Frampton Court lake

Splendid Sunday :
after the family Zoom quiz (I got my mother on board very quickly this week) and the large cooked brunch I'd made, the afternoon was still young and the sun shining.

I realised that, as of last Wednesday, we were actually permitted to drive to a nearby beauty spot to exercise or even sunbathe. So we piled rugs and water bottles into the car and drove to the lake on the Frampton court estate, a few miles from Stroud.

This was my first visit of 2020, and I was overjoyed to see barnacle and greylag geese out sailing, and wading on the banks, with their still-fluffy goslings, oystercatchers flying to and from the island where they nest, and damselflies buzzing around the plant life . We stationed ourselves on the jetty and Steve took photos while I mainly did nothing, apart from listening to the vo honking, barking and twittering of the various birds. Swifts darted over the tall trees on the island. A few dog walkers passed by, but no fisher folk. I had thought of walking to village in a short circuit, but even that prospect was too daunting. I simply lazed, and read a little.

On returning home I finished my book (yay!) and had Steve's potato salad for supper, before joining the next Zoom with our half brother in California. What he has experienced in his quarter of a century is truly terrifying, and a testament to his will to succeed. One good thing I DID learn is that our errant father provided his common law wife with a house before he died. Our half sister now lives there, with another sibling, who keeps an eye on her because she has schizophrenia. And that's just the start of it...

Our youngest sister joined us today for the first time, and my other sister, also from Argyll, and our brother from Crete, but not the two families from New Zealand. It was too early in the morning for them, and anyway they'd already participated in the quiz earlier, or in their case, the previous day.

In future I think we'll have the Sunday Zoom quizzes on Saturday mornings, as they're down to one per week now.
NZ is in lockdown stage two, Greece has come out, some states of Australia have come out and some haven't yet, and in the Disunited Kingdom, England seems to be playing the hokey cokey, but with lives at stake. The other three home nations are being more cautious.