Silly Me.

It's been another greyish day but not too cold so I'm not complaining. Down on the beach there was a great commotion as a large flock of gulls fished for sprats in the shallows. (At least one bird in the photo has a fish in its beak.)

At last it wasn't raining and I had the time to go down to the zoo. It's been a few weeks since I was there so the weeds were everywhere. I managed to clear the whole of the gravel section by the guinea fowl and the small sections around the pens. For most of the time George the cockatoo was filling the air with a remarkable array of noises, screaming baby and a cat whose tail has been trodden on were his favourites. His aviary is in the 'staff only' area as cockatoos aren't counted as a domestic birds and he gets bored when nobody is in the food preparation room so he yells for attention.  

Afterwards I thought I had better collect some sloes as last year's sloe gin that I gave as Christmas presents went down very well. I went to my usual spot just along by the zoo but someone had beaten me to it and there was hardly a sloe to be picked. Out of contrariness I picked the three last accessible sloes.

Then I thought I'd try my luck and combine a walk along the River Leri with a hunt for sloes.

At least there was plenty to see and the air was sweet with the scent of the Himalayan Balsam growing down by the river.

Walking along I met somebody I know who was out with a friend and a dog. She told me that there were blackthorn bushes growing on the lane that runs on the far side of the bog though she didn't know if they had any sloes on them this year but onwards I went. As I crossed the river I saw another person I know bathing in the river with a friend. It was definitely bathing and not swimming as I doubt if there was more than 2ft of water in the river. We chatted for a while before I carried on.

There were blackthorn bushes growing along the lane but the sloes were few and far between. I risked life and limb or rather being stabbed by the sharp thorns and getting stung by the tall stinging nettles to pick just two or three sloes at a time. 

At least I had views across to Snowdonia and possibly even of Snowdon in the distance. There were plenty of blackberries for me to snack on,

and wild hops too.

I did better when I turned down to take a footpath across the bog and realised I could get to the other side of the blackthorn with a few more, though not that many sloes to pick. In the end I came home with 10oz of sloes which should be enough for this year's batch of sloe gin.

Eventually the path brought me back to the river but unfortunately I still needed to get across. The path led me to this ford and because I was quite tired having been walking for two hours, and didn't want to walk all the way to the road bridge I waded across the ford. This despite knowing that my boot leaked. I reached the other side, shook the water out of my boot and less than 20ft along the path I came to .......... a metal footbridge across the river that had been hidden by the trees. 

The second silly moment was when I made it back to the parking space where I had left the car. I had moved it from the zoo entrance to round the corner where the public can park whist I decided if I was going to look for sloes. But arriving back the car wasn't there. It had been on its own when I left it but now there a different car in the same space. I knew it wasn't mine as it was red while our little car is silver. All kinds of thoughts went through my head, was it behind the other car? had it rolled away?, had somebody from the zoo moved it? or ...... had it been stolen? I was planning my next move when the penny dropped, I was looking at the wrong parking space. Round the corner is another space which looks similar, same zoo fence, same ground and the same road. And of course once I walked around the corner there was the car. That's got to be a real silly me moment.

I got home without incident, had a bit of time to wash and stick the sloes in the freezer and then get ready for Pilates. It was a hard one tonight but I'm sure it's doing me good ..... I hope.