Nature Reserve

We took a trip down to Sundsvall today. The occasion was our friend Livia’s birthday, definitely a good excuse to celebrate. We started with a walk, to a nearby (almost urban) nature reserve and then around the frozen lake forming the centre-piece of the reserve.  In the spring and summer it is full of birds and we wondered if there would be any birds here in what we could charitably call “early spring”.  
All around the lake there are benches, tables and places to light a fire, and it was good to see so many people taking advantage of these outdoor facilities.
 Eventually we found an empty  bench and drank coffee and ate pastries and cakes looking at the totally bird-free landscape. Perhaps it is more “late-winter” than “early spring”.
Soon after that I took my only photograph of the day. It’s the outlet from the lake, kept unfrozen by the current.  The piles on the snow are bread and crumbs left by passing visitors and there in the water were our only birds of the day. I’ve counted 9 ducks in the picture but they were surprisingly hard to see.
Once home Roger made more coffee and we ate the semlor we had fetched (almond paste and cream buns.) and then a few pieces of chocolate. As you understand it was a day of wonderfully healthy eating…  With so little social interaction it seems only right to indulge when we do meet up with friends.
On our way home we did some shopping at IKEA, and met other good friends and our Goddaughter, entirely by happy chance, in the car park. She had just bought a pair of new shoes in the charity shop and then felt forced to retreat by an influx of new customers making her feel uncomfortably crowded.
When we got home early in the evening, pausing for Jan to take her full-moon blip, it felt like we had had a really full day and met so many people! We felt so tired I didn’t even have the energy to blip, hence the slightly late arrival of this picture.