Shrimp... Meet Barbie...

Just in case you were wondering what eventually happened to yesterday's langoustines...

A good day which, as ever, had a downside to it. Typical bank holiday weekend day really - lazy breakfast, gardening, cleaning the car, barbecue with Mel's dad round. Actually, it all started a bit earlier with a morning wander to the Figgy where more Little Grebe photos were taken (though none to match Friday's blip), and even some moving pictures shot.

There was drama too. The first hatched ducklings on the Figgy came into view again, but sadly the number form Friday was down from 9 to just 4 (speaking to a park regular later it appears she started with eleven!). The number almost dwindled to three as I watched helplessly. A male Mallard decided to try and mate with the female, driving her away from guarding the ducklings. This left the way open for a Lesser Black Backed Gull, which had been circling and causing the mum some consternation, to swoop down and make a grab for one. Fortunately the duckling had been taking swimming lessons and took a dive under. Of course it was feeding on a patch of algae at the time so seemed to get trapped under, taking ages to resurface. All I could do was watch and consider that nature has no regard for cuteness...

The downside to the day was seeing Isla having a scrap with the cat from a couple of doors down. Nicknamed by us, a long while back, as Evil Cat (he pretty much held sway over our two previous cats) Isla seemed to have got him worried. The set-to on our driveway as I was cleaning the car was therefore something of a surprise - and throwing your hands in between some fighting cats takes no little stupidity, but I couldn't leave them wrestling with the fur, quite literally, flying (especially given he's twice her size). Cue Isla spending most of the rest of the night on the bed in the spare room looking very sorry for herself, and later on limping through to the living room to say hello.

She seems fine other than the limp, but looks like the planned walk from Balquhidder tomorrow has become another trip to the vet. These things happen with cats, but it doesn't stop the worry - it'll be interesting to see how they react next time they see each other since they seemed perfectly equally matched...