The Ballet Llama

Woke at 6:30 and breakfasted on smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast with lemon juice and cracked black pepper. This demanded strong black coffee, my first since Sunday. After washing and dressing drove Alice and Louis to school and then took the dogs by car to the Westwood. We met old Di and her dog, Rocky, by Black Mill and she showed me an owlet in a hole in a large beech tree in Limekiln Pits, so called because chalk was quarried there hundreds of years ago. It is now a small wood. Today is sunny and bright but the cold north wind is still persists. After taking the dogs home, made my way to the Poppy Seed for tea with friends, four of us are going to the cinema to see a live telecast from Covent Garden this evening, and we met to confirm travel arrangements. Six thirty at the fire station on Albert Terrace. When I got back to Tickton, around mid day, set too and gave the car a wash, polish and vac, which was long overdue. This left me an hour for a late lunch of beef salad sandwiches with tea in the garden, before setting off at three to collect Louis from school. On our way back to my house, we stop at the swing park in Tickton and play for an hour on the swings and roundabouts, before tea in the garden. Louis favourite, Parma ham, chorizo, smoked cheese, olives and crusty bread. After tea we walk to Carr Lane to see the baby Llama at the farm, then carry on until we get to the wooden bridge over the dyke. We find a couple of sticks and play fencing, one attacking and the other defending the bridge. Louis likes this game and we fence our way back down the lane before it is time to drive him back to Cherry. After I drop him off, carry straight on to the fire station, where I park and switch cars for the cinema. It's not my turn to drive for a change! We arrive at the cinema a little early and get good seats, the ballet is Frederick Ashton's bucolic version of "La Fille Mal Gardee". It is spectacularly good, and I arrive home at ten thirty, tired but happy. No running today, as I knew that all my energy would be needed for Louis. He was worth it!