seal | quercuscommunity

It’s Monday, so it should be the start of a new week, but somehow it doesn’t seem much of anything – being in that awkward gap between Christmas and New Year. When I was working with poultry it was never a problem as they needed attention every day. The same when I was in the antiques trade – I always had plenty to do in the days between Christmas and New Year because people had Christmas money to spend and time off to attend fairs. Even when the kids were at home, we had plenty to do.

This year, locked down and instructed not to travel, it’s trickier, so I decided that today I would lounge around the house in dressing gown and slipper socks and loaf my life away. It’s after 11pmnow and the plan seems to have worked reasonably well.

As usual, after watching a bunch of high achievers on Christmas University Challenge, I’m left wondering how they managed to rise so high in their professions when they are unable to answer comparatively simple general knowledge questions. Same goes for Celebrity Mastermind, Even the contestants on ordinary Mastermind didn’t exactly shine like beacons of brilliance. The contestants on Only Connect, of course, continue to mystify me.

In other words, I’ve watched far too many quizzes today. However, while I’m watching quizzes I’m not eating, so that is good. We still have chocolate and biscuits in the house, as we are cutting back. I suspect we may not finish them until well into 2021. That’s partly lifestyle choice and partly over-exposure to Weight Watchers adverts.

I just found that I can select a month when looking back at old photos. Seven years on WP and still haven’t learnt how to do it!

Seal pup – Donna Nook, Lincolnshire

This is a seal photo from the days we were allowed to travel.

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It was a nice day at Bempton, being pleasantly sunny and with a nice breeze. There were dozens of people about, many of them wearing jackets and a lot of them wearing shirts, hats, shorts or trousers of various hiking wonder-fabrics.

Me? I had a ten-year-old shirt on, with the sleeves rolled up in casual manner. Julia noticed that the edges are starting to wear through, so I’ve been banned from wearing it again.

I had my normal trousers on. I was just getting where I wanted to be, with seven pairs of identical navy blue cargo trousers when Julia bought me two pairs of khaki for my birthday. At one time all my trousers were khaki, but I changed to dark blue as they are more serviceable for a man with a bladder problem.

They are also better for funerals.

Khaki, I feel, is a bit frivolous for a man my age.

I think it’s a woman thing, having all your clothes different. I’m quite happy for them to be all the same; it cuts down on the chances of making a bad fashion choice.

Women also prefer, it seems, clothes where the buttons match, the colours aren’t faded and the edges aren’t fraying. As indicated above, we had quite a discussion on this subject.

Then we moved on to my hat. That was not a comfortable conversation either.

The reports of hundreds of Puffins on the cliffs and hundreds more at sea proved to be an exaggeration. There were two burrows where birds had been seen flying in and out, and we spotted three Puffins out at sea, though one did dive and disappear within a couple of seconds of being spotted. They are like that.

Fortunately I’d been half-expecting this, as it was what had happened last year, so we weren’t particularly disappointed.

The two we saw at sea were quite cute, so it wasn’t a wasted day.

Anyway, even without Puffins, a day on the cliffs with my wife and a decent breeze is never wasted. There were other birds, a number of flowers and a seal eating a massive fish while gulls tried to steal it.

I’m not sure what sort of seal it is – apparantly being grey isn’t a sign that it’s a Grey Seal. You need to look at the nostrils. It was in the sea, I was on top of a cliff – I was struggling to see the head, let alone the nostrils. Anyway, the nostrils are situated quite close to the teeth so I’m prepared to exist in ignorance. When you go to Donna Nook they warn you about the teeth.