Daft stranger

I think this is a little nuthatch.

Whatever he is, he was trying to warn me, I think.

I had decided to go up to the local (usually totally deserted) nature reserve, Georges Hayes. I wanted to see how the daffodils were going on. They are a particularly stunning small local variety - the reason the reserve was created because they had suddenly appeared on sale in the Birmingham markets and they were feared for.

I knew it would have been muddy. I put on my strongest boots. I knew the paths were narrow and quite steep in places.

In Madeira I'm told very firmly NOT to go on levada walks on my own. Parts of the path here were just as vertiginous and far more slippery. I was on my own. The phone signal can be dodgy too.....

By the time I had slithered and nearly fallen a couple of times, it dawned on me that I was being less than sensible.

Tomorrow, I have my annual X-ray and check up with the surgeon who replaced my hip. If I had turned up there in a state, it would have been very much my own fault.

I found a huge stick. I made it back to the car. I even found my lens cap which I had dropped earlier.

I'm a very lucky person. I should have thought about what I was doing when the Nuthatch was making a racket.