Mother that

Our walk this morning began with much entertainment seeing a mother merganser and her nine ducklings chasing a common or garden duck up the river, just by our flat. Presumably all part of some territorial nonsense. Part of the way, up to three of the ducklings were hitching a lift on the mother duck. That's the way to travel. My photographs are not good. They were taken with a 15-45 lens at quite a distance. But, for these purposes, the right thing to blip. Even Mr A, who is the least sentimental person I know, was quite touched by this sight. And, if you have nine of them to look after, presumably you just count them out in the morning and count them back in the evening, and hope for the best.

It was a warm sunny but windy walk, but it had rained overnight. A common fuschia and a dog rose are in the extras.

Work went well, with a webinar in the afternoon (giving me some ideas about the format) and then a team meeting with my colleagues at UoE, mainly to celebrate someone's birthday.

We also collected another big bag of flour (yes, we've used most of it!) received a few books by post, and - most importantly - a gin order. That might feature tomorrow.