October

Today, I saw my first flock of fieldfares, they were chattering their way over the valley, no doubt in search of some good berries! Looking across to Lanthwaite Wood, the trees are really changing colour now and the fells are getting a bronzy hue from the bracken. The air has been so clear for the past week that I can make out the cairn on the top of Gable! There have been a lot of photographers about and early this morning, I took Wattie up the field behind and met a couple laden down with cameras and tripods heading for Low Fell. A local friend, John Macfarlane, who is a keen photographer sent me some photos he took one morning earlier this month from the field below Foulsyke: the photos were taken within five minutes of each other!

Towards the house…..

……..and away from it!

This Saturday I am going to the last of the plays at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick before the season ends. The productions this year have been even better than last year: I think the play I felt was the strongest was the powerful Studio production of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House.’

The most recent and exciting news of the family is that my daughter, Clare, had a baby girl on 9 October, Poppy May. Guests in the Cottages that morning woke up to notes left on their doors at 7 am – ‘Gone to Oxford!’ I was there in plenty of time to be with Clare and Adam for Poppy’s arrival! She is lovely but looked very small next to her cousin, Ella, who was all of six weeks old!