Rocking Your World 2020; Week 35

Another week of not doing very much, but it has been pleasant all the same. The highlight for me was a visit yesterday from a dear friend Chris and her husband Phil, and guess what - I forgot to take a photo! Phil and my Chris went into the village for a pint and a tapa while Chris and I had a good catch up over salad and fruit in the fly-free porch.  It was very pleasant sitting there, and lovely to share all our news. Chris has several health issues, so like us, they have mostly been shielding at home, but we took all the right precautions and felt it was safe to have a visit, and I am sure it did us both good.

On Sunday I follow one or two church services on-line. Our vicar is away on holiday so this week our service was led by my dear friend Margie who is our licensed lay-reader, and David who is the church representative on the PCC.

They did a lovely service with some of my favourite hymns from YouTube that I could sing along with. It could be a while yet before the church is able to open again.

On Tuesday night I was my usual clumsy self, and I knocked a jar of jam off the top shelf of the fridge and unfortunately it landed on the top of my foot. Within an hour it had swollen up so I could not get a shoe on. Boy did it hurt at the time, but I was pretty sure I had not done any real damage.

It has now gone down  a lot but is still a bit 'fat' and shades of blue and grey are creeping in all along the base of my toes. But to be honest, it doesn't really hurt now as long as I don't try to put any sandals on. Fortunately I have one pair of summer casuals that are low cut along the toes, so I am wearing those for now. That should teach me to be more careful, but I doubt that it will!

The rest of my post is about little Tolly again, but he is still at that age when he is so cute, even if he is all legs and long body now. He is so much more relaxed around the house now and doesn't constantly cry for attention. He can amuse himself with almost anything but has a definite preference for our shoes! When he has had a good feed and a playtime, he goes off to one of his favourite spots and sleeps. Often he is curled up in the little space behind my chair, but when we are outside he loves the corner next to the water feature. He hasn't seen it in action very often. That might change his mind.

When I am down here in my craft room, he often comes with me. He can be a nuisance, with 'too much help', but sometimes he just sits beside me and watches me typing into the computer.  I must have been at it for too long one day because he got bored and just stretched out between the keyboard and monitor, and went to sleep.

We still spend most evenings sitting out on the porch and one night, Tolly had been playing around and needed a rest and he just leaned into Kim's back, and Kim took no notice of him. I was really pleased because I want them to all be friends. The cats are very slowly coming round to his presence, but apart from Tango they won't let him come close, but the dogs are doing better. In fact they are very good considering how annoying he can be, when he persistently plays with their tails, despite being warned off!

Every night when we are sitting out there, I hear a bird calling softly and have tried many times to catch it on my app to identify it. I had an idea of what it was but I wanted to be sure. And last night the call was much louder and my app identified it as an Eurasian stone curlew, which was what I thought.  It is  mainly nocturnal, which is why I don't notice its call through the day, and often it is heard regularly but never seen. I have never seen one. But I have found a photo from google and this is what it looks like.

It has quite a distinctive cry, so I am sure I will hear it again.

I prepared most of this post yesterday and I am glad that I did as today has turned out to be one of the hottest this year. Our thermometer on a wall in the fly-free porch, which never gets direct sun, is showing 38º this afternoon. That is hot, even by our standards. So now I am going for a cooling dip in the pool, and a lazy rest in front of my largest fan!

And that my friends is about it for this week. So I will link up with Rocking Your World and Annie's Friday Smiles and wait to see what next week brings.