Feathers and fathers

[Anne Brooke]

Happy Fathers' Day to all fathers out there, first off. I managed to remember to send my stepfather the chocolates he's allowed to eat (ie the ones Mother doesn't eat first ...), so I am a Good Stepdaughter today, hurrah! Mum is apparently taking him out for an airing, which includes a concert and some tea, today, so we took bets on how long it will be before he grumbles about something. My money's on the first half hour. Lord H however says that we misjudge the man - and in fact all it is is that Jim's (stepfather) inner happiness quota is very deeply hidden. Indeed it is ... Jim, of course, swears blind he never grumbles, but Mother and I know better, aha!
Oh, and Mother has her MRI scan on 28 June, so I'm hoping that things are clearer after that. The doctors do seem pretty on the ball, I must say - which is a miracle in our family, as in the past they've failed to diagnose both my father and my grandmother until it was way too late for either of them. Thank God that medical knowledge seems to have come on a little since the 1970s ... However, the plus-side of both those serious cock-ups is that my mother and I now know all the early warning signs of diabetes! You never know - it could come in handy some day. In the meantime, I've advised her to eat blueberries a lot as apparently they're good for colon cancer. We hope this means they help hold it back rather than encourage it on ...

This morning, I had another lazy lie-in (hurrah!), followed by the ritualistic cleaning of the car. Lord H also helpfully gave me a brief run-through of the different bird calls of a thrush, a blackbird and a robin. Never say that here in downtown Godalming we don't know how to have fun, eh ... Once I'd got those sorted out, we spent the rest of the day at Pulborough Brooks in Sussex - the bird sanctuary which Lord H visited last week. It was great! We joined the RSPB (http://www.rspb.org.uk), and then did the two mile ramble through the sanctuary, stopping for ages at each bird hide. We saw: herons (including two in flight), swans, moorhens, a robin, blue tits, great tits, a skylark, a blackbird pair, deer plus one fawn, lots of rabbits, one stoat (and therefore one terrified rabbit, but it survived ...), and loads and loads of LBJs (Little Brown Jobs - aka birds that don't stay still for long enough for you to identify them, but they're ... um ... brown). We also listened to the whole of the birdsong CD, so I am now totally confused. I think there's going to be a whole lot of UB in the future (ie Unidentified Birdsong) ...

Tonight, I'm planning a little writing, and then we'll probably watch the "Dalziel and Pascoe" video we've saved from the week.

This week's haiku:

Swallows fly the nest,
new wings dancing in sunlight.
They leave us bereft.

Today's nice things:

1. The possibility of Jim being less grumpy for a whole day!
2. Pulborough Brooks
3. Writing.

Anne Brooke
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