nectar, bubble and squeak, ring doves

While the sun shines there's still honey to be made even in October.

My favourite cafe serves sandwiches, eggs and bacon, sausage and bacon, eggs, sausage, baked beans and bacon, fried bread, cups of tea and endless variations of these. But not bubble and squeak (for those who may not know, this is a concoction of shredded cabbage, mashed potato and left over meat, cooked together in a frying pan, an icon of British cuisine). While I am waiting for my cup of tea and cheese and pickle sandwich, the telephone rings and there is a prolonged conversation in which the words "bubble and squeak" occur with notes of increasing surprise. When, at last, the telephone is hung up, the conversation is continued with a colleague in similar tones of astonishment and, I fancy, indignation, in which I hear "bubble and squeak" repeated over again.

There is a pair of ring doves, which I frequently encounter in the Grove. I love them for their soft, misty-grey plumage and pretty shape, so much more elegant than lumpy wood pigeon and scruffy feral pigeons. They always seem to occupy a particular corner of the little park, which I assume to be something to do with territory. Today, as I pass that way on my way home, I note not two but five ring doves pecking at the rain-sodden grass. As I approach they rise in the air and fly up into the trees.