I don't), I might hesitate a moment.
So, our milk had today's date on it and I thought I'd better buy a litre on the way to work this morning. (We had cauliflower cheese for tea, to use most of the old milk up).
I was crossing the bridge over the Liffey and saw a large cygnet with two swans - first time all summer I've seen one on the Liffey. So, I took my camera out of my bag and stuffed the milk in and took some photos...
Got into work and went to take the milk out of my backpack to store in the fridge. Out comes a geyser of milk - somehow, for the first time ever, I'd managed to shove it straight down onto a knitting needle. I was just lucky that while it was still in the bag, it didn't leak at all - and was I ever glad that I'd got just one litre instead of the two litres that I usually buy.
The photo of the swans and cygnet isn't so good but I've included it so that you can see how large the cygnet is - almost adult size.

Sloe gin - already that lovely ruby-red colour is seeping out of the berries. I read that you can freeze the berries for 24 hours which causes the skins to split and means you don't need to pierce each one, but I chose the piercing option.

Liffey Swans

Recently I've been seeing a lot more than just the usual pair of swans on the Liffey - anything up to half a dozen. And I don't think that they are cygnets, I don't think they'd be in their adult plumage yet.

I had time after work to stop and take a few photos of these ones gently drifting downstream as they groomed themselves. It amazes me the difference high tide makes - how much nearer it brings them.

I am getting so fed up with Vodafone's broadband service - we're experiencing outages more and more often. This week I decided to start logging them, as I really don't know if we want to persevere till our contract was up. C was pretty fed up this evening when he was trying to listen to something on the radio and all of a sudden it went off air. Maybe if it happens a couple more times he'll be motivated to complain. I noticed that when I emailed about another issue and also asked about opting out because of the bad service, they dealt with the primary issue and studiously ignored the bad service question. Hmmm

Swan Lake - Pas de Deux

It was a very showery day today, but in the evening we went for a walk along the canal after dinner.
I only did ballet very briefly when I was young - the year I started turned out also to be one of the years my mum had pneumonia, so then I just went straight back home after school instead of going to ballet. But I've always enjoyed watching it, even if I couldn't say what a pas de deux or an entrechat is.

Signs of rain

The rainbow became even more spectacular shortly after this, but with a handful of swans feathers I was too slow in changing to a wide-angle lens. As we were walking back up the main road we met an American family from New York trying to find the hotel where they had left their car. We weren't much help, I am afraid, but as he pointed out, it was still bright and he had a super-sized umbrella in case the rain started again.

River Life

Yesterday I was so surprised to see some fish in the Liffey - it's the first time I've ever seen them. Today I was early for work so I walked up to the Frank Sherwin bridge at Heuston, and round the bridge piers was positively swarming with fish.
I didn't have a polariser with me, so one photo is enhanced to show how many there were, and one regular photo. Someone in work says they are mullet, and they do come upriver in the summer. He thinks he saw either a seal or an otter just diving in the water out of the corner of his eye, but though he waited almost ten minutes he didn't see anything again. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled! With all those fish I can imagine they'd attract some predators. They were a good size too, at least ten inches to a foot long.

There were also four swans this morning - more than the usual pair. And swallows swooping over the water. It was a good day to be early. The swans were enjoying a tasty snack.

 No sign of the juvenile seagull in the yard at work, so hopefully he was reunited with his parents and is safe somewhere.

Out and About in Town

I spotted this bright reflection in the Liffey this morning. I couldn't think what it was - but after I got beyond the bridge and could see, it was just a truck cab pulled in for a rest.

It was a rather pale, watery sunshine, but enough for a bus to reflect in the Guinness sign.

 

A weed growing on the wall along the river.

And this week I even have a contribution from C. He took my little camera this morning because he'd seen mallard chicks on the canal yesterday. They were gone today, but there is also a nesting swan. With the good weather a lot of people are out along the canal at lunch time, and the swans are quite threatening to anyone who gets too close.

Lorraine, thank you so much for everything. Including the feather :D  I am sorry I don't know how to rotate a brush in GIMP to make a better frame.

Saturday Walk

We took a short walk down the canal to the 12th lock this morning. C has a gig on Tuesday to practice for, and a pile of ironing, so short was the key word;  and down the canal meant that we passed the shopping centre on the way back for essentials like bread and milk.

. More swans - they seem to be out in abundance just now.

A moorhen taking a rest

 

Canal Maintenance (they are doing a lot at the moment. Last week we saw some type of "boat" that is obviously a floating platform for cutting trees from, and a lot of clearing has been done along the banks too. This man was wearing an Irish Waterways windcheater, and was doing some kind of work in the lock. He had a ladder tied to one of the bollards along the quay, for climbing down to the boat. While we were watching him we spotted a grey wagtail - a wonderful splash of yellow.

 

Another splash of colour - these little irises (barely six inches tall) were planted along the bridge.

And another splash of primary colour - large-scale litter, which must literally have made quite a splash wherever it was dropped in. There was a yellow hard-hat floating near it, too.

More Birds

I wasn't expecting to work today, but got a text this morning at quarter to eight, saying someone else was sick. So instead of a walk in the park, I went to the shopping centre after work to collect the photos from last year's holiday, and walked home from there. I was really puzzled because I knew I still had two books I could take out from the library, so I went in and chose two and went to the desk. And hen th librarian told me I already had ten items. I was surprised, but he was sure, so I put them back. I came home and logged into my account, and there are two books i most certainly didn't take out. Still waiting to hear back from the library on that one - I don't want to end up with overdue charges for books I don't have.
It looks as if this swan is ringed.

 Swan symmetry

 

 The robin in the garden, chirping away with his breast puffed out.

Swan's Way

We had a lovely walk along the canal this morning, as it was bright and sunny when we woke up. Just as well we had a good porridge breakfast, as in the end it was almost a two hour walk - we got the train home.One of the highlights was seeing an otter - we've seen muskrats in France, but neither of us had ever seen an otter before.
It was, indeed, cold last night and a lot of the canal was lightly glazed with ice.