Poised

The body's a funny old thing, isn't it? This morning I was crawling round the house, shivering, head aching, throat sore, skin crawling. And whinging, of course, as you'd probably expect. And then by this afternoon, I wasn't.

It seemed too good to be true at first - I kept doing an internal inventory of all my various ailments, expecting them to return. But they didn't, and to make things even better, the morning's rain stopped - so I wrapped up warmly and donned a protecting-other-people mask, and R and I went out.

Although it was (within reason) dry, Stratford was pretty bleak: the light was dreary, and the town was nearly deserted: even with the seasonal decorations up and lit, there was very little Christmas spirit in evidence. But we fed the birds along the Avonbank Garden, picked up some odds and end of shopping in the middle of town, bought takeaway coffees, and then (because I was still feeling fine), decided to walk the long way back to the car, along the south side of the river.

This is the third time we've seen a heron at more or less this place, and I'm now fairly sure that it's the same bird I've blipped before. In fact we probably walked right behind it on our way into town, but because the bank is steep here and there's a lot of vegetation, even my personal spotter didn't notice it until we were on our way back along the other bank. I approached with caution, half-expecting it to take off (because they tend not to be keen on having things pointed at them); but on this occasion it was intent on some potential prey in the river and took no notice of me at all.

Back at home I was feeling so well that I did actual cooking, and then spent the evening watching television, drinking wine, and eating chocolate with R. Things definitely seem to be looking up.