Happy Families

Walked into town this afternoon, I thought I’d seen a poster for a French Market but everywhere was deserted. We sat in the Market Square for a cuppa at Gartons Tea Room housed in the old Town Hall. Suddenly there was a burst of activity and the Church bells began to ring. A very well dressed crowd poured out of the church, and the bride and groom came down the church path to the square. All their friends and family formed a guard of honour and the cheers and whoops were deafening. One of the guests, rather nattily dressed in tartan trews. said Gartons ought to charge us extra  for the entertainment.

There was no Market, French or otherwise, I must have misread the poster.

On the way home with boring shopping from the supermarket instead of lovely French goodies, we stopped for a breather in the sunshine by the south pond. The family of Canadian geese we have been watching since Spring legged it across the water to show us their amazing offspring. Very pleased to see clever Mama and Papa, in spite of being unable to fly and rather disabled, have successfully raised all six of their brood. Luckily they were able to go upstream while the renovation of the pond took place earlier this year.

Although they are now rather large, the babies are still making their funny little whisperings. They are quite used to people feeding them, which is why the parents have misshapen wings, called spitfire wings, caused by bread in their diet which is the equivalent of their junk food causing malnutrition, according to the information supplied by the South Pond  Group. In spite of this, they are able to breed, this being the second brood in two years we have seen them raise, and are well able to teach their young to forage as you see here. Mama is turning her back on me, far left, Papa is standing up proudly keeping watch. You can probably see what I mean about the wings even from this shot. Not a bad afternoon’s entertainment and probably better than the market we originally intended.