Ducks, mainly

Certain parallels could be drawn this weekend. Yesterday we went to a nearby hospital for a guided tour of their maternity unit, and bumped into a couple whom we had been sat next to, and getting on well with, at our last ante-natal class. After the hospital tour, we invited them for a swift coffee, which swiftly became a swift sequence of beers for the dads, which swiftly became a swift curry, which swiftly became a swift agreement to do this again.

Similarly, this morning we took two crusts of bread round to the local duckpond and bumped into the family of mallards whom we had made the acquaintance of a week ago (pictured at the time). We distributed our slices to the ravenous mother, the three resident drakes, the eight chirping offspring, and the huge fish that also lived in the pond. At first the mother was wary, but she soon realised that we meant them no harm, and she allowed her ducklings to come right up to our feet.

It’s an enjoyable enough experience already, even without the presence of a small chirping offspring of our own to share it with.

Other notes

Then, this afternoon I did a spot of gardening, resulting in a rather angry looking rash on the back of my right hand, almost certainly due to a poorly thought-out contact with some [poison ivy][] or [deadly nightshade][] or some such.

[poison ivy]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_ivy
[deadly nightshade]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_nightshade

We’ve also bought a shredder so that we can securely destroy old bank statements and the like. Last time I needed to destroy a batch of bank statements, it involved sneaking home from work at lunchtime and whipping up a quick barbecue. This resulted in light ash embarrassingly fluttering across our neighbours’ gardens – another ill-advised strategy. Karen doesn’t know that I did this. Yet.