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Varying activity thats the thing. Dog walking, chatting, bits of house work, taking to the sofa with a video about the I O W Women's Institute. Very entraining.

Then the meter man appears half way through said video. I fail to accomplish the required position to read the meter so he is invited in to do the job.

I have to justify my sluttish behavior in the middle of the day and find that he has been sent from heaven, he gives me the number of someone who works magic using cranial massage.

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One foot after the other, but perhaps not as fancy as this.

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From the dark recess of the cubord a dusty bike carrier appears.

Bikes and carrier are slung on the back of the car.

There are acorns and oak trees, joggers, walkers, bikers, onesis, twosis and groups all enjoying the outdoors. But it is the unexpected call of the lapwing which provides the perfect moment for me. That and the fact I manage to peddle all the way around the reservoir with only the aid of a cool ice lolly.

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Until 20 years ago the lapwing was one of the most widespread as well as one of the most colourful of British birds, with its iridescent green back, black and white underparts and long wispy crest. It is a spectacular flyer, tumbling up and down in great vertical swoops to drive off predators such as crows or gulls, or merely in display.

But the past two decades have seen a catastrophic crash in numbers: according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds its British population declined by 52 per cent between 1970 and 1998.

In Wales the decline was 73 per cent between 1987 and 1998, and Devon, where once thousands of lapwings bred, "a pair on every farm", now has only 100 pairs across the whole county.

As well as mountains and marshes, farmland is a major habitat, and, as with the skylark, changes in farming practice are believed to be a main cause of their decline. They have been hit in particular by the dwindling of mixed farming - arable and livestock combined.

Lapwings flourish where both are found together, as the birds like to nest on bare fields of young crops, where they can see predators coming, then take their chicks almost as soon as they are born into pastures, where insect food is more plentiful. But British agriculture is increasingly polarising, with crops grown in the east and livestock raised in the West. This and other changes, such as intensified field drainage, mean that in many places lapwings have disappeared altogether.

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The wind and rain have decapitated the heads off the bakers petunia, and they litter the drive like discarded fairy hats.

One of the house martins becomes trapped in the way out, but is gently shooed on it's way.

It catches the corner of my eye and triggers memories. of 2 small children's heads bent together closely peering at the shells and crabs trapped within the lump of resin. Andrews grave becomes it's "good home". If It disappears I say someone will have fallen in love with it too. Or B will object she quips of guardian of church and church yard.

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Did you know what made the delicious sound in the sugar plum fairy?. I am ashamed to say I had no idea and worse never even questioned it.

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The starling sounds slightly disappointed and miffed as it scolds me from it's breakfast bar that is the bedroom window sill. I hop out of bed and shake nut mix, only to be entertained by a gang of teens squabbling for best peckings. Gawd I hope the noise hasn't woken the neighbors.

She breezes in trailing my grumpy son, and presents me with her smiley one. He has great fun testing his muscles bouncing on a contraption that hangs from the door frame and he spreads good cheer all around.

Man about the house is encouraged on a bike ride. This is quite a novelty these days as the motor bike has taken president over absolutely everything. We manage the hills too.

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The first bike I ever had was a much loved second hand red 3 wheeler. I spent hours peddling up and down the path in-front of the church. I later went on to learn to ride a two wheeler job on this bit of path and then ran up and down behind lots of children in latter years helping them perfect their balancing skills. Good friend J arrived at my door a life time latter with her daughters bike, "Here you borrow it for the summer." And that small act of kindness was the relationship with my own adult bike that has beens great therapy for gloomy days and was responsible, in a roundabout way, for the whippet joining the house hold. Who would have thought the act of learning to ride a bike could have rippled so far and wide over time.

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Whippet is soooo hungry he gulps his 3 tablets down in one go. Just black cat to go.

Catch up with farmer Rex. "No he failed the audition, he just wasn't fierce enough". could have fooled me. The gander eyes me up, I hide behind man about house.

Desert Island Discs keeps me entertained via trusty ipod while I give the strawberries a hair cut, as instructed by Mr Titmarch's book.

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Snippet from the desert island.

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Am re energized by ancient greeks re link from 3BT and her 25th july post.

I need L plates. The pram is uncontrollable, not unlike a disobedient Tesco trolly, there are pot holes in the pavement and the pram has no safety straps. We get there and back with out bouncing the boy up and over the side. Being left in charge has made me weak at the knees, a snifter is in order to celebrate the first of so much more to come.

We go up and pay homage to the pumpkin. There she sits in a patch of bare soil surrounded by the promise of more gardening space if the sodding shoulder can be persuaded by intent to co operate.

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Due to sodding shoulder bits of that will be sporadic unlike sodding shoulder.

Won't have to worry about that then as my retirement age recedes into distance.

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Heard but not seen, his new born experimentation with voice mixed with the clatter of delivery room noise to enter my being settle with a sigh of gratitude.

I didn't know until he was in my arms that the ferocity of the universes darkness and light weighed seven pounds fifteen ounces.

He open his eyes, gazed up, and frowned before his lids fluttered closed again. All he is and will be shone out a myriad of stories yet untold.

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Life is exciting, splendid, ruthless, uncertain, exquisitely beautiful sometimes to be endured, sometimes to be savored and sipped before spitting back the un palatable, above all if possible to be danced though with light creatively empathetic steps.

The world is beautiful

you must know where to look

I look where it is

beautiful

(Alice Sommer - nazi survivor)

We must teach him where to look