Crow dawn

At last, the first sunrise of 2014. By this stage the colour of the clouds was already beginning to fade, the carrion crow landed in the dead tree for a caw to his mate. It was much colder than it has been for weeks, and there were traces of iced snow left behind by showers in the night. The clear sky soon gave way to the grey pall that has been with us for so much of the Christmas and New Year break.

It looks as if the trouble that I had with my leg about 6 weeks ago was a torn muscle. It was acutely painful, and squatting down to light the fire caused a massive bruise to appear on my calf. The hypochondriac in me first feared a DVT, almost laughingly dismissed by the doctor in A&E; then I started worrying it was a collapsing vein deep in my leg. The four doctors that make up my sister's family reassured me that it was a muscle tear - then suddenly I felt better! The tear happened when I was rushing first thing in the morning to get to the top of Arnside Knott before the colour of the dawn sky faded. I had that in mind this morning as colour suddenly appeared in the sky, and I still had a lot of ascending to do. But this morning I had taken the longer, gentler route and my muscles were more warmed up.

Back to work tomorrow after over two weeks break. It's a foul night outside as the wet and windy weather continues relentlessly.

ps The crow looks bigger under the lens! And it was a crow too, whereas there are often ravens tumbling in the sky at this time in the morning.

pps At Seascapes request, A Gus update: we gave Gus a toy today, a squeaky piggy. When Gus arrived a year ago he had no concept of toys, and apart from frisbees and balls he has had no toys until now. Poor Piggy only lasted half an hour before he had lost an ear and the stuffing was coming out. Which is interesting as Gus shows no inclination to chew any of the things that dogs normally chew around the house. I don't think we will be giving him any more squeaky toys, he went into obsessively focussed collie mode.