When we entered the hide was crowded but as dusk came on people gradually drifted away until we had the hide to ourselves to picnic in.
There were swans and mallard out on the water and a heron fishing along the edge of the reeds. A marsh harrier circled around lake and we were lucky enough to see a spoonbill fly overhead. I assumed it was an egret until the man next to me, with a camera lens the size of a howitzer, recognised it as a spoonbill. And as it came closer we could see the distinctive spoon shaped tip of its beak. This was the first I have seen in the UK.
As the sun lowered over the low hills and tinged the scattered clouds with pink, little egrets came in to roost on a dead tree on the far side of the lake. Alone and in pairs they drifted in until there were a dozen or more. Their white plumage shining clear bright in the fading sun light. When Kit was small no egrets had come this far north and they were not yet a common sight on the south coast. Now, we had been told, sometimes as many as one hundred come to roost at Leighton Moss.
On Saturday night we went up into the hills to see the Perseid meteor shower but the sky was too cloudy, only a few stars peeped through and the dim shape of the moon glowed low in the distance. We gave it about half an hour before the cold night wind blowing in from the bay forced us back into the car.
I'm trying to learn a little Cambodian, but unlike Indonesian there are few recognisable words from Hindi, Arabic and the European languages so far.
Except, 'sra-bier' for beer, lit. 'wine-beer'; taksi, and the words for cheese and butter that have come from French. The words often don't make easy mnemonics, and so just now, I'm having trouble remembering the Khmer (Cambodian) for train and bus. The written language I'm leaving for now, as roman script seems to be commonly used in signs and shops.
The number system is base five and nice and easy to remember, except I am so used to base ten that I have to stop myself from automatically counting six as eleven.
Today is Sunday and I am having a lazy day, but suspect that at any moment Kit will ask me to use the car take a load of rubbish to the local tip.
That seems to happen wherever I go.