Prunella visits our garden

Oh that's a mean trick. Sorry, we didn't get a visit from  the Pru of Canal lovers Tim and Pru, but Prunella Modularis aka a dunnock aka a hedge sparrow.  Dunnocks might be accused of being drab little things but I quite like 'em and I'm happy to report that they seem to be resident in or near our garden.  Unfortunately the dunnock's habit of hopping about on the ground near the hedge keeps him out of sight of my camera which is trained on the hanging bird feeders.  Here's today's pick of the ones I did catch.

Our resident Robin looks fierce

Lucky to see a coal tit.  We don't get many.

Long Tailed Tit - a favourite. Cute or what?

 and of course the ever present blue tit

And so on to more mundanities of life in isolation . .

I've spent nearly all day in the garden as the weather is so good. The garden seems strange at the moment,  it feels like summer - blue sky, warm sun and birdsong, but as yet our trees and the ones in the churchyard behind our house have no leaves. If this tree ever falls towards our house, the top floor is a gonner.

I've recently started making bread.  I wish I had done it years ago because it's a lot easier than I thought.  All that kneading and rising had put me off, but it turns out it's not hard at all. It'd be a handy thing on the boat when we're away from shops.  Until today I did it from the basics-flour, water, yeast etc, but today I tried out a bread mix packet to knock up a garlic and rosemary focaccia which turned out really yummy. Not exactly slimming though with 6 tablespoons of olive oil!

Kath has been busy making face masks from Henry hoover dust bags.  Unused ones of course.  They have HEPA filter fabric which is a lot better at keeping nasties out than plain cotton or whatever.  You can find designs for these on youtube.  I may need to try one out tomorrow to collect my prescription from the pharmacist.

Lastly I knocked up a quiz to challenge friends and family.  Maybe you'd like a crack at it.

A Lightweight music quiz.

It occurred to me in the middle of the night  (like these things do) that most songs don't contain many nouns describing everyday objects.  Here is a list of objects mentioned in big hit records of the 60s and 70s. Can you identify the songs?

The words are as written - no synonyms, but in the song "they might be "a ---",or "the---" or "his/her---" in one or two cases.  Some have more than one correct answer, but mine is the right one :-)

1. A tray

2. A jar

3. Safety belt

4. A bowler hat

5. A knife

6. A hammer

7. A suitcase and a trunk

8. A gun

9. A coat

10. A plastic mac

11. A bath

12. Carrier bags

13. A bottle

14. A screen door

15. A red door

16. A bell

17. A big brass bed

18. A street lamp

19. An ink well

20. An umbrella

Answers next time.