Night falls on the Bewick Swans

I was sleeping in the spare room  part of last night to get away from Indie, but was rudely awoken by a work gang starting a job at 7.3O am, while it was still dark. They still had a patch of road left to resurface, right in the corner. As it was a small job, they couldn't use a steam roller but were using a steam hand pump and a JCB model of machine with Christmas lights blazing on top of it. I got up and went about my day, which involved meeting a father and daughter and going to the day hospice for a visit. 

The meeting was a bit odd, the volunteer and the father both had strong accents from different countries, and couldn't really Iunderstand each other. The father kept wandering off topic. Did remind me of my mother, three years ago, when she was pretending very hard that she still had all her cognitive skills.  Was the visit a waste ? No, because the daughter can use their services, and the father liked all the trees. 

Back home, I hung up some washing, wrote some cards (just heard that a friend, who was widowed two years ago at Christmas, is getting married again on 29th December!), and set off for the Trinity Rooms. Met another person I'm working with, had lunch and chatted, then walked downtown, via the charity shops, to meet friend.

We'd decided to have a ore-Christmas coffee, and I hit on the idea of going to Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, established by Sir Peter Scott in the 1950s. It's a December tradition of Steve and I to go to watch the feeding of the wild Bewick swans which overwinter at Slimbridge. So far, 84 have arrived this season, but there are no young.  Total breeding failure.


My friend K had never watched this spectacle before, and thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the sobering lack of cygnets. We also had tea in the restaurant, and a browse around the gift shop, where we bumped into the sister of an old friend, who now works there. 

As darkness fell, we made our way back to Stroud, she to wrap presents, and me to attempt a jigsaw (the world of King Arthur), sign up for Netflix and watch documentaries while Steve cooked supper. 

It's the weekend! Hurrah!