Nice Weather........

We had three visitors to Pither Towers this afternoon who were most welcome and I hope will become regulars.

Ok, so the Towers don't really resemble the Serengeti and I don't anticipate the World Wildlife Fund declaring my back garden a world natural heritage site but the arrival of a brace of mallard ducks amid the torrential rain certainly brightened up the old homestead.

I say "brace" because two was all I spotted at first - a female and a rather nervous and watchful male. The reason for his wariness became apparent when, after a short while,
another male came waddling down the lawn towards the happy couple's pond refuge. Ah, nature in action! A duckage-a-trois.

The scene was further improved when, at one point, the three ducks were joined by the pair of blackbirds who are nesting by my back window. They took a dip to get cleaned up in the top pond while two squirrels chased each other across the lawn, three dunnocks hopped around under the bird feeders and a couple of collared doves sat on the greenhouse. Not a bad show for one moment in time in an urban garden.


Anyway, the girlie duck all-but cleaned me out of pondweed and young plants before
taking off after a couple of hours with both her suitors in tow - but the three of them returned shortly afterwards. The love-struck pair appear to have settled in for the night and are fast asleep on the lawn. The would-be cuckold er is busy pacing around, no doubt biding his time and waiting to steal the girl away.

Then the phone rang late this afternoon. The vet said Henry had come through his operation well, despite evidence of a serious heart murmur which at one point looked like making surgery impossible, and three hours later he was back home, being fussed and pampered like an Arabian Sheikh. The results of the histology carried out on the lump removed are expected through by the middle of next week.

Not a bad day in all. Where is Grantham, anyway?