Jackdaw sunset

I have several evening walking circuits that take me up the hill and down again, but at sunset at the moment they all intersect at this point. I guess the beech tree lost its crown, like several other trees at the top of the Park, in a mini-tornado that tracked through the village a few years ago, before we moved here. Tonight the jackdaws were noisily preparing to go to roost, flying back and forth, and mobbing a buzzard that was mewing in the trees to the right of this shot. I stopped to watch them spiralling about while the sun disappeared into a bank of cloud in the west. I’ve got into a bad habit of walking against the clock to try and improve my best time, but tonight I was a little weary and the slower pace gave me more time to watch the jackdaws, the partridges that flushed from the arable field above Worsendale, and the roe deer that was grazing in the long grass.

Progress in renovation of the old part of the house continues, the flooring people are with us for a couple of days, then the plasterers return on Wednesday to finish off downstairs. Soon we will be able to start painting the newly plastered walls, and the joiners, plumbers and electricians will be doing the second fix. Finish by Christmas?