A Cold Barbie.....

Today was bright, with some cloud earlier, but a chill wind and temps never getting much above six degrees. Despite this, our neighbours decided it was time for a BBQ: utter madness, I'd say, but probably driven by the kid's demands:

Sara, the eldest girl, even found the strength (?!) to try playing a bit of outdoor guitar:

Roger visited this afternoon to say he was returning to Germany on Wednesday. He is not going to spend Summer here and has found some work with a friend refurbishing MacDonalds in Germany.  It seems to be a good contract so he needs the money and feels it is time he returned to his homeland for a while. He expects to return to Sweden next year but not until Spring.

The daylight hours are lengthening noticeably now. This is a shot I took a few nights ago at just after 22:00:

The setting sun and basically pretty clear daylight. It will continue to get brighter from here on in for the next 5 weeks or so, till the solstice. Already it is lightish at 02:45, as I noted last night when I lurched off to the loo for a pee!

Mr Fox is still making his evening rounds, usually calling at about 20:00 or so each night. Tonight he came past and I spotted him from the study window. By the time I got out with his pre-prepared tucker he was out of sight. I clucked and caught movement from the corner of my eye and he turned and came straight towards me. I showed him the placky tub thing I'm now using and which is similar to the things I used last winter, and he immediately walked straight towards me without hesitation or fear. I put it down, said hello to him and walked onto the porch while he boldly carried on and scoffed most of the food, a mixture of dog food, rice and a Swedish oddity, 'matvete' - literally 'wheatfood',  pretty disgusting in truth but not if you're a fox, it seems!

I was really very pleased at how confident and trusting he was this evening. Makes it feel like it's worth the effort. And, in reality, it's a privilege to be able to get so close to such a beautiful, wild creature. At least they are not hunted here: