Sightings various

Six degrees at 9am (what is this? spring?). Still raining this morning, but as I left for kindergarten, a gentle light was shining in a patch on the lake as if the sun had momentarily drawn aside the cloud-curtains to see if it was safe to come out. This afternoon was AJ's Festa di Natale, which was crowded with adoring parents and grandparents. As we left, the riotous applause still ringing in our ears, many people stared about in wonder at the ribbons of blue sky that had appeared above while Babbo Natale was giving out gifts below.

Incidentally, the hazels have their catkins, and the magnolia in my neighbour's garden is in fulsome bud. Within every season is the seed of the next, it seems.

Today I made the second sighting in a week of a bird I couldn't dare to hope is an adolescent oriole (could I?). About the size of a pigeon, it was lime in colour and I saw it on the ground and in the low branches of a bush. Suggestions, local readers, please.

This also reminds me that the other day I was silently observed on the way up the hill by a small and rather pretty kestrel.

Could I have gone all twitchy in my old age without noticing?

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