Kendal Blipmeet

Today was the day for a blipmeet. Mr and Mrs Longshanks are staying in the area for the weekend. Dr & Mrs Sheilwill invited them and Mr & Mrs Gladders for coffee. Mrs G was unable to attend but sent along some of her finest scones and plum jam.

I took an extra scone for The Red Coated Birder who I was very anxious to meet. The RCB is a close friend of the Shanks, but otherwise not the most sociable of fellows. He didn't attend, preferring to spend his time trying for a blip capture of a dipper on the River Kent. So alas, we still haven't met him. Let's hope he didn't dip on the dipper.

The Sheilwill's are the most hospitable of people, and what was meant to be a meeting for coffee, perhaps followed by a walk into Kendal to see some of the the street performance of Mint Fest, merged into lunch and eventually lasted till late in the afternoon. It is slightly surreal to finally meet blippers through whose journals you have pieced together a mental jigsaw of their lives and character. Mr and Mrs Shanks were very much as Mrs Sheilwill and I had imagined them: good humoured and excellent company, and we have added a few more pieces to the jigsaw.

This photo perhaps shows my deficiencies as a people photographer, but after spending most of the day in the blipmeet, I could hardly blip the alternative of another picture of a collared dove in our back garden.

Mr Longshanks is on the right, Mrs Sheilwill next left, Mrs Longshanks and finally Dr Sheilwill.