Chilly as summer ended and autumn arrived there was the sound of duck shooting in Crabbett’s Marsh before we packed up and left Horning to Paxton to meet Daniel.
This after a meal at The Horning Tea Shoppe and time cutting back the vegetation in Rope Hill Dyke lane.
Then time to update my journal and my latest action list before it was time for a bath and to retire to my own bed for a change
It was cold overnight and then chilly all day as we should come to expect now that summer had ended and autumn arrived. Diana and Sam were the first awake and then I went down to join them. I took a shorter walk this morning around Crabbett's Marsh, brushing up on training points and exposing Sam to the gunfire around the small pond and getting him to drop to shot. I was to meet the three guns after, and Sam their two Labradors, and saw that they had killed around ten mallard between them. It was a useful experience but made me feel that I should be out shooting myself with him, even though he is still a bit young.
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We began the long process of getting ready to leave after breakfast but first I had to secure the boats for our time away. I had already stood the inflatable up against the boatshed wall, and now got the sailing dinghy out, removed the sails and upturned the hull so as to be able to pressure-clean it before storing it upside down on our boat trailer. I packed away and loaded up all of my power tools as well as the usual things and so the Discovery was very full when we eventually left. Before this, I took Diana and the girls to The Horning Tea Shoppe and then went up and down the lane, strimming and then pruning all of the vegetation to keep it away from the car bodywork.
The journey itself was not to bad and we were home in Paxton by teatime, Della travelling with me and Debbie in Diana's. It was very noticeable how Cambridgeshire was so dry and all of the vegetation browning from the dry wind whereas that in Norfolk was still very lush and green. Whether there had been less rain around here or the gravelly and sandy soil being different to the Norfolk peat I do not know, but I could not fully understand the reason for the difference. We found Daniel in good humour and the gardens well-groomed if somewhat dry.
Plenty of mail and things to read and do on arrival. I called Steven to tell him I was back and to suggest a boat trip down the Suffolk and Essex coast this month but found that he was working again! This was good news for him which I shared but I could not help feeling disappointed that, after Nigel could not come shooting, Steven could not come boating! Just time to update today's journal and my latest action list before it was time for a bath and to retire to my own bed for a change.