15 days to go!

woop woop!!

say no more, finish LexisNexis on the 12th November..

leaving stuff all sorted.. soo looking forward to leaving all petty small minded office crap behind..

>> its been a long time coming.. see quote from last entry..

india is fast becoming the only thing i can think about at the moment, apart from fiona

sure i will have more reflective thoughts once i have the last 15 days out the way, but until then "these are the days my friend"!

mention of work

just have to mention work, whilst i am still there..

imagine this and smile:

project meeting with two women, sounds okay, but:

• one dwarf with hideous nervous cackle, and
• the other, pregnant, a scouser, and near to obsessive with paperwork.

not really my school, i wont be subscribing :)

later to fiona's brother, to prepare for gatwick flight to malaga..

irie: in all thats bad, theres a reward sooner or later!

the following night i get the urge to follow the lane down to the river thames.

quickly and assertively i tell fiona "we are going to look at the river from ferry lane", very soon we are there after passing the village crossroads, and leaving the commuter traffic behind.

we walk onto the landing stage and grab each other tight to witness a natural event that can only be seen at this time of year.

• swans going to their shelters for the night, heron creek island.
• kingfishers darting back to their secure perches.
• fish jumping from the water into the air to enjoy the last few flies of the summer.
• a heron on its last flight of the river that day
• and bats just starting the day by detecting what is new to discover around the river, including >>

>> us standing on the landing stage, witnessing every move of these majestic creations of nature.

all of a sudden we realise that mist from the other side of the riverbank is drifting like a blanket closer to the river..

almost like someone is throwing a blanket across the entire meadow and slowly pulling it over the river to tuck all the fish, birds and mammals into bed for the night.

a debrief in the greyhound pub is much needed, first time to pub and not asking for a cider for.. well, for a long time.. thanks fi :)

then back into the house, to pack for spain.. the next adventure begins so soon after another unexpected one ends..

thanks for the show mother nature

thru the woods

what shall we do tonight? lets go outdoors!

walking from home at 8pm to Bowsey woods, fiona doing night navigation practice gives us a welcome chance to aquaint our selves with the nightime wildlife. we enter the fields where i used to play as a kid, and then later walk our dogs, "jeff" and "max".

the smells and sounds of autumn where in the air, leaves and soft soil underfoot. we cross to go over a small footbridge to the woods proper, the field boundaries and tracks have changed since i was last there, proving that it has been a while.

we stop to take bearings, shining my torch up at a very mature oak tree, its branches looking down at me. i stop to take a few acorns to plant once back home, a souvenir of the night, and also a way to continue the genepool of local oak families.

walking back onto the main road, leaving the wet woods and tracks behind we see the first houses, with their drive lights disturbing our tranquility, we both chat on the beauty of having the woodland to ourselves. Or rather, to be solitary guests of the woodland for a few hours.

car headlights rise over the hill to find us swiftly walking back to the village of wargrave. all of a sudden fiona sees a familiar shape inthe road, a toad! and then a frog!

we quickly adapt to become amphibian rescue volunteers, finding around 5 or 6 in the road or just starting to make their journey from a field to a hedgerow on the other side of the road.
even spiders approach us, attracted to the torch light.

a seasonal night indeed, lets enjoy this moment