Learning to Fly.

We have had a proper summer's day today. In town it was exceptionally hot. Coming out of the supermarkets later in the day I was greeted by a wall of hot air almost as if I was in the Mediterranean. That's the closest I'll get to being on holiday so I might as well enjoy it.

I woke up incredibly early this morning. The cat was fed and I returned to bed by 4.00 but too much enthusiastic dancing yesterday had set off my ribs and when I turned on the radio it was a certain person's (no names mentioned) acceptance speech. Not conducive at all to dropping off again so I got up and was out watching the day begin before 4.30. Having a fairly fixed routine first thing in the morning means I can almost sleep walk through the early morning jobs and get them out of the way.

 

Having set off in good time for the stables and not being held up on the road by tractors or slow drivers I had enough time to stop by the river to take a few photos.

It was very hot in the school even though two sides are just covered with netting from half-way up. I had Margaret again and this week she went really well which was quite satisfying. We did some cantering at the end and she didn't get over excited in the way she had last week. She did canter off on the wrong leg a couple of times but I brought her back to trot and went off on the right leg eventually.

Afterwards I had some more bags of hedge clippings for the dump and I dropped off Speedy's vaccination card at the vets' for the vet to fill, something she forgot to do when I took him there.

Then it was time to do the food shopping and to walk along the main shopping street. It was finally decided last night that the theme for the carnival, only two weeks away, is a Venetian Gondola. The rowing club has a skiff which can easily be turned into a gondola. That only needs two passengers and a gondolier so I thought it would work if the rest of the 'walkers' were people in a Venetian Carnival. A search on-line revealed some wild costumes and everybody has a mask of some sort. Searching all the shops I found one place that sells the blank masks that you decorate yourself which are ideal. They had the simple eye masks but also the full face masks. Those are more authentic though probably too frightening for our village carnival but can easily be cut down. This evening I went with Peter to meet up with some others from the rowing club to sort out getting our float together. I know most of them from other activities and we have got things all sorted out. I drove the car to save Peter from walking as now his back is playing up.

I saw the parent bird feeding the two seagull chicks on the flat roof soon after dawn this morning. Later in the afternoon I got some fun shots of the bigger chick getting excited as it flapped and jumped up into the air. It won't be long before it will be flying properly.