A walk with the animals

This afternoon we went for a nice walk up to the “new estate” to pick up the mail for our friends who are moving in later in the year.
As usual, Rory, our intrepid feline explorer, followed along, dashing through tunnels and investigating each and every garden on the way.
When we got back after half an hour, which must have felt like 3 hours for Rory’s little ginger legs, we saw the most strange thing.
At first I thought it was just a fallen branch from one of the trees around our field, but on closer inspection we discovered it was actually a long line of caterpillars, all marching nose to tail. Thirty-one of the furry little things!
Absolutley bizarre but absolutley wonderful!

I love my winter sunrise

Getting up to in the winter to take the kids to school never fills me with joy. Especially when, like today, we’ve run out of oil and the house feels like a freezer.
But as we pull away from the house and drive down to the lake, the early get-up is rewarded by the loveliest of sunrises.
This morning I just missed the best of it as I didn’t have time to stop and snap the sun just starting to filter through the mist that was hanging over the lake. But I grabbed a few shots on my return anyway. I’ve probably taken hundreds like this over the last couple of years, but I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of seeing them.