Randomness

 This morning was one of those lovely fresh, clean blue sky mornings.  I don't have blackout curtains - they are certainly pretty but the light leaks round the edges by 5am.  Irks me on a Saturday, so I retrieved my phone and listened to the radio until the more decent hour of 6am.  As it was so early, booking an 8am swim seemed a nice Saturday possibility.  The joy depends on the ratio of porridge to stomach. If I judge it wrong, then the swim feels like swimming against a bellyful of lead!

This morning the swimmers all seemed to know each other, a Saturday splash of slow in the medium lane.  I'm not really fast enough to overtake them, but too fast to swim behind so I duck, weave, cut short circuits round them and build a nice 20 lengths or 500 metres to my English Channel swim virtual challenge. This one of course doesn't really have much streetview.  But I did trawl around the virtual map and found myself "virtually" in the gents toilets in the cross channel ferry.  How totally bizarre.  It is a great way of ensuring I count my lengths rather than aimlessly drift along. Although I have, before, done a charity swim of 26 miles in 12 weeks, that was ludicrous and I'm too sensible these days.

Afterwards I met a friend who is a good birder and we walked from Darts Farm to Topsham, looking through the cutouts on the wooden cycle bridge, and spotting a patiently fishing  heron and some kind of bird of prey.  Fabulous day!  It circled lazily, running the sky, hovering, dropping down to grass level, fighting the air currents.  I personally have not a clue what it was- friend says probably buzzard. It didn't cry out like a buzzard but it wasn't sparrowhawk grey.  A fan tailed brownish bird who brought joy.

I'm reading Monty Don's book on garden wildlife and flowers through the year.  It is a stress busting evening or before bed read. Not that I am stressed but it does mean that I will sleep.  He describes plants with love and a naturalists eye.  It's not the kind of book I usually pick up - Gardeners world isn't really my kind of show - but it was cheap in Tesco and is a lovely read. I also have chapters of "The big church read" book - Pete Grieg, how to pray to work through.  So far it is good, he has a poets knack of creating memorable images, and crafting the chapters so that I feel I am learning in a small way that doesn't kick off the oh so easy to kick off guilt and failure cycle.  That wouldn't be helpful at all.

As I type I can hear seagulls wailing but can't see them. I bought a water pistol of my own but so far it has been far more useful to clean their mess off the nice new windows.  I would so love to surprise them with a quick, watery blast!