Goldfinch

As Smithers and I sat and watched our online church service this morning, we were stunned to see, as the transmission began, our good friend – who had the eleven-hour operation ten days ago – filing in to the choir stalls with his wife and the rest of the choir! He truly is a remarkable man, and it was wonderful to see him resolutely standing for all the hymns and anthems.

After the service I assumed head chef duties and Smithers was released to act as sous chef on this occasion. (He’s not quite au fait with Yorkshire puddings yet, but the training programme continues.) During the cooking process I began to feel some considerable inflammatory/arthritic pains starting up all over the place, and felt waves of exhaustion coming over me. I ended up crashing out to sleep in bed for an hour and a half this afternoon, so I hope I can get to sleep tonight, but I feel much better now.

Before I went up for my nap I had been tracking The Traveller, who is heading back to Malta, hopefully for a brief stay before coming home for good. At that point he was just over Paris. By the time I woke up, his plane was landing on the tarmac in Malta. The house will seem so quiet next week!

This goldfinch, by the way, was availing himself of the bird bath water this morning. I didn’t take any other photos today (except for some of The Traveller, who evaded all Mum’s efforts to get a parting mugshot and instead deliberately presented his back view! He did reluctantly allow her a goodbye hug though).