I made it as far as the duck’s nest in the garden without the dog, only to discover a housecat from next door watching over the eggs. Even if the duck returns, hatchlings are unlikely to survive long.

Up higher, birds may have better luck. The European starlings in the eave outside our bathroom window start peeping excitedly every time someone steps into the room. They can’t see who’s coming, but apparently assume whoever it is has a mouthful of worms and insects. We can’t see them either, of course, and even their parents are shy. We only glimpse an adult bird (or birds) flying quickly away from the house whenever we come near, and even then it hides behind a leafy branch when it perches in a nearby tree.

***

Cameron Perry is a young woman in the Toronto area whose webpages I have followed for some time. Not only is she an excellent writer (one of her posts called How to Make the Perfect Omelette belongs in its own newspaper column), she is a talented seamstress and artist. Her business used to be (and perhaps still is) to be hired to go to parties and draw caricatures of the guests. I loved her posts about that.

I got this from her webpage:

"A quote from, of all people, Tom Hanks in this month's Esquire- 'It's binary: Either it works or it doesn't. The language of the universe is math.'
He speaks of movies and of marriages: there's no middle ground, either the project flies or it doesn't."

***

Does anybody watch Just for Laughs on CBC on Friday nights? The crew films the reactions of people to harmless jokes played on them on the streets of Montreal (maybe; it's a French-speaking town anyway, I can tell by lip-reading). Their responses are priceless.

***

We're off to Scott's nephew's grad party this afternoon so I must get a dessert whipped up and make myself presentable. But first, a walk in the grey and cold is in order. I'll have to put on my winter duds again by the look of things.