R and I went over to Farmoor Reservoir this morning, where a Great Northern Diver was reported, and photographed, yesterday. Sadly, we found that it had moved on overnight, which was pretty ungenerous of it as today is my birthday, and by leaving so abruptly it deprived me of a gift experience to which I’d been looking forward. Birds, eh? No thought for anyone but themselves.
R, though he quite likes a walk round Farmoor, likes a Diver (within reason), and can definitely be persuaded to enjoy the combination of the two, would probably have been happier back at home, doing useful things – especially as we walked out along the causeway, with dazzling sunshine and a vicious, biting wind in our faces. Nonetheless, he managed to maintain at least the appearance of enthusiasm because there were a large number of Tufted Ducks around, and as they’ve given up wintering on the river at Stratford it had been quite a while since he’d seen one. I also love a Tuftie, of course (who doesn’t?), and even though the bird here is further away than I would ideally like, I think the combination of waves, reflections, and the duck’s storm-tossed quiff make for quite an interesting image.
Also quite interesting, though not in a good way, was our journey from Farmoor back to Stratford-upon-Avon. I’ll spare you the tedious details, but if you’ve ever seen the film Clockwise, you’ll have some kind of idea of what it was like. The day was saved by the wonderful staff of Vintner, who despite being fully booked managed to shuffle things around enough to hold our table – for which we turned up three quarters of an hour late. The meal, as ever was excellent.
In case you haven’t already seen it on the socials, I’ve added a shot of the envelope from the birthday card I received from the Boy Wonder and the Baby Brother, which I absolutely love. They both signed the card – B minor with a kind of extravagant swirl that speaks of the perpetual motion machine he can often be, and B major with a beautifully legible signature, a heart, and a letter ‘J’ which looks charmingly like an open umbrella, and which R thinks I should now use as my own signature. The envelope was written by the Boy without a reference text – he decided for himself which letters he would need to use to make up ‘Grandma Jill’, and then wrote them without help. At this point, worried (quite unnecessarily) that I might not be able to read it, he asked L to write it too, but then said, “Why have you written it so small, and put those things next to it?” “L replied, “Because yours is much more important than mine,” and then he was happy.
Heart: overflowing.
R: L2, C2, D17.
