Weekend reflections

Lade - mild, wet and windy - The weekend was dominated by strong, gusty winds from the south accompanied by heavy rain showers, particularly yesterday morning when an inch fell in a couple of hours. Walking the local patch wasn't much fun and apart from a few Mipits and Goldfinches out back, plus Goldcrests in the garden passerines were few and far between.
  However, we had a little more fortune on the wetlands with Goldeneye, Shelduck and Pintail (scare here) the pick of the ducks on the WeBS Count, three Great White Egrets and a Bittern in the reedbeds and several Water Rails calling from the willow swamp. Kingfisher, Cetti`s Warbler, Marsh Harrier and Sparrowhawk also noted.
  Today, after an early soaking, we headed down to Folkestone with the family for Armistice Day and joined thousands of people at Sunny Sands which was one of 32 British beaches selected for the Pages of the Sea project devised by Danny Boyle, and very moving it was too. It was then onto the Leas war memorial for the Remembrance Day commemoration.
  Every year at this time I reflect on three people in particular: my granddad who survived the entire First World War and lost both his brothers, my father-in-law who was captured at Crete in the Second World War and an old shipmate of mine who died in the Falklands War.
  What a lucky generation ours is never to have experienced such horrors.