Today has been one of those golden Autumn Sundays, with long shadows and dreamy sheep in the meadows, and secret warbles emanating from the hedgerows. Hoping to garner enthusiasm for my university assignment due tomorrow, I took a stroll up the lane to visit the wildlife pond.
Although the fields are flooded, the pondwater was very low today, exposing its weed-covered silt. Somewhere under the surface the fish were no doubt lurking, but the water looked lifeless – except for a large grey heron standing knee-deep in it, stabbing among the weeds with its beak. We startled each other, and the heron lifted itself away and flew heavily across the field.
I crouched in a space among the shrubbery edging the pond and waited for half an hour, hoping to get a shot of the heron returning. As my pins and needles set in, I could see it waiting politely in the distance for me to leave.
A honking sound in the sky drew my eye to a skein of geese flying West for the Winter. Common knowledge dictates that geese fly South for the Winter, but here they always fly West. Perhaps they are headed for Canada.
Rapidly losing sensation in my legs, I stood and meandered back to the cottage, leaving the heron to its own devices. Under the trees near the pond, someone had been chopping firewood, and the air smelled sweet and damp.
The crab-apple trees along the lane have unburdened themselves of their fruit, and I used my scarf as a makeshift bag to collect it for the guinea pigs.
I now feel refreshed and cheerful, the guinea pigs are well fed, and my assignment calculations are looking as daunting as ever.
Based in Scotland, my boyfriend Bunty and I open our door to unwanted pets and try to enrich their lives with freedom and wonder. The upshot is that we are greeted every morning by butts in our faces, ripped wallpaper, and an ear-splitting cacophony of demands for breakfast. That means they love us, right?
Tea Time at the Zoo 
Love the first picture best. I want a walk there, too!
My hedgehogs are somewhat harder to feed. Within their special supplementary food (which is mostly protein pellets), it turns out they prefer (dried) tropical fruits – pineapple, pawpaw and banana. Also peanuts. They really shouldn’t have evolved to expect those things rather than apples. They rejected the rowan berries in the mixture. So, until the banana chips (in the new batch of it), I thought they were only eating things beginning with P.
Reminds me of the banana-mad wild tortoises who lived in our garden on Corfu – where bananas don’t grow.
Those apples look good enough for apple crumble, to me.
They turned out to be too sour for our furries.