'....... A rare and gentle thing'

I started writing this on Saturday, so it relates to the last days of October.

It's been a strange week, the clocks went back last weekend and it has taken me most of the week to adjust my body clock. The weather  has been surprisingly warm and pleasant for the start of November so the darker evenings seem strangely out of place. The autumn has always been my least favourite time of the year, and the dark evenings with their reminder of the long winter months ahead have left me feeling a bit out of sorts. Robbie is working away at the moment so I only see him at the weekends, it's an arrangement that works well for both of us, but I miss him - there's a limit to the conversation skills of a cat, even an extremely eloquent one like Dave. Our family has a huge black cloud hanging over us at the moment, something which I don't feel able to discuss in detail on the blog but it makes thinking ahead very difficult. I have plenty of work and other responsibilities to keep me busy and usually I am quite good at living in the present, but the dark evenings and the challenges of this week have got the better of me. 

It may not mean much to anyone else but something happened on Wednesday morning which felt like a sign of hope. When I woke up I became aware of a slight fluttering which was odd as I hadn't left the bedroom window open. I realised that there was a butterfly in the bedroom and it had settled on Robbie's bedside table. It stayed there for a while and then it settled on the net curtain so I opened the window for it to go out when it was ready. I got on with my morning routine and didn't go back into the bedroom for an hour or so, I expected that the butterfly would have gone on its way but I was surprised to see that were now two butterflies on the window. I don't remember having a butterfly in my bedroom before and I'm certain that there have never been two. In fact I don't recall seeing a butterfly so late in the year. I managed to get a photo of the first one, I think it's a Small Tortoiseshell, the photo quality is not very good but it was nice to be able to see it close up, it was beautiful, so fragile with the delicate colouring of a watercolour painting.

      

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you” - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Last Day

Friday rolled round far too fast, and sadly the last day of our holiday was here already. It was another lovely sunny day and I was determined to enjoy the beach. I took my camera with me and took lots of photos as I wandered along the beach enjoying the sunshine.

Robbie came out with me but he was a bit out of sorts and as the day progressed he developed a bad cold. I tried to be tolerant but he refused to take any medication and by the evening he was wandering around like a zombie making terrible sniffing gurgling sounds. He obviously feels rough, but if he took some medication it may help and it would certainly make me feel a little less irritated.

When I was in the garden a butterfly settled right in front of me as if it was posing for a photo, I am so pleased that I had my camera in my pocket. Everywhere is still covered in ladybirds, it is impossible to walk without stepping on them and when you sit down you can see them all flying around, they even crawl all over the washing on the line!

Anyway here are a few last photos of our time in Walcott.

My Favourite Holiday Photos

Unmissable!

We spent the morning in Padstow today, Laura wanted to shop for jewellery and Robbie wanted to indulge his passion for pasties. I didn't really want to buy anything, so while they shopped I wandered around taking photos of all my favourite places. We spent the afternoon on the beach, it was lovely, totally still and warm, but just a little bit misty, it was the sort of day wish would last for ever. When we came back up from the beach, I was so lucky to have my camera because a butterfly settled right in front of me and I was able to get some very close shots. I have never seen so many butterflies as I have in the last couple of days.

On the subject of photos, I waited until it was almost dark to photograph Robbie's shorts and amazingly my camera survived! As you can see with shorts that loud there is no chance of losing him on the beach.