A week of rain

What a week! Rain, rain and more rain. Unable to get out, Murphy refused to go!
Out of my window I watched some blackbirds, they had a clutch of young ones worm hunting, or more accurately, having lessons in DIY worm hunting. They have a long way to go, but I suppose if wet, cold and hungry you don't give it your best shot.
Between downpours we have been out and about, not far, but out. I noticed some more ducks have hatched a clutch of eggs, they now have seven young, I will keep and eye on them. Hope that they are more capable than the first lot.
Incidentally, the swans have still got four young, they make much better parents, must have had lessons.
Murphy doesn't do water - we watched a spaniel and a terrier playing in the stream, they were having a great time, in fact the terrier launched itself into the water with almost olympian standard diving. Murphy was not impressed, his idea of joining in these canine frolics involved getting his ankles wet and barking something like 'come out, you daft beggars.'
The bat activities are very slow a the moment, they obviously don't like the rain.
On the homeward journey after this evenings constitutional, I smelt a very sweet smell, it was about to rain so I didn't hang about, but will return when it's more clement to investigate.

Much better today, been out and about, solved the sweet smell, I think it must be lime blossom. There was no aroma today but I noticed that the limes were in flower, the leaves have lost their light green new look and have gone darker, and the blossom is out.
Murphy and I had a pond-side lunch today, crab pate sandwiches - very nice, Murphy likes them. Why is stuff called pate nowadays? What happened to potted meat? Another example of progress or is it relabel and charge more? Enough of this cynicism.

After lunch I noticed that Murphy was very interested in a clump of reeds, there was a big thing with 8 wings, two heads and bright blue in colour, I couldn't count the legs. Thinking this is something new, should it be called the double headed Murphy fly? I realised it was two small dragon flies mating! With hindsight I realise they must have been damsel flies which are smaller.
The sedges and reeds were covered in them.
Leaving the amorous activity behind, we turned ourselves homeward and this gave a new perspective on the pond. I could see a dozen big fish mooching about the top of the water. They were massive, I'm reliably informed they were grass carp. How do they get that name living in a pond? There didn't seem to be much grass to me.
Whilst watching these Leviathens, I noticed there were lots of dragon flies skitting everywhere. They looked to me like the bi-planes from WW1. True masters of the air, hovering, going backwards, amazing!
Here is a thought for you about bio-diversity and carbon foot prints, all a bit deep for me... but if a bird like a swallow can fly to South Africa fuelled by flies, why can't we, with all the computers, the scientists and the experts in everything, do something similar? Don't hold your breath!

When we had thunder recently, Murphy displayed another of his myriad of fears, the first flash of lightning then the plate rattling crash of the thunder reduces him to a trembling wreck. Sat in my chair with him on my knee and he tries to get underneath me, not an easy task!

Must report the return of my super-duper, all singing, all dancing buggy. It is a JCS, GTi, XYZ Ghia with a go-faster stripe. Read the brochure and it's very impressive. It lasted me three weeks before it became a broken buggy. However it has had some TLC and it's back in action.
Let me say its raining again - roll on summer!

Buggy Man