Stormy Reculver

We 2CV it (rather bravely, I thought!) to Reculver, where-at the waves are smashing white spray in across the car park, and the wind is blowing beigey coloured foam up the beach, to build up in the lee of shingle banks till gusts whip it up over the top of the sea wall, and the dog-walkers, like a blizzard. I know we are meant to be hardy Scottish Highland dogs but come on, fair's fair! Still -we avoid the rain , managing to squeeze our hour and a half in between two concerted efforts at rain.

Mum and Dad have been missing the garden's regular 2006 sparrow-hawk, who'd zoom in across the waste ground behind the house, hedge-hopping over the fence or the beech and exploding among the feeding sparrows or starlings, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. She'd (it's a female one) then pause briefly in the tall Paulownia (Foxglove tree) (or once on the bird feeder!) looking for all the world as if she was saying "Curses! Foiled again!", before whipping away back to the trees across the waste ground. You'd know if there'd been a successful kill while we were out, as there'd be the tell tale "remains", a 2-3 foot diameter circle of plucked feathers and just the beak and forehead skull-bone of the victim. They don't waste much!

But since the building works had started, the ground cleared and the diggers moving about, we'd not seen her, so we guessed the new activity didn't suit her, and she'd moved on. But now she's back, and yesterday we spotted her resting in the Paulownia again, before scything off through the sheeting rain. Magnificent.

By the way. Mum has bought a new head for the toothbrush, so I'm hoping I'm forgiven.

Have a good Bank Holiday

Deefer