Their first wheels

We have had a great Christmas, Woodpeckers, Bomble and I. The sun shone all day, the wind was light and our plans to celebrate our way have worked out well. After rising slowly and enjoying the small gifts from Santa's stocking, although in a new guise for this year, we stepped out for a short walk.

I had thought we would head for the waterfall but Woodpeckers wanted to visit the cemetery and its chapel on the top of the hill behind our house. So we set off up the path and within a few yards, I saw a family walking down the path towards us, heading for the Heavens, across the valley in the other direction. As they approached to pass us by, I realised that their black labrador dog who had a Christmas collar with led lights flashing, was Molly. Yes, darling Molly, who I used to take for walks across the hills and dales, through woodland and across muddy streams up and down this beautiful valley. I stopped walking her, when I had injured my feet and for some reason I hadn't started again.

Molly was nearly as pleased to see me as I was to see and hold her. Her owners I know will let me walk her again, so this seems to be a sign that we should start the new year on a fresh footing! I am sure that will mean I blip her too.

After saying our goodbyes we carried on up the hill into the old part of the cemetery and pretty soon spotted flocks of birds flying in and out of tree and bushes where there was still an abundance of red berries. I didn't recognise them nor their style of flying and decided I wanted to hang about for a few minutes to see if I could get a shot of any of them. I tried rather without being too subtle to approach a tree I saw some of the birds had flown off to. Eventually I did manage some rather blurry shots of fast flying birds leaving the safety of the trees to avoid the photographer. Helena has suggested that they might beWaxwings, which sounded about right to me, as I knew they liked berries in winter. But when I finally managed to shoot one at rest in a tree while it stared at me, Helena said it looked like a thrush. In fact we later learnt that it was a Redwing, which is a first for me. I will definitely go and stake them out in the next few days and try to get some good shots as they look rather pretty especially when in flight.

As I stood by a path waiting for the birds to re-appear, two children slowly climbed up the path from the main gates on their obviously brand new roller blades, with their Dad giving them support. We chatted briefly to him before he headed off to make sure they were safe. A few minutes later, we followed up the path the short distance to the now obsolete chapel, as Helena wanted to go to the far end of the old cemetery on our walk to see the rather less visited areas. As we walked under the centre archway of the chapel, I looked back and for a moment saw on e of the two girls riding around on the flat tarmac around the chapel which is surrounded by very steep paths. I couldn't resist this picture of the older sister gingerly finding her way. a few minutes later she appeared to us again but pushing a small baby's pram which helped her to keep steady.

We carried on, had a great walk , said hello to many other walkers and then headed home, which is only a hundred yards away from here. once there, we cracked open some fizz, opened some more presents, ate some snacks and then I prepared a tofu special which was our choice of Christmas meal. A fire called us to the siting room once we had eaten, with more presents, and a glass of sherry before I needed to snooze for a good while. A lovely day was had and tomorrow we are walking in the sun again. Yippee.