Today I had a smashing walk with Clifford and Fiona around the Durham woods. It was a lovely blue sky interrupted by cumulus clouds desperately trying to build up into huge piles but it was not warm enough for that. As we walked about a kilometre into the woods we arrived at the point where last Saturday in the early morning I came across two Roe Deer browsing the lower branches and I stopped immediately and whilst they looked up and saw something, because they have very poor eyesight they just thought I was a tree. Totally magic. They were 2 young Deer and I looked at them for about 10 min before they moved off slowly down another path so I just had to follow them down there very softly and quietly. The path they had taken was enclosed by fences on either side so they just had to keep moving down towards the road but as they just got there some vehicles turned up so one of the Deer shot off to the left and the other one came right up to me more or less 5 m away before it realised I wasn't a tree I was a human. Great stuff. It couldn't go back down to the road and it couldn't jump over the fences so it just sidled past me back up to the path where I had seen them originally.
So I followed the little beastie up there and it had gone through a gap in the fence but because it thought I had gone away it tried to come back to the gap and only realised at the last moment that I was there. I was hoping it would come straight through the gap because then I could have patted it on the head as it went past as I was hiding behind a tree. What an adventure. Anyway it knew I was there so went away from me and I followed it along a high fence that partially obscured me from it and it seemed very disorientated so much so that it came up to the fence where I was stood and only realised in the last couple of metres that I was there. I saw that I was actually distressing the poor animal so I moved away quickly which got it moving in the opposite direction towards where its sibling was. I am not going to follow Deer in the future, well not too far, because I think it distresses the animal and I am not too happy about that.

But, that was last week and this week, the same place, I had my family with me the leaves had turned even more brown and golden and it was a lot quieter with very few people around. There has been a lot of rain over the last couple of days so the ground is very boggy. When we had biscuit break at the Cloisters in Durham Cathedral we had a look at the roosting bats and one of them was hanging free from the wall and we could see a lot more of it. Really good!

Durham Centre was absolutely packed out with eager beaver looking young people no doubt studying in the many fine educational institutions in the City of Durham. We may be in a recession but life still goes on. On the way back home we saw many fine cumulus clouds in weird and wonderful shapes because the thermals that give the push to drive them up and outwards were not very consistent so they were collapsing after building up for a bit and then spreading out into to velum a sort of disk like cloud which was at the top of the cumulus cloud given it an almost mushroom effect. Eerie.

 

Miles had stayed at home to get on with his Mathematics Revision and he is working very well and has two more exams in Middlesbrough next week. When we got back home Fiona and I had a good crash out and cuddle listening to the best of Leonard Cohen which was really good. The usual tea of meatballs and pasta followed and we are now watching Fools and Horses which is very funny. Another day to add to the last 25 years of a pretty good life.