Return To The Fray

A week without posting and that week seems like a month.  I’m not a very patient patient when ill and even less so when I’m confined by a medically induced semi-comatose state.  Things seem on the mend now so I’m looking forward to next weekend.

I should not complain though for the last weekend was SO good in many ways.  A family get-together at my daughters home - a 14th Century cottage on the edge of the Cambridgeshire fens.  My elder son and my daughter-in-law also came from more northern climes.  My little grand-daughter was terribly spoilt but, what the hell?  It’s not that often we manage to get even some of the family together, so nearly all of them (younger son, partner and daughter were not able to journey from Edinburgh through work committments) together in one place is an occassion to note.

Despite being spaced-out I did manage a gentle stroll with all to a local hostelery for a beer of three on Saturday.  The evenning was warm and still, we could hear ducks and geese in the reed-beds and this year’s first cuckoo (for me at least).  We sat outside the pub and idled away about three hours.  On the walk home with daylight fast fading we encountered three Muntjac deer.  They seemed surprised to see two-legged creatures crossing ‘their field’ but didn’t take fright and run.  I had the feeling that maybe it was not us enjoying the view, but instead, them enjoying THEIR view.  Who was watching who (whom)?

A sight to thrill was three pairs of Red Kite hawking the fields and plunging now and then to make a kill.  I have known they are back in the area but never seen more than one hunting pair at any one time.  The female bird has a spectacular way of taking food from her mate when he has made a kill.  He will fligh ’straight and level’ for a very short time while she will approach head-on, flip and take the kill from his talons with her own, right herself and swoop away to feed - herself or young.  It is a truly amazing feat of flying control and one I have seen only about three times.