Constitutional - a curious way of saying 'walkies'

Me and the dog have taken to going out for a midnight 'constitutional'. Up the road, into the field and back again. And now we are joined by the little black and white cat. We like this. Cat and dog investigate hedges and fence posts (sometimes together, puzzlingly) and I wander backwards and forwards looking at the sky and the hedges and woods and thinking what a shame it is that the animals won't stay still long enough to be photographed. (20 seconds minimum needed in bright moonlight, 2 seconds max stillness available :)
We have also taken to going up the road for our morning constitutional. It's beats trudging round the wet garden (though, so far, it hasn't rained on us so we may change our minds if it does).
Since the field across the road is a change from the one out the back, I've taken to going back, without the dog if there is a nice sun or sky or whatever, to take a few photos. In fact this morning, I did it the other way round since there was frost and mist and all that :) Got up very early even. The dog didn't even realise I was going out it was so early.
Anyway, now, me and the dog are going to do it again.

Goodnight, sleep tight.

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:)