A Kingfisher !

It was bright and sunny this morning so I dug up and potted some more of my hardy geraniums. It's been well over a year since I split and moved them and they've grown quite large. My pots aren't very big so I've had to split the plants again and stuff the roots into the pots as best as I can. My plan is to split and repot them again once we've moved. The move itself is extra stressful at the moment as our revised offer hasn't been accepted and we can't speak to the surveyor until Thursday as he's off doing work on a property in France.

I was out taking some photos while the sun was still shining when I looked down and saw a small bird sitting on the paving by the conservatory. I did my best to creep up on it and as it flew off a splash of electric blue plumage confirmed my first thought that it was a kingfisher, probably a young one as I could see the yellow outline of its mouth. This was very exciting as I've only ever seen a kingfisher in the valley once before in all the 25 years we've lived here.

A little later I was sitting at my pc when there was a mighty bang on the window. I looked out to see the kingfisher lying on the ground feet up in the air. Just in case I grabbed one of the cats' blankets and ran outside. The bird was still holding its head up so I scooped it up gently with the blanket. Indoors I put the bird in a cardboard box with the lid on and left it in the dark. Imagine my relief when I found the kingfisher still alive an hour later.   

We took it outside by the stream, removed the lid and waited for it to fly away. At first it sat there turning its head to watch any movement we made and then as I gently turned the box on its side it flew off into the trees. I hope it has learnt to be wary of glass windows in the future.

I intended to make some cookies this afternoon in between yet more packing but unfortunately we don't have enough sugar. Neither of us take sugar in tea or coffee so the only time I use sugar is for baking or when we have visitors thus it's all too easy not to notice when stocks are low. I'd already weighed the softened butter in a mixing bowl so now the whole bowl is in the fridge. Butter has gone up a lot in price recently. The basic butter used to be £1.15 for half a pound but now the cheapest I can find is £1.45. Apparently for some reason there is a bit of a butter shortage and demand has increased with the revelation that butter is much healthier than margarine, something we were aware of already and an increase in home baking with the popularity of Bake Off. You never see any of the contestants using margarine.