Sunset Is For The Birds

This morning I emptied a small cabinet of drawers which stood beside my desk. Some of the contents needed shredding, some were binned, and some found homes in our new cupboards. I then tackled two public bodies who I can only reach on line. I won’t bore you with the details of these, save to say that after nearly an hour on the phone with BT I wound up learning that I must pay £7.50 a month to retain my e-mail address. VAT wasn’t mentioned, but I bet that will be added.

Jackie and I moved the empty cabinet to the garden shed, and I calmed myself down this afternoon by posting https://derrickjknight.com/2021/11/29/a-knights-tale-72-upstaged/

At the end of the afternoon we took a drive on which, over Beaulieu Road we noticed that

sunset was on its way.

Hatchet Pond rose up to meet it as we watched the gentle pink skies set ablaze reflecting on the surface among swans, gulls, and ducks, some of which each of us photographed

away from the the flaming areas. In mine gulls create ripples on the surface which Jackie’s sailing swans do not disturb. The Assistant Photographer has also captured reflecting gulls with wings raised and lowered in flight.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent sausages in red wine; creamy mashed potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm broccoli; and tender red cabbage, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Merlot.

79 comments

  1. What a marvelous gallery of sunset images, Derrick! Jackie’s capture of both the up and down wingspans is remarkable as well, Thanks to both of you for sharing these pleasing to the eye images!

  2. Beautiful photos, Guys! Your dinner sounds so delicious, I wish that I could join you both! I had to look up BT, but why do they want an additional seven pounds fifty to keep an email address? There are free services out there.

      1. Your welcome. That would be around 90 dollars US per year they would take from you guys. I have a Pay email address which is paid once per year that’s about $40.00.

        My other email is free and works just fine if you can tolerate the stupid ads the throw in your face!

  3. Gorgeous photos, Jackie and Derrick!
    They exude peace, calm, joy, and deep contented-sighs. 🙂
    (((HUGS))) 🙂
    PS…“Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson ·

  4. Another lovely drive. I hope your petrol shortage issues have resolved themselves. Our gas has gotten crazy expensive here lately but it was supposed to take a sharp drop yesterday. I think it went down a few cents a litre here this morning.

  5. When I saw BT, I thought first about Bacillus thuringiensis — that friend of gardeners. But that didn’t make any sense. I’m thinking now it might be British Telecom. In any event, I found a freedom of information request that might be of interest, especially this paragraph:

    “In the case of BT, we are aware that it offers a free basic email service, in addition to its paid-for service, for
    customers who no longer take its broadband services. This free email service requires the customer
    to log-in using a browser (rather than via a desktop app) but otherwise has similar functionality to
    the existing service. “

  6. It’s nice you were able to calm yourself by sharing some Knight’s Tale history. Your header photo really is stunning with the water uniting stunning old and white gulls. I like the soft balance in Jackie’s photo.

  7. The title of your post immediately brought to mind ‘strictly for the birds’, an idiom I have not heard of or read about for a long time so had to check up that it describes something as ‘useless, meaningless, or only believed by the gullible’. The beautiful photographs belie that and are all positive proofs of the beauty of nature which, as you rightly point out, has a calming effect on us all.The combination of colours and birds are a delight.

  8. The sun sets too early this time of year, but when it does, who can complain? Your photos are wonderful!

  9. Oh, that dinner! Jackie, I think you should come and live with Minx and me for a while (like the rest of my life). As a reward, I have a very blank canvas for you to learn all about growing Australian native plants. Not a rosebush to be seen.

  10. When I updated my website recently I looked into having a separate email address that had a more sensible name, mostly for better marketing purposes, but it was going to be very expensive so I let it go. As some have said, there are free emails, but gmail, hotmail, etc are not my go-to. Linda’s research on BT seems exactly what you need.

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