Hail fellow, well met...

Hail - yes.
I walked down along the canal before going to get some bread and vegetables. It had been showery, so I was wearing a raincoat, but I wasn't expecting thunder, lightning and some hail.








I was glad I waited under a sheltering tree and walked on the extra bit to the Twelfth Lock instead of just going straight to the shops - I was rewarded by seeing a mallard with nine little chickies.


Just watch that little laggard scooting over the water. And what amazes me is how dry they are - this was within two minutes of the hail shower. You somehow don't expect those fluffy coats to be waterproof the same way adult plumage is. (Apologies for the wind noise, and also because the roads were wet after the hailstorm there's a lot of road noise from the traffic on the bridge over the canal. I tried some software to compress the video that would have taken the sound out, but I didn't like the result).

Look at them on their journey through the irises growing along the bank - sometimes they were pecking up at the vegetation.

Birds

Today was our wedding anniversary. Next year is a big one and hopefully circumstances will permit that we can celebrate in Paris or somewhere special. Today we just went for a walk along the canal in between our main course and dessert to walk off the Procsecco and Yorkshire puddings.
 On the way back we walked part of the way along the road, and spotted this swallow, and an unusual angle on a greenfinch.

 

When we see swallows, C's reflex reaction is to start singing When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano by the Ink Spots (one of the CDs he often listens to while doing the dishes).

The little coal tits are funny - they're happy picking away at the feeder themselves, but when an adult comes along they still like to be fed, too. The first ones in the video, with the more yellow cheeks, are the juveniles.





Rather unintelligently I totally forgot that I had made a card I intended as an anniversary card a couple of months back till after I had made two other possible cards. I decided to keep the original one for my sister later on in the month and gave C this more masculine looking one. Probably a wise decision as he says the other one is more feminine. I did suggest he could give it to me - he gave out enough about the length of time it took for him to find one he was happy to buy on Friday night when he ran out of time and energy to make one himself. But no, he wouldn't give me one of my own cards....