Escape to celebrate!

Escaped from the marking briefly this morning to St Ives estate for a walk round Coppice Pond and a coffee at Lady B's.

What's to celebrate? Marking is going well; it's sunny; and our son isn't being made redundant! (Army)

As you can see the irises are at last staring to flower and the Rhodis are looking great. Lots of life on the pond. If you look large the clutch of very young ducklings on the left numbers 9! Don't know if one mum looks after them all though we did see three others round by the feeding station.

The middle picture shows older ducklings on the pond- seven of these, one out of the picture. They too were basking till a dog came along!

The right hand picture is of the growing goslings, about five I think, though sleeping here they are starting to look quite leggy and ungainly when on the move. I'm sure they must be more as there are lots of Canadian geese, maybe they are on the island.

A good day!