Morning colours

There was a time I used to have a lie-in when I had a day off. Now it's an opportunity to get up early to see the dawn without suffering the consequences later in work. This was Sandside just before dawn, the sky was already beginning to lose the intensity of its colour at this time. The light show only lasted a few minutes, and the sun rose unseen behind cloud.

The rest of the day was catching up on mundane, overdue jobs - including replacing two balding tyres on the Volvo and mowing the lawn. I haven't touched the lawn for many weeks. A large part of it is given over to red clover which we allow to flower for the bumblebees. It had grown dense and matted and in amongst were frogs of all sizes. So cutting it took a long time as the frogs were gradually shepherded into the remaining long grass area. The choice of blip was difficult, between the dawn colours and a frog's face. But having made the effort to get up early, I could hardly not blip the dawn. A picture of the frog is posted here.

Wifie's friend Gail went home today after a couple of days stay. Childhood friends, they are different, but so at ease together. There's been a lot of laughter as there always is, not all of it quite so intelligible to me - but then I'm a bloke.

The grey squirrel blip was interesting yesterday in teasing out the strong feelings these animals elicit. I was careful not to say where my feelings lay about grey squirrels. As a conservationist, perhaps I should detest them, as do so many of my colleagues. But I find that difficult, they are animals after all, and beautiful and fascinating in their own way.