cows licensing telephone

Cows again. Companionship.

Yesterday I say to the barman at The Compasses when he apologises for keeping me waiting, that there's no hurry. It seems not so long ago that at 2 pm on a Sunday the landlord used to call "time" and the clientele had to drink up and go home. He looks puzzled for a while. "Yes, " he says. "I've heard about that." He must be very young and I very old. It seems only the other day when drinking was restricted to a few hours at lunch time and a few more in the evening. "I wouldn't mind going back to that," says the barman.. "We've got a baby and I never get to see him".

|Among the sounds that I associate with this time of year are those of the starlings that nest in the capital  of the  classical column set into the facade of the house opposite.  It is a busy site, which I have blogged about before.  One family has already fledged this year. and now the demands of a second, ring insistently like a telephone, as the parents fly to and fro, slaves to their offspring.