Our slumbering over morning coffee was interrupted today by a thump on the window. This was a pigeon. Birds, of course, cannot see glass.
Our would-be visitor bounced off, flapped its wings, and flew off into a fir tree, no doubt having a better view of stars than of our sitting room. The unfortunate creature’s motion was curtailed. It was taken short and passed a different one. Perhaps it was impatient to take up the new tenancy and hadn’t realised we were still in residence.
As I carried the cardboard cartons and the bulging black bags we had filled yesterday down the staircase and across the lawn to the car I was so grateful that I was no longer suffering the intense pre-and-post-op pain along the length of my left leg that had been such an impediment on each of our last two moves. I was also relieved that in our new abode we are on the ground floor.
I followed my normal route to Norman’s in Neasden.
A tearful toddler in Morden Hall Park had been stung by nettles and her carer was explaining that there were no dock leaves. These, when rubbed on the affected parts, would have lessened the albeit temporary agony.
Kindly installed by The National Trust, a fresh new welcome board provided me with a memento of my many morning meanderings.
Norman served up a delicious meal of roast guinea fowl with a piquant French white wine followed by a succulent plum flan.
On the tube I finished reading Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie (see 24th. August), a book of poetry designed for children yet containing much to delight the adult. With deceptively easy flowing metre and skillful use of rhyme and repetition, de la Mare’s magical imagination weaves excellent aids to slumber. One short piece, ‘Trees’. speaks of what may become our arborial history. 
We have largely lost our Elms and, it seems, the Ash is about to succumb to alien invaders. Next year marks the hundredth anniversary of this ever-youthful work.
Late afternoon we drove off to Minstead to unload the contents of the car, and then went on to The Firs where Danni cooked an excellent roast chicken meal which we ate with Hardy’s stamp of Australia wine.