At home
I’ve finished a few Tote bags and dropped them off with a mate, hopefully her friend in Scotland will like them. It was lovely to see all my old friends at the office again, I do miss the comaradery we had but I’m still not missing the work. I keep remembering that I am now retired and I get butterflies in my stomach and a huge grin appears as if by magic. It certainly doesn’t feel like 9 weeks since I last went to work.
We visited Susan (Sister in Law) last night and we met ‘Carn’ a Royal Python. He’s about 4 months old and about 2 ft long and I couldn’t wait to have him slithering up my arm. Karl, our common law nephew in law, bought him as a baby and he lives (Carn not Karl) in a glass vivarium in the corner of the bedroom. It was a definite first for me, I had never touched a snake nor had I seen one close up.
It certainly wasn’t slippery but his skin was very cool (the snake not Karl!) and as he wrapped himself around my wrist I thought what a lovely piece of jewellery. Now there’s a thought, it would certainly clear the aisles in the supermarket if you went in brandishing that as a bracelet!
He slowly slithered up my arm to investigate all the time flicking his tongue out,
testing the air. He is still very nervous and if someone makes a sudden move he tightens his grip and flinches. It’s funny but I’d never thought that a snake could be twitchy and nervous.
I was lucky because it was his weekly dinnertime, yes girls he only gets one meal a week and tonight it was mouse. I think you buy them frozen in packs of three from the snake market, buy one and get one free. At the rate of one a week they’d last ages.
I was amazed at how quick he struck, at first he just seemed to test it with his tongue and after what seemed like an age he struck so quickly you couldn’t see it. He wrapped his upper body around the poor dead thing and proceeded to squeeze. Eventually he must have decided that it was dead and he ate it, well he swallowed it whole really. It must have been tiring because Carn spent the next few minutes yawning, probably putting his jaw back together but each time his mouth opened you could see all his tiny needle like teeth. So perfect and small but I would imagine they could do some damage. It reminded me of the BBC production ‘Making of the Dinosaurs’ he looked just like one of the baby dino’s that were running around the producer’s desk and knocking his pens over. I was fascinated and chuffed to bits to have fulfilled yet another dragon moment.
This brings to mind a promise I made to Sylvia, a photograph of Midge the Scottish Burmese kitten, so here’s one of us going for an early morning walk around the garden.
This morning looked like just being an ordinary Sunday, until we checked the Emails that is. There was one from Bombay, yep Bharat has written to us, he’s suffering in the heat and humidity while we’re suffering in the cold and damp! I do like to get Emails from anyone, it’s a great way to chat and now we’re a pair of pensioners we don’t have to spend out on stamps!!!
We decided to check out our local fishing pond at Somercotes and found two fishermen there. They were catching small Bream, beautiful silver fish with perfect scales. As one said to us he was having a restful day and enjoying himself. The pond is surrounded by trees and the Autumn colours were some of the best we have seen. Perhaps it was the sunshine sparkling on the water or the reflections of the gold and yellow leaves in the water but the whole scene was one of peace and beauty, surprising to think that it can be found in the middle of an industrial estate.
From there we moved onto Ogston Reservoir, our old Bird watching haunt. The yachts were using the middle of the res. and the geese and ducks had taken up resident at the edges, nice and handy. We saw Canada Geese and Mallard the usual all year ones, and Pochard and Teal had arrived for the winter. At the Brackenfield end there was a flock of Tufted Duck and mixed in with them were 3 Goldeneye. The male has a black green-glossed head with a white spot just under his eye. His back is black but there are white stripes across the folded wing, an exquisite pattern and perfection at it’s best.
We saw a flock of over 100 Lapwings, sometimes called Peewit after the sound of their call, a wonderful but sad sight because flocks used to be 1000 plus. Let’s hope that numbers will gradually increase.
Walking slowly back to the van I noticed that the apple trees by the reservoir were still growing nicely and producing big red, shiny apples. I thought of my mate Steph who had been scrumping last week and after a quick look left and right I was over the wall before Pat had time to sing the National Anthem. I managed to get a carrier bag (I always have one in my pocket for these occasions) full before he found a threat that made me climb back to roadside. I’m thinking of starting the ’Granny apple scrumping Club’ .
Back home I made an apple pie, one of the few things I can cook that is recognisable and eatable, we had some for tea and at the moment we are not suffering any after effects. I’m going back to weaving a yellow scarf now before starting a new shoulder bag.
We visited Susan (Sister in Law) last night and we met ‘Carn’ a Royal Python. He’s about 4 months old and about 2 ft long and I couldn’t wait to have him slithering up my arm. Karl, our common law nephew in law, bought him as a baby and he lives (Carn not Karl) in a glass vivarium in the corner of the bedroom. It was a definite first for me, I had never touched a snake nor had I seen one close up.
It certainly wasn’t slippery but his skin was very cool (the snake not Karl!) and as he wrapped himself around my wrist I thought what a lovely piece of jewellery. Now there’s a thought, it would certainly clear the aisles in the supermarket if you went in brandishing that as a bracelet!He slowly slithered up my arm to investigate all the time flicking his tongue out,
testing the air. He is still very nervous and if someone makes a sudden move he tightens his grip and flinches. It’s funny but I’d never thought that a snake could be twitchy and nervous.I was lucky because it was his weekly dinnertime, yes girls he only gets one meal a week and tonight it was mouse. I think you buy them frozen in packs of three from the snake market, buy one and get one free. At the rate of one a week they’d last ages.
I was amazed at how quick he struck, at first he just seemed to test it with his tongue and after what seemed like an age he struck so quickly you couldn’t see it. He wrapped his upper body around the poor dead thing and proceeded to squeeze. Eventually he must have decided that it was dead and he ate it, well he swallowed it whole really. It must have been tiring because Carn spent the next few minutes yawning, probably putting his jaw back together but each time his mouth opened you could see all his tiny needle like teeth. So perfect and small but I would imagine they could do some damage. It reminded me of the BBC production ‘Making of the Dinosaurs’ he looked just like one of the baby dino’s that were running around the producer’s desk and knocking his pens over. I was fascinated and chuffed to bits to have fulfilled yet another dragon moment.
This brings to mind a promise I made to Sylvia, a photograph of Midge the Scottish Burmese kitten, so here’s one of us going for an early morning walk around the garden.
This morning looked like just being an ordinary Sunday, until we checked the Emails that is. There was one from Bombay, yep Bharat has written to us, he’s suffering in the heat and humidity while we’re suffering in the cold and damp! I do like to get Emails from anyone, it’s a great way to chat and now we’re a pair of pensioners we don’t have to spend out on stamps!!!
We decided to check out our local fishing pond at Somercotes and found two fishermen there. They were catching small Bream, beautiful silver fish with perfect scales. As one said to us he was having a restful day and enjoying himself. The pond is surrounded by trees and the Autumn colours were some of the best we have seen. Perhaps it was the sunshine sparkling on the water or the reflections of the gold and yellow leaves in the water but the whole scene was one of peace and beauty, surprising to think that it can be found in the middle of an industrial estate.
From there we moved onto Ogston Reservoir, our old Bird watching haunt. The yachts were using the middle of the res. and the geese and ducks had taken up resident at the edges, nice and handy. We saw Canada Geese and Mallard the usual all year ones, and Pochard and Teal had arrived for the winter. At the Brackenfield end there was a flock of Tufted Duck and mixed in with them were 3 Goldeneye. The male has a black green-glossed head with a white spot just under his eye. His back is black but there are white stripes across the folded wing, an exquisite pattern and perfection at it’s best.
We saw a flock of over 100 Lapwings, sometimes called Peewit after the sound of their call, a wonderful but sad sight because flocks used to be 1000 plus. Let’s hope that numbers will gradually increase.
Walking slowly back to the van I noticed that the apple trees by the reservoir were still growing nicely and producing big red, shiny apples. I thought of my mate Steph who had been scrumping last week and after a quick look left and right I was over the wall before Pat had time to sing the National Anthem. I managed to get a carrier bag (I always have one in my pocket for these occasions) full before he found a threat that made me climb back to roadside. I’m thinking of starting the ’Granny apple scrumping Club’ .
Back home I made an apple pie, one of the few things I can cook that is recognisable and eatable, we had some for tea and at the moment we are not suffering any after effects. I’m going back to weaving a yellow scarf now before starting a new shoulder bag.
posted by Marilyn | 12.11.06
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