Had to go to the doctor today, a rare experience in my life, praise the Lord! The first set of blood tests turned up some crazy results, so they wanted to take some more. The Shingles lesions are healing up well but the illness is still taking every opportunity to remind me that it's still there. Every movement produces pain, sensitivity, stinging, sore glands and the impression of strained muscles on the upper right back/shoulder blade. I've no option but to rest. My aunt tells me she worked through her attack of Shingles and ended up permanently damaging her skin. I can't imagine how she managed. Just thinking about it sets me back!!
Being driven, one can take time to observe the countryside. Each year in November, as we settle in to the long, dark evenings and the short, just-lit, damp days, I realise afresh that for all its apparent gloom, I love November. Apart from the breath-taking sunsets in mid-aftenoon, there's a richness of colour in the retiring hedgerows - reds, deep dark chocolates, oranges, russet-browns. Each year afresh, I long to be able to capture the November palette in paint - but I've always believed I can't paint!
Of course, there's also the lovely compensation of having the 'gang' back - the little flock of sparrows, the two pairs of chaffinches and two pairs of blue tits, along with two or three blackbirds and a pair of wagtails. Alas, only one great tit has returned this year, the female. As far as I remember, she was a younger replacement mate for our old great tit (who was the chubby son of the original taller, slimmer Rudy). If that's the case, he may have been about 10 or 12 years old. They were a great pair and it was lovely to watch them at nesting time, consulting and conversing together about possible suitable sites! I'm sure she must feel lonely. We'll see what Spring will bring her. The coal tits were very much part of the 'gang' at one time but apart from occasional visits to eat the fruit of the Lonicera, we haven't seen much of them lately. That may be because there are more bird tables and feeders in the general area than of old.
Mr. Chaffinch is very funny. A few years ago, for some unknown reason, he suddenly went into a moult in Summer. During that time, looking very strange with his no tail and few head feathers, his whole character changed and he became very trusting, though very shy. He would suddenly appear on the branches of a bush, at face height, waiting to be fed a peanut. Having made sure he was seen, he would then sit motionless until the peanut was held about a centimetre from his beak and only then would he bend forward and accept it. Sometimes he would land on the ground, directly in front of one's feet and just stay there, looking up, absolutely trusting that he wasn't going to be walked on and that a peanut would be produced. Of course he didn't move and one had to bend right down and hand him the peanut! He has maintained these odd habits to this day and sometimes I have to remind him that I don't have wings and that if he's beyond my head height, I simply can't stretch up that high to him!! All of the other birds who come to the hand will land on the railing outside the door and when offered a nut, will fly to the hand and take it - but not Chaffy! He waits for us to lean out until the nut is almost at his beak, no matter what the weather (or one's health!!) This year, he and the other male Chaffinch have changed their blue head feathers for particularly pale greenish-brown ones. I just don't remember them being quite so pale other years. How strange it would be without such life around the place!
