country ways
Nowadays, living in Brighton (Hove, actually) and working in London the nearest I get to the countryside is charging through it on a train.
But last night we arrived at my Dad's place, and we're here until Sunday.
So what have I been doing today?
Went to STEAM, the railway museum in Swindon (very good), then spent the afternoon tending to newts and frogspawn in the pond.
Spawn! It's in the cage because the pond pump 'stresses' it if we let it float around freely.
And playing with the newts (by playing, I mean fishing them out to try to identify the species...we thought one of them might have been a great crested newt, which are super-special, but actually we now think it's a smooth newt, which isn't very smooth! We shall get far better pics of them next time, when they don't look quite as grumpy with us!
"I think they're watching us"
"Put me back, you bastards."
Anyway, they're still just babies, so we shall see how they look when they're all grown up.
And then I spent most of the night standing around in the dark behind a 'hide' (meaning a pallet leaning against a frame) with a gun, waiting for rats to show their little ratty faces, so we could shoot them. But we only saw one little ratty arse, and it wasn't in a shootable place, so after a while we gave up. Such is life!
And tomorrow, I go back to school!
But last night we arrived at my Dad's place, and we're here until Sunday.
So what have I been doing today?
Went to STEAM, the railway museum in Swindon (very good), then spent the afternoon tending to newts and frogspawn in the pond.
Spawn! It's in the cage because the pond pump 'stresses' it if we let it float around freely.
And playing with the newts (by playing, I mean fishing them out to try to identify the species...we thought one of them might have been a great crested newt, which are super-special, but actually we now think it's a smooth newt, which isn't very smooth! We shall get far better pics of them next time, when they don't look quite as grumpy with us!
"I think they're watching us"
"Put me back, you bastards."
Anyway, they're still just babies, so we shall see how they look when they're all grown up.
And then I spent most of the night standing around in the dark behind a 'hide' (meaning a pallet leaning against a frame) with a gun, waiting for rats to show their little ratty faces, so we could shoot them. But we only saw one little ratty arse, and it wasn't in a shootable place, so after a while we gave up. Such is life!
And tomorrow, I go back to school!