My modern, illuminated (cheap) keyboard has finally gone beyond. It's developed a habit of bounce on the 'D' key, which any vi user will understand can be vexatious, especially on the second strike. From my stock of stuff that I haven't the heart to throw away has come a ps2 connected, Siemens-Nixdorf branded object that must be 18 years old and, doubtless, briefly spent time in a skip. I popped all the keys, cleaned with isopropyl alcohol (an operation almost guaranteed to remove the lettering from modern keyboards) and reassembled. It is a thing of beauty and I look forward to losing all the bad typing habits I've recently adopted from having a dodgy keyboard with poor feedback.
Plenty of time in front of the kitchen sink today to watch down the garden and observe the scene. A mob of blackbirds came through, uninterested in the remains of the apple crop, from which they've already had the best and easiest pickings. Today they came to trash my water garden plants. They pulled strands of re-hydrating sphagnum moss from a tray I intend for carnivorous marsh plants, knocked over a seed pot, turned over some lily leaves, picked a few twigs from a bucket of kindling I was collecting for a neighbour and squabbled the whole time. Also this morning, plenty of bluetits and starlings; a robin bobbing and a warbler. I don't know my warblers and this one was the usual sharp beak, eye stripe, grey/yellow with hints of green and, on this one, almost buff. Leaves are dropping quietly, the first few that are trying to avoid the rush later.
Two weeks ago the first tree crowns began to turn (ignoring the browning horse-chestnuts, which were earlier). One cold night and autumn's starting gun is fired. Heaths are damp, spiders are fattening. The ponies are going towards winter with full bellies this year after a warm summer that didn't suffer drought.
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