A little Sun - 12C - Busy morning

As I've gone-on about our absent goldfinches and their eventual return I thought a picture of them might be of interest. As you can see, this morning they didn't let the greenfinch bully them and he/she is waiting patiently even though with his back turned. How rude !

As I was also preparing lunch at the time this seems like evidence that I have begun multi-tasking like ladies do. Do you think I'm 'on the turn'?

TJ arrived promptly, as she always does but it's a good job she was reminded about the clocks going forward because she had forgotten. I cooked her favourite things - lamb chops, mashed potato (with swede and plenty butter), carrots, and purple sprouting broccoli. Onion sauce of course. As an experiment, as I was grilling the chops, I popped some halved-parsnips under the grill at the same time. They were fine but I should have gone to the trouble of taking out the central core because the end result was a little on the chewy side - al denté - TJ supportively said. Then we just went straight to a cheese board and coffee. Couldn't get any Somerset Brie and had to settle for Channel Islands Brie. It was fine but lacked the 'edge'.

Picture 2 is two sparrows from our colony. They look very much like mother & daughter but who knows. The bird bath is about 10 feet from were they live. David and Helen bought it for us as a present and it has given us so much pleasure, let alone the birds. There is lots of activity in there, sparrows, blackbirds, starlings etc., but I've never seen the robins having a bath. Perhaps they bathe at night when no-one's around, they are certainly up early and late enough.

I can't remember if I've mentioned the new 'themes' for my Google Homepage. One can select from several, bus stop, street scene, etc., and I've settled for the 'beach'. The really clever bit is that during the day the sun progresses across the sky from sunrise to sunset. After you've entered a location of course. It's great fun and Google must have a well established 'blue sky thinking' department because so often they are ahead of the opposition.

Picture 3 is a ScreenPrint of my Google Homepage.

I think the sun is in roughly the correct position for 4.50pm and it has the additional advantage of preventing one's homepage from looking bland and boring. I concede that one doesn't spend all that much time there, like the desktop picture, but it's nice to have something attractive to look at. The picture seems a little blurry, but it will convey the idea.

Had a good chat to David this morning and all seems well at Long Eaton. While Y is away I plan to nip over again. This time she isn't away at the weekend but mid-week so I'll probably go over and have a cup of tea around tea-time.

I've got lots of lovely reading to do and radio this evening and I can always find pictures to mess about with.

Just room for the last verse of the E. Nesbit tree poem :-

"The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty,
The poplar's gentle and tall,
But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city-
I love him best of all !"

Evening All ! Take care.