Swan lake

I really like these swan pictures - even the one with the foreground vegetation in focus. It's rather dream like.

Of course, i took these pictures at the Reserve. I've been there a lot recently. For Kairos and then for volunteering. Yes, volunteering at Pitsford which I hadn't done for some time - what with the coppicing and the, er, robin.

Anyway, we were to pull thistles. I walked down from the village of Old and on the way to the work site I saw a fox and a roe doe as well as the usual muntjacs. Both were exciting to see - as I rarely see foxes these days. The roe was running, or rather bounding away. No hares - that was a surprise.

While we worked, I found a little newt and that too was a thrill.

It was a good day and when I got home I was able to get some chores done before the grand occasion the following morning: a new boiler.

Lord, it's hard work for me and the cats Wuji was in a state of yowling panic while Buji was desperate to go down and meet the engineers. But the back door was open so he had to stay up here with us. It's of course cold - after balmy weather for a couple of days - and I am freezing. To make matters worse, one of them was sick on the bed overnight. I awoke at the crack of dawn smelling vomit and got up early enough to launder everything before the boiler guys arrived. But on a cold day with no radiators on, nothing is drying. And when I say everything, I mean the (synthetic) duvet too.

The water is off - and that means that my two neighbours and the tattoo shop down the road also have no water. I knew it impacted next door, and told them, but I didn't know that the other two would have no water until the tattoo shop lady came up. She knows those two neighbours well enough to have texted them - but thought I, actually the longest- serving resident in the whole terrace, was a newcomer. Shows what a hermit I am. I showed her my tattoos as a peace offering.

One of the engineers drilled through the cupboard wall to the bathroom so that will have to be repaired. They are very nice though.

That said, I'd rather be eating reeds on a sunny lake than hiding in the cold with two neurotic cats.

Now I dream of the Reserve though in my cold bedroom in which the scent of a cat litter tray (upstairs while the engineers are downstairs) wafts into my nostrils, I recall that someone reported a dead raven just outside the wildlife area. When I went there last weekend, my friend and I saw the raven's nest and one of the ravens, who called out "Cronk!". I was, of course, thrilled. As was my friend. That would have been a day or so before the corpse was found and who knew how long it had been there. Is a parent alone with the nest now?

Apparently, the farmers say ravens have killed their lambs. Three of them. It is not impossible, though any raven losses would be overshadowed by losses due to poor husbandry or poor breed selection for the environment. And often the ravens take already dead or already dying lambs rather than killing them.

Native Americans (some anyway) used to farm a third for now, a third for next year and a third for the more-than-human. These days, it's 100% us, now, for money. The farmers shoot the foxes, shoot the rabbits, kill the squirrels, shoot the corvids, get the badgers culled, pour chemicals on the fields, cut the trees, plant monocultures, flay the hedges, straighten the rivers, and destroy the land's ability to manage water and nutrients and then say they need to do more because they can't make a living. They can't make a living because they've killed the world. And most of us eat cheap junk anyway.

Swimming serenely? I'm flapping my fucking wings and hissing like a cobra.