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Friday June 23, 2006

Mere Pond

It was a water related day really.

I had to get to Thames Ditton to pick up Mini. Travelling by train, there are 3 stations to choose from but benefiting from a fortuitous set of connections (2 changes) I ended up at Kingston station. Although this is the furthest away, I was able to slip into John Lewis on a little errand, only to discover that the bargain wool I bought on eBay and expected to augment was not such a bargain after all, since JL have not sold their own brand of wool for about 5 years! What a time to give it up....... I suspect it is linked to the demise of the UK mills but (sigh) "let's not go there".** In JL, I bought Rowan's "Beach Cool" all over again - it's a nice book - as I need to alter Cannes which I knitted last year. I did look lovely in it (she said modestly) but now it doesn't fit me ... but in a good way. I also popped into Calico, (how could I not? it's in Rams Passage just off the Thames walk). Its a lovely shop run by a friend of my sister from way back - though he has no idea who I am. I was on a mission for Alison to check out the Liberty Tana lawn; he had lots of bargains but I could not decide on anything without further consultation.

** Lack of availability in this quarter led me to find lots of nice UK websites selling guernsey wool by mail order, though, so it's not all bad; more on this when I've knitted something.

After all this, as part of the master plan, I continued my walk down the Thames to get to the Cooper garage. The Thames towpath has been revamped since I lived there, and so much more of it is accessible. It was a simply lovely day and the walk raised my spirits no end.

My spirits were sufficiently raised, that in the evening before the weekly curry at the Indus with Robert, I suggested we went for a walk to the Mere Pond in Walton-on-the-Hill. I thought Robert needed his spirits raising, and I had seen a pile of cygnets settled by the side of the pond as I drove past earlier. When we got there, they had moved off to a safer position on the far side of the pond, but there were a lot of baby coots and moorhens, and all the birds in the wood were out and about with small families.

merepond.jpg

...and here are a few more pictures of the ponds - Coots on the Mere Pond:

coots.jpg

... and Moorhens on our local pond.

moorhens.jpg

I was pleased to see they are still there with some chicks, as there was such a rumpus in the middle of the night a few days ago that I assumed the fox had got them all. It's amazing that they manage to avoid the foxes and raise any chicks at all.

Posted by Christina at 11:31 PM. Category: Days Out