In Which There is Sunshine, and Fighting Swans

I had been feeling a little disappointed, as I'd thought I might go to the Bristol Comic Con & Small Press Expo which is on this weekend, which would have meant the opportunity to but it turns out that having thought "I really should buy a ticket" doesn't have the same effect as actually buying a ticket, and by the time I got around to the whole buying a ticket part it was too late, and they were all sold out.

Which was sad, as lots of interesting people, such as Paul Cornell, Tony Lee, Jason Arnopp and others, many of whom I follow on Twitter. (plus, you know, comics and books and stuff!)

Still, when I woke up, it turned out it was a glorious sunny day, so I was reconciled to the idea of not having to get up early, and get a no-doubt hot and crowded train into Bristol to hang around inside a hotel...

Instead, I've been doing lots of chores -it's so nice to be able to get washing dried outside, for a change, and my clematis has come out in a riot of flowers and my tomato, lettuce and cauliflower plants all seem to be thriving, which is all most pleasing.

I went over to Bradford on Avon where my favourite picture-framer is based, to take him my 'Desert Wind' print, from Neverwear to frame.

When I got there, and was walking along by the river, I saw a couple of mute swans fighting.

Given the third swan which was swanning around watching enthusiastically I'm guessing this was some sort of sordid sex and violence thing - although I suppose it could simply be a territorial thing.

It made me very aware of just how BIG these birds are. It was clear that each was trying to get the other's head under water, and by the end the winner was allowing the loser to have his head above the water, but was holding the rest of his body under the water.

They must have considerable stamina - I must have watched for at least 10 minutes, and the fight had started before I got there.

After that excitement I did get to the framers , and had a discussion about how the print is to be framed, and then, inevitably, I ended up in the bookshop. . . . although I was very good, and only bought one book (and that, second hand)

I then spent some time admiring the more picturesque bits of the town, before heading home where I did lots of housekeeping, as a result of which I now have clean floors, lots of clean laundry, much less dust, some freshly potted put tomato and aubergine seedlings, some newly planted squash and courgette seeds and lots of portions of bolognese in the freezer. And some different library books.

I also got time to go and queue up in the Post Office in order to post my engagement gift to my sister K and her fiance C. I will do another post about that later, with pictures (the gift, I mean. The queueing was uneventful, and doesn't deserve its own post), but I will wait, just on the off-chance that K or C stumble across this blog in the next few days, before the parcel arrives, and it spoils the surprise.

I bought a lot of stamps, too. Probably I should write to people in order to make use of them. The Post Office recently issued stamps for the Acession of King George V. This took place in 1910. It's good to know that they are so on the ball.

All in all, it was a good day.