Blue with cold

I went to the Wetland Centre in Barnes today in the hope of seeing water voles, but I think it was far too cold for Ratty to venture out. Most of the water was frozen, and this heron looked so cold standing on the bank - he even has a icicle on the end of his beak! Brrrrr. And look at how puffed up his feathers are.

However, the place was teeming with birds - a huge flock of tufted ducks, smew, snipes, little grebes, mallards, coots, moorhens, and many more. But no appearance from the elsuive water rodent. I'll go back when it's warmer. The centre itself is huge, far larger than I remember it from when I last visited about seven years ago.

F and I then went into central London to go and see a radio show recording, but it was cancelled. We tried to spontaneously do stuff, but the timings were wrong or stuff was too expensive or sold out. The dice weren't rolling for us tonight. We had a nice cup of tea in the Jazz Cafe in Foyles, but there was no live jazz - out of luck there, too.

Now we're back home and trying to catch the one-eyed mouse. Whisky brought in a mouse last night and I caught it, put it in a box with hay donated by the guinea-pig trio. I thought it might die from shock (if not the eye injury), but it survived the night and was perky enough to escape the box this morning to run under the cooker. Well, if he doesn't get back in the box, I know one feline who will enjoy the hunt. Oh dear.