1986 revisited

Clear sky, sunshine and it feels like freezing, though it's four degrees above. I woke up and posted today's Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp, at seven thirty, listened to Thought for the Day and got up to make breakfast at eight. I prepared my first Advent Wednesday Morning Prayer text, and reflection, then walked to Tesco Extra to  buy a printer cartridge for Clare, and make the most of the early sunshine. I also bought a 32GB SD card for a bargain £7. I keep a spare one in my wallet, just in case I run out of space or a camera card malfunctions. It's rare for that to happen, but the cost of being prepared is worthwhile at such a low cost.

I arrived home just in time for lunch - a fillet of hake with veg. In this week's veggie bag, some very small young beetroot. Clare cooked them, and they were deliciously sweet and soft. You could serve them for a dessert with sour cream or thick yoghurt. 

Then, a walk in Thompson's Park. Today all five of the family of moorhens were out foraging in the mud at the edge of the pond at the same time, quite indifferent to the mallards milling around them with the drakes competing with each other aggressively before mating. Days and sometimes weeks can go by without seeing the moorhens all together, tempting me to think that the family may have moved on or dispersed. Last summer's chicks are now as big as their parents. In the trees on the north side of the park, a squirrel perched on a branch was making what I thought was a loud alarm call (confirmed by Google search) High above among branches with few leaves I saw the movement of a bird which I couldn't see clearly. It wasn't a crow or a jackdaw, nor a slimmer magpie. 

I took a picture at the limit of my Olympus telephoto lens which suggested a larger bird with a pale chest, its head was obscured by a tree trunk. It may have been a peregrine falcon, as a pair of them occupy a nest in the Cathedral's spire about half a mile away. Earlier I saw a dead squirrel in the grass by the side of the path near the stand of trees, and wondered if it had been killed by the raptor. The path is frequented by dog walkers, so it's possible the bird was interrupted earlier in the day, and would have to wait until it was quiet to finish the job and take the squirrel back to its nest, if not consume it on the spot. I'll know when I check the place tomorrow. In addition, I saw a Jay, a Dunnock, a blackbird and a pair of parakeets on the wing, along with the ubiquitous robins that act as if they own the place. No photos to show for it however. I was home half an hour before sunset, and dozed off in the chair until it was dark. Quite pleasant really.

After supper, I returned to photo negative scanning again. I picked a pack dated 1986, and got through eighty negatives, about two thirds of what was there. They were mixture of two rolls of film, taken with my Praktica SLR. One was of the family shot at our home in Park View Chepstow, and the other on holiday in County Cork, when we took the kids to visit Blarney Castle, and hiking in the Lee River Valley and to see Gougane Barra Church, known as St Fin Barre's Oratory. It's set on an island in a lake, the site dates back to the 6th century, though the present shrine church was built in 1903. Apart from pilgrimage devotion to the saint, this was an important place where Catholics gathered up-river, well away from Cork in the 18th century, when English Penal Law forbade people from hearing Mass. It's a sobering reminder of how much cruel oppression stained the history of protestant Britain I took the photos, but don't remember doing so. Intriguing.