bird brain

back in northumberland for r&r, gardening and dental appointment - supposed to be six days, now only 4.5, but i find it harder than ever at the minute to turn down shifts...

so, i stepped off the train at 12pm and a little over an hour later find myself edging lawns, spreading stinking fertiliser, heaving bits of turf around and generally using muscles that haven't woken up in a while. stopped off on the way home to pick up the post for someone who is on holiday and check out their bird-brained mummy pheasant: she's very beautiful, and her chicks (out of shot cos they're under the feathers) are fluffy and wonderful, but ... she had a nest further down the garden with about ten eggs, half a dozen haven't hatched (whether infertile or just that she didn't sit long enough), and a couple of the shells look suspiciously like banty eggs from the farm over the wall... then there's the fact that two of the chicks are suspiciously yellow compared with their dark mottley fellow hatchlings... if she was human, you'd call her blonde ;-)