Watching The Swans

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

This morning I scanned the next dozen of my Streets of London colour slides, but had no time to write them up before Elizabeth arrived for lunch and the rest of the day. As I wrote yesterday, there is always tomorrow.

After lunch, the three of us went for a drive in the forest.

Jackie with bag in wind

At Tanner’s Lane beach Jackie fought with her bag threatening to fly away in a stiff breeze;

Elizabeth at Tanner's Lane

while Elizabeth took a stroll in the direction of a passing ferry boat.

Mooring rope and buoy

I wandered down to the shoreline where a broken mooring and two stray buoys suggested that the boat normally attached may have blown away in the recent storm.

Cows and calvesCows and calf 1

On the usual grass verge at Sowley, cattle and their calves lay chewing the cud.

Flies on calf

These stoic animals have only their enviable eyelashes to protect them from irritating flies. Although the cattle roam free, the ear tags indicate ownership.

We stopped for tea, coffee, and cake at The Old Bakehouse Tea Rooms in Beaulieu.

Swans and cygnets

Beside the lake a pair of swans and their cygnets provided entertainment for

Swans, cygnets, observer, and pheasant

a gentleman reclining on a fencepost while a pheasant looked on. Uma’s comment below reminded me that this is the same man who crossed the shallows to feed the parents in January – https://derrickjknight.com/2017/01/21/an-act-of-love/

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s exquisite lamb jalfrezi, chicken tandoori, savoury rice topped with almonds, all preceded by meat samosas. The ladies drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Fleurie.

 

45 comments

      1. Goodness, if that is all you cannot do, you are a true wonder! (Domestic talent was not allowed into my gene make-up, to my family’s chagrin…) Thanks for the reply, so enjoy your part of the blog, too!

    1. Thanks very much, Pauline. I didn’t know what they were, so I left them without mentioning them, so I am pleased they were noticed. (Jackie says they are ragwort – perhaps a WP version of yellow?)

      1. Jackie is gar more likely to be correct than me, I’m not that familiar with ragwort and tend to think all tall growing yellow clumped flowers are yarrow 🙂 What ever they are they make for a beautifully bucolic picture.

  1. Thanks for ‘taking’ me on a wonderful stroll. By the way, loose cattle? Do they roam far from their farm home? Do they stay together or separate? Do they interfere with traffic? I have so many questions about the loose animals that populate your environment.

  2. I am amazed at cows and how tranquil they appear. I feel bad about flies. Hopefully, no fleas as they are far harder to swish away.
    Nice to compliment the cows’ eyelashes! 🙂 They always do pull at my heartstrings with their trusting big eyes.
    The six cygnets with parental swans feeding in the grass was a sweet scene, Derrick.

      1. I liked catching up and paying attention is part of why I wait till the weekend. I’m less likely to fall asleep in the middle of a comment. 🙂

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