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When visiting my maternal grandmother in Wiltshire, we drank Camp Coffee which I seem to recall I preferred to the kind we had at home.
It had been decades since I even thought about it, but seeing chicory growing along the highways reminded me, so I obtained some but discovered I had lost my taste for it.
Another beverage I enjoyed when visiting grandma was a fizzy drink called Tizer. I thought it was heaven, but I suspect I wouldn’t care for it now.
Just as visiting places you once loved can be disappointing, maybe nothing tastes as good as it did back then.
As a child I loved dripping on toast. The very thought now revolts me!
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Something that will never change or diminish is my admiration of birds and animals.
There’s not one I couldn’t love.
As a child I never wanted dolls, only stuffed animals.
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“Where’s Mum?”
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“Where she went?”
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“Why would she leave us?”
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“Wha’ you fink we should do?”
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The groundhog babies are actually now very independent and are quite likely to run away if they see an adult coming.
This morning a large male chased the babies off.
Competition for food is fierce.
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A flicker came looking for insects. Such a beautiful bird…
Animals are very aware of us, even at a distance. We frequently see deer down in the lower field and as we gaze at them they almost always turn to look in our direction as if they sense they are being watched, no doubt a survival instinct.
There is no shortage of people who claim to be animal communicators and many make money from people desperate to “talk” to their animals, alive and often dead.
Most are to be viewed with skepticism, I think, but I believe there are some who have the ability to connect with living animals. Dead? Who knows?
There are books which “teach” animal communication but I think you have to have a natural gift for it. All the wishing in the world has not given me the ability to talk with other species. With time and the inclination I believe I could gain the trust of some wild animals but I think it not a kind thing to do.
Thought bubbles often suggest themselves, but I do not imagine for a minute that animals think in human terms.
Zoomer the chipmunk was happy with squash seeds and peelings this morning.
Not much goes to waste around here.
Kestrels seldom hang around for shaky old photographers to catch but this morning one perched briefly with its own capture before flying off.
Tizer is still sold here, but it is very sweet now, and doesn’t have that ‘bite’ to it from our youth. I was brought up with Camp coffee (with strelised milk in it and two sugars) until my mum discovered powdered Nescafe and changed to that. Dripping toast was a favourite of my childhood, but I haven’t had any for as long as I can recall now. Well done with the Kestrel photos.
Best wishes, Pete.
*Sterilised milk. Typo.)
Tizer is definitely not as it was…is anything?
I used to love tomato sauce over my rice – today I can’t believe I ate it like that! I suspect Zoomer will eat anything to stuff those cheeks 😁. Lovely photo of the Kestrel.
Very interesting read today. I have never heard of dripping toast, so I looked it up. I can understand why it was so well-liked back in those hard times. The article that I read says that it fell out of favor for years, but is becoming popular again. Was the Nescafe of those days the same as the instant coffee of today? They let children drink it? Not so much when I was a child.
As far as I know Nescafe is still the same. I remember that American kids weren’t allowed to drink it. We only had it once a day.