Morning has broken

Only when I got to the computer I found that it (morning, not the computer) had broken an hour early. Of course.
I notice that the list I made yesterday of tasks I would like to get done, yesterday, is almost unchanged. Wonder if I can get them all done in this extra hour thingy?
Well I'll start with the coffee.

Speaking of mornings, when Barney is away, I quite often sleep in what I call the eyrie. It's the room in the roof that was converted to be Eldest's room before he left to become grown up and educated and get a home of his own. It has a lovely view which you can see from the bed and wonderful sloping roof corners. And also, an electric blanket on the bed. the only things wrong with it are that it's the 'fly room', (that place in the house where flies winter over and multiply and are horribly fruitful) and that Eldest managed to stick mountain biking stickers on the outside of the window. As the window is three storey* height above a sheer drop I try not to work out how he did this.
After the sleepless night (described in some detail in the last post), I had a sleep deprived day. That is to say I wandered around in a sleepy, headachey, shivery state and went to the loo a lot. Then I wondered if I had a temperature because of the prickly hot skin feeling, before remembering that I was just tired. But as mentioned last post, by nine-ish I had recovered a bit, enough in fact, to remember the electric blanket and the view from the eyrie. Aha!
So I loaded myself up with nice and essential things** to take to bed and snuggled down and slept like a baby. (not the feeding at midnight kind, the*Ooh she slept through the night!* kind). So good!
And woke up to a nice dawn. And just as I was thinking "nice but not spectacular" it did this sunrise. Of course, due to the mountain bike posters, I had to open the window to get pictures but there was the electric blanket to get back in with.
And then, although I wasn't quite so early to bed on Saturday, I had that extra hour after I'd got up late. So for once the whole extra hour thing has fitted in rather usefully.
I always remember that when our children were little the extra hour worked the wrong way round. When everyone else was bemoaning the loss of an hour in Summer time, we were happy because the tiny people didn't know they had to wake up early. So they slept on and blissfully, so did we! But when everyone else was gloating over their extra hour of sleep, we were woken as usual by happy tiny people expecting wideawake Mum and Dad to come and play at swapping pyjamas and chaos for clothes. And chaos.
On the other hand, on one occasion when we got up an hour earlier we surprised six fallow deer crossing the road, at their usual time I assume, and probably wondering what we were doing out and about so early. So we people do these strange things to time but the seasons roll on quietly as always.
Or not so quietly. It was quite windy today and I spent a long time trying to catch falling leaves. They seem to fall slowly but just as I get them in the viewfinder they drop beneath the wind and almost plummet earthwards. Very trying. But I will keep trying :) Meanwhile, taking a lot of pictures of blurred and tilted bits of house and garden and lawn. Don't expect to see any falling leaves any time soon! Not here anyway :) I expect there are lots wherever you all are :)
Hope you had a good weekend too.

*Is that right? Second floor = three storeys?
**cup of tea, glass of water, mobile phone, camera, bungey thing as temporary tripod, book, little pillows for knees and bunions etc etc:)

Up with the larks

(When is that exactly? I'm sure I've heard them singing at all times of the day)
Anyway, these larks were Eldest and Lovely Partner and Marmite, getting ready to leave :(
I shall miss them all three. Once Marmite settled down and became less prone to throwing himself at doors and people he was really very good. The only downside to the visit was Mandu's exile. Last night she crept in (mewing pathetically) while Marmite was asleep (and shut in the other room) and gobbled down huge amounts of dinner, intermittently fleeing outside or rushing up to me for a quick reassuring cuddle. I had to stand by her food bowl to make her feel safe enough to eat.
I'm thinking that variations on lovely partner isn't really an adequate name for Eldest's lovely partner and I'm trying to think of a suitable sobriquet. Lancashire Lass would be appropriate but trite. Northern Girl is both the title of a very lovely folk tune and a marvellous book by Elizabeth Lynn. But it also has connotations to do with southern prejudices. Still I like it. Right. that's settled then.
You'll be pleased to hear that my brain (after a fallow period) is responding to brain training. It is now only 40 and a couple of days ago it was 54. But I really can't get the hang of the little people going in and out of a house. I can keep track up to about five entries or exits and then I just go Waaaaahh! and make a wild guess. I usually get one right (out of about ten) but apparently this qualifies as cycling speed (as opposed to walking, running , driving or flying) so it must be quite difficult? I'm at driving speed for counting slidey and bloopy numbers in different colours though. Brain training is quite fun :)

The last few days seem to have been terribly full or hectic or something. This may be due to the fact that I've got up very early several times (and you know how much I love to do that) but haven't gone to bed correspondingly early. In fact on one occasion it was somewhat the reverse. But that's for another day. I'm a bit photo'd out. And I think there must be a small creature in the computer that's saying in hypnotic tones "you are getting very sleeeeepy. you are feeeeeling very tired. you just want to sleeeeep. you will remember nothing of me when you wake up. when you next click your mouse you will fall asleeeep."
But here are some pictures :)
On the way to the pub

Donnington Castle from the far side of Newbury. (With sunshine!)

Newbury wharf with the hoist thingy and some flowers. I really haven't got the hang of taking photos for special requirements. The results are involving a lot of photoshop learning curves so that I can end up with something both 'different' but also of the same places as everyone else's pictures of Newbury (there are many!). This one also involved getting down on the stiff knees and cursing a lot!
Ooh I make such a fuss!!!

Ooops, got to go and do something hectic!
Have a lovely weekend :)