A Wednesday Wander

An Amble Down to Devon

On Monday Partner-who-drinks-tea brought me down to Devon in South-West England so that I can cat-sit while daughter-who-takes-photos and friend-and-son-in-law-who loves-otters take their honeymoon.  It was lovely and sunny here yesterday so I was introduced to all their garden plants and had a leisurely day around the house.  

They depart tomorrow so I had planned to keep out of their way by going into Exeter and playing at shopping but the Queen is there today so it’s crowded and lots of roads are blocked off.  So I shall leave that for another day.

Misty

This is Misty.  She and I will be getting to know each other over the next couple of weeks. 

Cat = mobile object to be stroked, tripped over, searched for, and stroked again

Human = machine for feeding said cat

Rain and Drought

 

It has been the wettest April in the UK for over 100 years, with some areas seeing three times their usual average.  On the way down to Devon we saw huge swathes of land flooded in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Devon. 

There are 37 flood warnings in place, including 20 in south-west England and a handful each in the Midlands, north-east England and East Anglia. There are also 155 less serious alerts. 

The River Wye was full and had overflowed its banks near Tintern causing us a long but interesting diversion up among the hills.

Meanwhile, despite the heavy rain, swathes of England are still in drought, with warnings that the downpours are not enough to counteract the effects of two unusually dry winters.  There is a warning that unless things improve drastically there will be stand-pipes in the street dispensing water in some areas this summer.  There seems to me to be a certain irony there!  

It's summer!

We have already had a quite independent young Wood Pigeon in our garden and at Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset the first cygnet of the year has been born.  It is the earliest since records began in 1393.  Like Wow!!  The hatching of the first cygnet is traditionally taken as a sign that summer is here.  A swanherd has been keeping records of cygnets born at the colony of mute swans since the late 14th Century.  Thousands of swans have lived near Chesil Beach since the 11th Century, when Benedictine monks began farming the birds for their banquets.

Blogger YET Again

I have 149 followers – who will be my 150^th I wonder?  Of course, many of the early followers have disappeared into the nether regions of blogland and have not been seen for a long time.  Some like family and Heather, Shabby Girl, Don and Cynthia have been around almost since the beginning and are still following.  I suppose there is a certain obligation on family but it shows a lot of stamina on the part of the others!

I have decided to press the Blogger feedback every time I go on the dashboard and make one of my many, many complaints.  Let’s see if any of them are ever fixed. For example, I have to moderate comments because of ‘Amy’ and others who send me comments that, I can assure you, you wouldn’t want to read. 

In the good old days (i.e. before the old interface was switched off – which I think will be today)  long comments had a ‘see more’ link at the end of the shortened version on the moderation page.  All one had to do to see the whole prospective comment was click on the link so one could then dump spammers or abusive persons who had the worst part of their comment at the end.

On the new interface,  the end of long comments cannot be seen in the moderation stage.  There is no 'see more' like there was on the old interface.  Therefore the only way to see the end of a comment is to publish it, go to the webpage, click on comments and read it.  Then if one finds it is unacceptable one has to delete it but it has already been published to those who read comments by e-mail.

Here endeth the Wednesday wander which is a substitute today for ABC Wednesday which I have given a miss on this occasion.