Further to the below, and because I am finding all kinds of exciting things as I sort out 4 years of accumulated files, here is a random musing from the old site (expect more of these to resurface in the coming weeks).

In the newspaper the other day there was a picture of a mother duck leading her five wee babies on a stroll over a sewer grating. Next to it was a picture of the mother duck and a single duckling peering down into the sewer grating. D’oh. What I like (being an inveterate duckling adorer) is that so many people wrote into the paper to make sure the ducklings were rescued that the next day the paper printed an update. Yes the ducklings are fine, please stop asking. It’s nice that so many people are cuckoo about the welfare of tiny baby ducks, given the plethora of other things they could be fretting about.

One day when I have money, I plan to live somewhere with a pond solely so I can have ducks – and all going to plan, ducklings. The single hitch in my plans I suspect will be my cats, who are ever in search of small defenceless creatures to massacre. To this end I will outfit the ducklings with suits of spiky protective (yet lightweight) armour. I am sure this may cause the cats to give up after a while, but experimentation may be required to find out for certain.