Into the sunset

..strode the gentleman in tweeds, carrying a shooting stick.

What a great day we've had! I stayed in bed this morning, finishing my book, The Transition, a sort of 1984 for our times, but not as good. After my bath, I tackled the spare room muddle, before deciding to reduce my tsundoku slightly. A tsundoku is a Japanese word, meaning a collection of books, as yet unread by the owner. My sister TMLHereandThere has started a tsundoku challenge here on blipfoto. I need a duster first!

I've put aside 14 books for the charity shop, and I took another two to a friend's house this afternoon.

That was on our way to WWT Slimbridge, founded by Sir Peter Scott in the 1950s. It's very modern now, and has all sorts of visitor attractions, including otter feeding twice daily. We were in time for the feed, and saw the little wader birds, avocets and ruffs, before heading off towards the Peng observatory, where there is a daily wild bird feed, with commentary, on the floodlit pond. The star visitors are the Bewick's swans, which come from the tundra in the frozen north to overwinter in parts of Europe. The oldest one is named croupier, and has returned every year for 27 years, bringing a total of 29 young with him. This year he's on his own. We also learned about swan divorce (unusual, but it does happen, and the separated pair usually forge new alliances quite rapidly).

We were joined by our friend Camilla and her visitor, Alison. They'd been to Gloucester to see the cathedral, and to the cinema to see the new Star Wars film, which Alison thought had a satisfactory mythical thread running through it.

Back at home, I've started phase 1 of sorting out the living room, but I still have to pack my stall for tomorrow. But for now,  it's so much easier to sit back and watch a programme about traditional Christmas sweet making!

For the record, I've put a picture of the completed "Secret Garden" jigsaw in extras, though it has come up rather orange. I reckon this has taken me longer than any other jigsaw, though I did take a two-month break in the middle.