CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.
There was much electricity in the skies overnight, but none in the house. It was all required for a spectacular thunderstorm. From the news this morning it was apparent that we were very fortunate. Even in Christchurch, about eight miles away, a house was struck by lightning, and in other parts of the country many people woke up to continuing power cuts.
By late afternoon, when we were on a driveabout, the skies had broken up, but still looked dramatic.
Before then, I had filled two more of our large bags with chopped up branches, and we had taken them to the dump.
As before, bees had worked alongside me.
Following a roundabout route, we found ourselves at Hatchet Pond where
donkeys basked
or foraged.
The youngster snoozing by the Lyme disease poster is quite appropriately positioned, because, although the ticks carrying this very nasty complaint inhabit the forest grasses and shrubs, they are also carried by the donkeys.
The two adults seem so much more elegant than many of the asses found wandering in the National Park that we wondered whether they might be mules.
A family by the lakeside had come to feed the birds,
which became very excited at the prospect;
in particular, when watching them fight over breadcrumbs, we were given plentiful evidence of why the collective noun for seagulls is a squabble.
The donkeys turned up for their share,
and became quite persistent.
A magpie also tried its luck, until being seen off by a gull.
Not far away, in Furzey Lodge, a thatcher’s donkey has found its way onto a roof;
and the agisters’ pound is dedicated to Jeffrey Kitcher, M.B.E. : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8646105/Jeff-Kitcher.html
This evening we dined on chicken breasts in sweet chilli sauce, Jackie’s onion rice topped by an omelette, and runner beans. I drank Old Crafty Hen.
