The swallows have gone - and so has the summer

The swallows went on Monday. About nine-thirty in the morning there was a terrific racket going on in the garden and I thought they must be terrorising the cat again. All summer gangs of them have been dive-bombing her from every direction so she could only get to the bottom of the garden by working her way underneath the rose bushes and the shrubs. The reason, I discovered, was a nest built in the wood store at the end of the barn. My poor little cat has never caught a bird in her life but clearly the swallows were keen to stop her even thinking about it.

When I heard the noise they were making on Monday I rushed outside and there were masses of them. They soon began to line up on the electricity wires and gradually the noise subsided. It went very quiet: the birds were looking this way and that, as if they were waiting for a signal. There was a strange tension in the air for a minute and then suddenly they were off, swirling up into the sky in a huge mass and circling the house in farewell before turning west and disappearing over the hills. I'm glad I was there to see them go.

It's the end of summer when the swallows leave. Time to start preparing for winter which is depressing for some people but when you think about it, autumn comes first and this can be the best season of all.

Time and frustrating printers

It's about time I added a new post! Some people seem to write regularly but usually when I've finished a day's work, that's it; my mind closes down. Yet it's good to know that so many people read my blogs and moan at me when I haven't added a new one. I think I must be a bit like a newspaper because what has happened in the previous days is old news and I forget. Some people tell me they make notes so that when they come to write a blog they have everything to hand. There seems to be so much else to do. As for Facebook and Twitter... When do people find the time?



This morning I have been struggling with a new printer - and I hate it! I bought it because it was on special offer, and now I know why. I really needed a printer, copier and scanner all in one because normally I use a simple laser printer but this thing is dreadful. It's noisy, slow and only prints out half a page. In desperation I am calling in a lad who lives up the road to see if he can improve things.