Sunday 29 June 2014

The summer curse

Actually, it's not just in summer that it happens.  It's just that it seems worse then, possible because they arrive in greater numbers.  On Friday, travellers invaded Withdean Park, which is where I usually walk Fern in the mornings.  Given that the travellers throw waste food around, defecate in the wooded areas and generally make themselves obnoxious, I am walking elsewhere.  What really gets the goat of so many of the local residents is the mess these uninvited guests leave behind, the damage they do while they are there, and the cost to us ratepayers of getting them off the parks and clearing up after them.  Anyway, I will refrain from ranting any further.

I am considering a new career as a wildlife photographer.  No, not really, but this is a picture of a slow-worm that has been in much the same spot in the garden for a week or more.


He - or she - is a very welcome guest given that the staple diet is slugs - and the other morning he was curled around one, presumably his breakfast.  Meanwhile, in the drive was this creature.


Either another slow-worm or a grass snake, but it looked a bit long for a slow-worm.  Then I took Fern onto the Downs.  For a springer spaniel, the recipe for total happiness requires long grass, a tennis ball - and somebody to throw it!



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