"Raise your glasses, please..." (but I have to find mine first)

Now this really isn't a good place to lose my glasses. It was all this fellow's fault . . .

With a few of his friends this lamb had clambered over a stream, a fence and some obstacles put in their way after they'd got into the paddock last week. The Chairman being away with Stationmaster Steve at Towcester Beer Festival raising another pair of glasses, I thought I'd better do something like persuade the invaders to return to their own field, especially bearing in mind that it was a beer festival and neither would be able to focus any better than I could without my glasses on their return.

So I put my glasses in my top pocket and set about creating some new obstacles for the sheep to negotiate. At some point in this activity the glasses must have fallen out of my pocket. "Damn!" I distinctly remembering saying to myself, followed by "Oh well, nothing for it but comb the area." Being pretty light I'd hoped that they would be easy to spot perched on a thistle or atop a bunch of sticky-willy. After an unsuccessful first survey, during which I began to doubt whether I would actually recognise them even if I did see them, I had to start at one end of the area and, on hands and knees, do an intensive search. I had never realised quite how much stuff there is beneath other stuff in what just looks like grass and some plants and weeds. Piles of scrabbled-up weeds and plants and ivy and more sticky-willy and brambles (ouch) and nettles (still tingling as I write) grew up and I was beginning to wonder whether I would finish up having to search through them again so daredn't chuck them away either.

At one point I was thinking that a jackdaw or magpie could have whizzed down and nicked them when I wasn't looking or that perhaps one of the invading sheep was now wearing them and had hoofed it off into the adjoining field with the things. Then, after about an hour's unplanned weeding, my mind beginning to wonder whether there'd be a shop open to get a pair from and whether I'd be able to get by with some standard reading glasses, there they were. "Yippee!!" I shouted and felt a really big smile coming on and a huge sense of achievement. It was one of those things that you just want to tell everyone about. Only those who've ever lost something in a ridiculously difficult place to find it again but did find it will appreciate any of this but now I have done and maybe you will.

And congratulations and very best wishes to William and Catherine too. So pleased it all went well and even the weather was kind.

Looking out of my window one nice morning

I've decided I like lichen

This wonderfully coloured lichen grows on a old hutch in the paddock. I think I shall look around for some more. It's the sort of stuff you can take photos of even when the wind's blowing.

Fire and water

Just as well it was a really hot day as Matti insisted on 'helping' with watering the UFO landing marks that appeared in the paddock recently. With no change of clothes to be found. They also discovered that it's extremely difficult to burn a bird's feather. I said that's what makes them really good for making quills to write with and then wonderd why on earth I'd said that. I blame it on the sun.

I hope they're not baby triffids

Sitting outside in the brilliant Easter weekend sunshine, I found myself in some kind of seedstorm as hundreds of tiny white fluffy seeds floated around. It wasn't just an occasional few bits blown in on a passing breeze but went on for hours and goodness knows how many found their way into the inner workings of either the laptop or my ears. I tried really hard to get a photo but by the time I'd figured out how to snap a few they'd subsided. Anyway, if you look closely you'll see the little white specks aren't mistakes but some of the seeds. Some are still flying out of the cooler outlets inside the car too! So whatever they grow into should be sprouting up everywhere later this year! I just hope they're not baby triffids!

April sun

It just dawned on me