Yesterday morning Jackie was startled by a thud on the sitting room French windows. Knowing it would have been a bird she investigated and found a
stunned young thrush on the other side of the panes. After a while it flew off to the squawking of alarmed parents who could spot Mrs Knight inches away. They presumably could not see the glass either.
This morning a carried out a stint of dead-heading before we went trawling for a lunch venue. Our local cafés were packed out or impossible to park at, so we set off for The Green Dragon at Brook.
Service here was of variable quality. We were led to our table and served drinks by someone who was either not very well or would rather she or we were somewhere else. After a lengthy wait a much more friendly personality took our food order, giving us the useful and accurate advice when we each ordered sides of onion rings that one portion would be enough for both of us.
My choice was haddock, chips, and peas with Wadworth’s 6X beer; Jackie’s was beef burger and chips with Diet Coke. The peas were served chopped up, possibly without cooking, and so strongly minted that I chose not to eat them all. My Culinary Queen agreed with me.
Along the woodland lane at Bramshaw we encountered two donkeys with their foals grazing and suckling among the dappled sunlight,
which also cast shadows across healthy living trees and dead and broken trunks lining the route on the way to Nomansland,
where ponies seemed intent on blocking the road.
One mare and foal took their differing sustenance on the moorland beside Roger Penny Way where, as in many such a location,
ponies and foals clustered to shelter from heat and flies in their own dappled shade.
This evening we repeated yesterday’s dessert of fruit, cheesecake and cream with which I drank another glass of the guv’nor.