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The difference a day makes

It was a bright and frosty morning after the floods of yesterday. Luckily we're well out of the flood zone here but most everywhere locally I might want to walk is still under warnings. It was also one of those mornings where wise old blokes with dodgy knees walk on the sunny side of the street where the ice has melted and even idiots like me think it's a good idea.

The trains were running more or less to schedule except when they broke down and it was a bright and sunny day and I really couldn't be bothered with it, which I'll come to regret given the weather warnings we have plastered all over the weekend.

Across the road yesterday's lake was a frozen pond, which seemed to appeal to the lugubriously playful nature of the rooks. The usual black-headed gulls and a common gull tried their best to dance worms out of the frozen ground without much success. Three herring gulls and three lesser black-backs turned up at lunchtime but didn't linger.

The spadgers in the back garden were giving me Paddington Bear hard stares all morning so I went out to get more food for them. Luckily there were some sunflower hearts in the shop so while the starlings are going through the suet pellets like a plague of locusts the other birds will have something to go at.

I've taken to putting out the leftovers from the cat's bowl onto a tray in the back garden for the magpies and jackdaws to tidy away. The robins and woodpigeons come to it as well. Today I found out that grey wagtails will eat cat food. I suppose a tuna is just a big tiddler when all's said and done.