Standing

He doesn't look that steady on his hooves yet, but he is standing (while staying very close to the gentle giant of his mother). It looks like his umbilical cord is still attached. I'm afraid I am overwhelmed by his cuteness, I have to have my morning fix of him and the other two tiny calves born on the pastures. I feel like I am on borrowed time, as at some stage in the Spring they will all be whisked away to pastures new to allow the plants to flower and the butterflies to fly and pollinate.

The sun made a very brief showing first thing after dawn, but it couldn't keep pace with the gathering cloud and was swallowed within minutes. I am having a week away from work, and I did manage to get some seeds planted this morning before the rain arrived.

Gus is doing well without his significant human. In my rush to post the last two blips, I forgot to mention the first encounter between Gus and Reg on Saturday. I put Reg on the lawn, his head was withdrawn into his shell, and Gus had a good sniff. Then with a little stirring from within, Gus realised he was alive. Nervously he retreated and hid behind me, and wouldn't look at him again. I suppose that's a positive result, it means he won't harass him, but it is also bad news for my hope of training Gus to be a tortoise finder.

I mentioned yesterday the problems we have had with internet banking. I did ring the bank today to tell them what had happened. I'm not naive enough to think they might compensate us for the interest charges we picked up from our credit card companies for payments we had set up which were never received. Apparently, there is no possibility it could have been a computer problem, it had to be human error: that is my error. After all, this is a well known bank based in Scotland, now largely owned by the tax payer, that knows a thing or two about human error. Interestingly it is also a bank that has an unfortunate record of computer failures. They said they would check their error reports and ring me back - they never did.