A postcard from Dawlish

I walked Indie in glorious sunshine, although extremely muddy underfoot after the torrential rain, then coffee & a few more pieces of jigsaw put in place, lunch,then off to collect my sewing machine from the repair man, followed by a Morrison's supermarket shop, where I tempted Mum out of the car to have a browse, I did a big-ish shop Mum bought meat & cake that she would'nt have bought if she'd stayed in the car. Beautiful blue sky, it was a toss up between stopping at Teignmouth for a walk along the seafront or Dawlish, we drove on to Dawlish as Mum was having her Covid booster jab there at 4.50pm. Managed to park easily on the roadside, so had a walk through the park on the sunny side of the Dawlish Water, watching the African, slightly off course, geese grazing happily away unperturbed by the pedestrians, then back along the high street, across to the beach to check out the new sea defence being built to protect the railway track which was hanging rather precariously a couple of years back after the storms washed the land away beneath, then as we were heading back to the car I spotted the 2 black swans (Cygnus atratus) & 2 cygnets beside the brook. The flock here was unfortunately reduced in numbers due to Avian flu back in 2020 so a new breeding pair were introduced from within the UK to help swell numbers once again. Fingers crossed they will be around for years to come as the Black swan is the unofficial emblem of Dawlish.