In the end we had 13 consecutive days without a glimpse of the sun, just dull, foggy, dankness. On Friday, the sun finally made an appearance for three hours, one and a half of which I was in an office and for the rest I failed to bring out my phone and take a picture as proof. And now the greyness is back for a few more days - how nice!
I did threaten to bring in a trail camera, as I thought the batteries might be running out. I did that yesterday, and discovered that the batteries gave out about 3 weeks ago - my bad! Actually there wasn't much activity recorded in the three weeks it was working. It was placed in the Orchard, with the hope of catching boar family antics, but while there was one night time video with a couple of snuffling sounds, there was not a hint of boar. The camera was by something we call Badger Road, and sure enough, there were numerous shots of a badger passing through at speed, so most weren't much good. This is one of the best.
There were lots of pictures of us passing by the camera (well as many "lots" as you can get when there were only 160 files in total), which have all been removed, leaving just 49 files with anything at all, including a few of our cats. There was a nice image of a deer, with an accompanying video I've not had a chance to load onto YouTube - for another day!
There was also a nice one of a couple of jays, again with an interesting video to follow.
Finally, there was a fine shot of the fox, showing off his magnificent bushy tail!
Other wildlife fun this week has been observing a few Asian hornets in the zone. They are mainly workers at the end of their life, fulfilling a desire for sugary things - rotting apples and ivy nectar in the main. A good frost and they will die off, but we will be vigilant from February, keeping an eye out for the next batch of queens to trap and destroy. European hornets are natural, the Asian ones are non-native and causing havoc among the insect population as they seek out protein from May to August to feed the colony.
An important discovery for us yesterday was that our favourite café in town has reopened. About a month ago I guess, I spotted that it was closed with curtains drawn, and after waiting a couple of weeks in case it was just holidays, I reluctantly decided it was gone - another blight on the year. But yesterday, the curtains were gone, there was a new painting on the plate glass window and when we went in, the coffee was still the best in town. Good luck to the new owners!
And now I must turn my attention back to a slightly poorly puss cat. Poirot, the doyenne of our group, has an eye infection, which means anti-inflammatory drops four times a day and anti-biotic paste in the eye twice a day. Fortunately she is very food oriented, with a passion for Dreamies and for cheese or salmon flavoured creamy gloop. She is not resisting eye drops or paste as she knows that she will get a copious and tasty treat straight afterwards. It is not so easy with cats that don't like treats!
Have a good week!
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