Tyto alba

I have just had a wonderful five minutes watching one of these. First I saw it flying around the old wriggly tin barn, about half a mile away across the field, and then it moved closer and started working up and down the line of yellow dry grass at the edge of the dyke (drainage ditch).

Nothing else flies with quite that lazy wing movement. It went down a couple of times, but I couldn't see that it had caught anything, A few times I thought it had perched in one of the trees, but it hadn't - it was simply perching on the air - there is a strong wind today, and it was able to adjust and stand still. Not hovering like a kestrel, but just still as though the air was solid.

Then it flew toward the house and passed us by. It came so close that I was able to see it's lovely heart-shaped face.

It's good to be back behind the sewing machine. There was a little girl's cardi in the supermarket which reminded me very much of a print dress that I made ten years or so ago, for my daughter. Of course I had to buy it and then started the search for the leftover fabric I was sure was Somewhere. . . Well my daughter still had the dress, though she hadn't worn it for years, and it had oodles of fabric in the skirt, so the conversion had been accomplished, along with a little one for the favourite doll.

This lovely article is the only flower on a self-sown Hellebore in the front garden - a little bit of hybridising without permission from the gardener has produced a good result, considering that all the rest have been purple of varying shades. I am considering tying a strand of brightly coloured wool around the stem, to make sure it doesn't get tidied away by mistake.