The Anker, smokers and dogs

2 June

Jan has over done it again; she and one of our neighbours spent some time yesterday sorting out the mess that was outside our back door. They just about finished it between them I think, but the neighbour, June, was on about doing something else later in the week. I’m not sure what she was on about though.

One of the biggest problems was the amount of bird feeders we had out there; they really did look a mess. There’s a large tree out there and we had the magic idea of buying lots of large pottery planters and putting shrubs in them. Then they were placed around the tree. To start with it look great, but when the council came round to cut the grass they couldn’t get near the planters to cut that part of the lawn. Well, Jan and June moved the planters to various other places, cut all the grass and now it does look pretty good again.

As Jan went off to church last night she dropped me off at the Anker for a couple of hours; she came back and joined me for a pint after church. Thankfully, it wasn’t as noisy as last Sunday when they had a really terrible band on! I rarely drink anything but real ale these days and when I got in there Charlie had four new ones on. The two I tried were very nice.

Now here’s a thing about pubs … smokers are not allowed to light up inside the pub now are they? OK, fine, I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke on my clothes when I got home after a night in the pub. But have you ever wondered about dogs in pubs? The Anker allows them in and last night there was five dogs in there at one point. I’m half expecting some smoker to object about the dogs being in there and smokers not being allowed in. It will happen at some time you know, just you watch. Personally I would sooner have a pub full of dogs than one full of kids; but hey oh, that’s just me.

And taking of kids … there was young girl there last night sitting at the tables outside with her parents. Mostly she sat quietly but then took it into her head to start doing cartwheels and handstands and so. I sat inside watching her, very envious because I could never do either of them; even at her age I just didn’t have the balance and coordination to do so.

Yesterday I posted photos of some of Friday’s birds. But I forgot the best one 

Kingfisher.

And today’s funny …

 A couple got into a big fight and decided to take a drive to cool off a bit. They drove several miles, not saying a word. As they passed by a zoo, the husband couldn’t resist and sarcastically asked, “Are those animals any relatives of yours?” "Yes,” his wife replied. “I married into the family!”