The bird feeders in the back garden are a bit of a disappointment. In the summer mice put on engaging gymnastic displays in their endeavours to gain access but not many birds attended.
Now the weather is colder a few birds do come but I seldom see them. Opening the kitchen curtains in the morning is a chore but on Wednesday morning I was amazed to see this, so excited that the picture is rather fuzzy.
It was picking a pigeon’s bones clean and then, perhaps seeing me, flew off with the corpse held in its talons. Maybe it’s not a peregrine but they do nest on top of Charing Cross Hospital.
Meanwhile the colder weather makes me look at two pictures that evoke the summer heat of the Mediterranean. First a print by American artist, Jack Rutherford, that I bought from his studio in the late 1980s. In those days he lived near Competa in Andalusia and the chapel is near his house.
The next evocation of heat is by Jean Rees RWA (1914 – 2004). She exhibited at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol. I used to go regularly to their autumn exhibitions and bought some of my favourite pictures there. This is of the interior of a 13th century Byzantine chapel in Crete: the Church of Panagia Kera near Kritsa.
I have never been to Crete and am mighty tempted by this undemanding Inntravel walking holiday on the island.
We loved a spring holiday in the west of Crete a few years back. Great wild flowers. Chania is a tourist trap of the very best kind, pretty and distinguished. For the full flavour of being on foot in Crete, try “The Cretan Runner”, full of courage, endurance and a useful sprinkling of the brigandish.