I started assembling ingredients this morning to prepare the Christmas red cabbage, and had one of those “Doh!” moments when I realised that I’d failed to buy a cooking apple. The nearest place that could supply one turned out to be Bidford on Avon (it would have been nearer still if I hadn’t set off in the wrong direction, but let’s step around that). Having got so far, and with the light being relatively kind, I decided to give myself an undeserved reward by carrying on up to Hillers for half an hour in the bird hide.
Hillers was heaving with people: the café was solid, the farm shop rammed, and I even had to queue for a parking space. But the hide was blissfully quiet, apart from visits by a family with a very well-behaved child, and a chap of around my age who brought in his young granddaughter, and quietly explained the joys of bird watching to her. She took to it with enthusiasm and was very quiet, apart from a squeak of indignation when we heard distant shooting, and she asked her grandfather what was going on. “What are they shooting?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Probably rabbits.” “Rabbits?” was the response. “RABBITS??? But they’re CREATURES!!”
Well, quite.
Having bagged my nuthatch, and several other things, I made my way home and cooked the red cabbage, which is now chilling in the fridge improving its flavour. I think I can probably leave it till tomorrow before I start boiling the sprouts.
