'Feeding the ducks' is a favourite with all children, little ones AND ones and, while it's bitterly cold in West Wales today, the sun has been shining beautifully. So, with Granny and Grandpa in tow, the children and I headed out for a wintry walk, armed with a 'duck bag', filled with the dry ends of various loaves of my home-made bread for the ducks we new we'd see, on the riverbank, en route.Ducks are, with the possible exception of penguins and meerkats, the most comical of animals. It is so easy to anthropomorphise them as city gents in bowler hats (umbrella under the wing, etc) and to laugh at the ones who grab chunks of bread and then run desperately away from the rest of the flush of ducks (and therein lies something else I adore; the peculiarly English notion of collective nouns. We laughed as they ran, giggled as they followed us, in vain hope, as we continued on up the riverbank once all the bread was gone and we marvelled at the subtle differences in plumage, along with a few no-so-subtle aberrations. Such as my new favourite thing, this handsome chap, sporting his very own fabulous ducky afro!
Cath xx
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