A three football match Saturday today. Not that I was able to watch them all the way through with making a broth of sorts while the first was on and falling asleep while watching Livingstone and St Mirren, a response that St Mirren will often produce. Now Leicester are playing Spurs but I am finding my mind wandering to other things while I scribble this.
The town centre extravaganza offered sheep, white ducks, a donkey and a couple of goats, including this one who appeared more than happy to look down his nose at passers-by. This pleases many and I suspect next week, or the week after reindeer will appear.
Otherwise it has been a wasted day, just as well as I did not wish for anything else today.
The Alpacas were back in town today staring at the people desperate to fondle them and reacting in similar fashion to starlets surprised at the interview process in Hollywood studios, however the alpacas were less worldly in their approach. The animals were happy with the folks who brought them, they have been brought up by them sometimes fed as kids.
The lass with the pygmy goats told me how she expected soon to be hand rearing kids as some of the goats were producing at an inconsiderate period of the year. Some like the idea of working among animals and indeed it is enjoyable as we all know however she was well used to a 24 hour work timetable. These pygmy goats were happy to meet folks but happily they were not the type to jump out of the barricade which they hid behind, the one goat that could was not brought with them, though the children around would I suspect have been happy if a goat had wandered amongst them.
At the end of the month reindeer appear once again in the town centre, no sleighs following.
Grumblings on facebook forced me to rise early to find pictures of the sunrise. With red eyes almost
closed I struggled into the chilly air to seek pink skies outside the kitchen window. One appeared but the resulting snap, not to say anything about goosebumps caused by cold air, was not good enough though it was good enough in my view for the grumbler who chose to ignore it!
Later, once coffee had whitened much of the eyes I snapped the rising sun behind the catholic church, quite what it was doing there I know not. The looks from the few around me as I apparently attempted to picture Sainsburys car park I ignored and cut out said car park from the shot for decencies sake. Mornings and evenings, if up to see them, produce interesting skies.
Wandering home via the green slab of the park I noticed how the sky had changed and once again cutting cut the rough stuff found an interesting shot of the sky above us. The sight of the sky takes from my mind the thought of yet another Win 10 update that arrived last night at the wrong time. Once that had been dealt with the anti virus, 'AVAST,' followed suit and went through three restarts before I could continue. No problems have gone, the speedy machine is slower and I find it amazing that God can give us such skies after six days of work while Microsoft after twenty years of fiddling still cannot give us a safe, quick update!
Someone high up in government security mentioned helpfully today that he considered all our computers had been hacked by the Russians. This may well be true as they have been hacking for years and so many spam emails mean we all fall for some of them at one time or another, and one day they may well switch them all off or start being 'Big Brother' and talking to us from Moscow like it or not.
Interesting that nobody mentions that we too are hacking into Russian webspace and I suspect everybody else's webspace, possibly not President Trumps as we all know what he has on his laptop, but world leaders everywhere must giggle at any pictures Putin has on his! Rumour has it that the British Army has a 77 Brigade, though this could be nonsense, who's main job is to investigate the web and offer propaganda to the masses and oppose other nations hacking of the UKs webspace.
There must be such people for defence and if there isn't we have to ask why not? I wonder if one day Mrs May will knock on the door asking about my lack of support for her dictatorship, I expect her soon.
As the Christmas shoppers have unlimited cash, or so it appears, the shopping centres do their best to bring them in with a wide variety of attractions, usually those that attract the kids. Today our centre once again went for animals, a goat which as I passed later was standing on a hay bale with the kind of expression that spoke of conquering the entire world, a couple of ducks in a basin of water but quite happy and ponies, chickens and lots of people. The people I must add were visiting the centre, not stuck inside the fenced of areas with the animals, although this might be an idea worth considering. There was an aroma emanating from this area but it kept down the aroma of the locals so that was OK.
Now it is late, I am sleepy and my restful mind is being tested by the woman next door. She has been cooking MEAT! Once again the fragrance of roast beef is filling the place and I am sitting here nourished badly, a mere seven stone weakling, while she stuffs herself with proper food and I suspect with gravy and all the trimmings. She must do it for spite! I will drift off into sleep and dream of meat all night now. Bah!
The sun however did reappear today leaving bright golden leaves on the trees.
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I met this old bird in town today, he didn't say anything and was not all that keen on his visitors. As the dear kiddies are off school this week for yet another holiday (teachers have such an easy life don't they?) the shopping centre in town puts on events. Yesterday a couple of shetland ponies from a rescue centre ignored the kids and today a menagerie appeared. White ducks, rabbits, a bored dog, sheep, chickens and a goat or two, oh and a bored pony. Small pens kept the beasts from the animals (yes that is the right way round) and it reminded me of the old pictures of the town when market day really was a market. Similar stalls stood in front of the pubs while folks sold sheep, pigs, horses and cattle. The pubs did a roaring trade as they fed and watered those coming a distance to market. The Victorian way was everybody around one big table and eating when the landlord got things ready. I think such a scene happened in one of Dickens books but I may be wrong.
Goats and horses are always happy together I am informed by those who know, this pair prove that. Possibly bored, possibly just weary they made it difficult to obtain a picture when both had eyes open. The little pony and his mate were content however and the pony happily rested on his mate. Interesting how these two creatures get along so well.
The other big chick was not much more impressed than his friend. I suppose as I was discussing preparing 'Cock-a-leekie' soup with a woman he was offended. I had to be careful with the explanation of the soup also, English women are not very bright at times. Still he was a beauty of a bird and both have been well prepared for their day out. I suspect they both have practiced that suspicious expression of theirs for some time as it was very wary. I was surprised at just how big two these birds were however, this is not how I imagined them up close.
I always considered such beasties as wee birds, or at least not this size! Possibly they are shown at er, shows, as well as paraded around for the kids. I am quite glad they chose not to show us just how loud they could be however. Every so often a news report indicates newcomers into the country have complained to the local council re the noise of such birds crowing early in the morning. Some have been known to grumble, which I never do, about cows 'mooing' too loudly in the fields nearby. Not that long ago a young couple objected to a town clock that insisted on chiming every 15 minutes and clanging away on the hour! Now if you retire to the country for peace and quiet you might well find it but if you don't do the homework a council, on some occasions a judge, will tell you to move back into town if you can't stand chickens or cows. They make noise, that is what animals do! A clock that has rung continually for a couple of hundred years will not cease because you are a spoilt brat either.
That said I am glad to have found the beasties. It brightened up a poor day. The brain is not quite functioning yet as the bug still leaves my mind weary and I have written and rewritten the intro to the war for the museum exhibition booklet around a hundred times, and that only this morning! That was the reason I went out, to oxygenate my brain. It failed. I'm going back to bed.
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