Wednesday 22 September 2010

the call of the nuthatch



I was up in London a few days ago, with Richard, doing book stuff for Becoming Drusilla. And then I stopped over in deepest Oxfordshire.

As you can see, Richard is taking his recovery from the recent cricket injury very seriously.

Very keen on their cricket stuff, them Beards. I took some time out to admire the dawn over the Thames. The sun burning off the wisps of mist on the water, the occasional splash and quack of a duck, a squirrel crashing around in a hazel bush, and the clear calling of the nuthatches, whose song I am trying to think of a word to describe. Vaguely like the Clangers?

Still wondering, I popped into the village shop where the bread for breakfast was just coming out of the oven. I bought some liquorice wheels too. This is my kind of shop.



5 comments:

  1. Sounds like my kind of shop. thought they had all vanished.

    Caroline xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like mine too. I love the colours of the dawn in your picture

    ReplyDelete
  3. You found a village with a shop? In Oxfordshire? I guess that's the difference between district councils, the one elsewhere in the county that I encounter most seems to wiew such rural businesses as something that should be eradicated at all costs.

    As always with your pictures, the river scene is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's a really nice shop, Caroline. They've worked out that you can get loads of customers if you have lots of nice things, and pain au chocolat fresh from the oven in the morning is a pretty good incentive... shame about the great convoys of commuters passing through the village at breakneck speed, or queuing out of sight at the junction...

    I was really glad I got down to the river, Anji. Dawn by a river is a good place to be...

    I suspect that it's unusual, Jenny; the other villages I passed through seemed to go no further than upgraded pubs with exotic menus on display.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks to you, Dru, I might recognize the difference...if ever I was there.

    ReplyDelete