But look at the fuzzzzeeeee!

You might remember, some time ago, a few very excited posts about the black swans in the local park. Together they created an almighty nest of epic proportions and laid six eggs. I was very excited, then one day we went to see them and there were no eggs, and no babies.

At first we hoped that the cygnets were under the parents' wings, but after a few more visits it was clear that it was impossible for six baby swans to be hidden for that long, and we sadly accepted the fact that something had gone wrong and we wouldn't be seeing any baby swans in the near future.

Yesterday we strolled down to the park with some day old baguette, just for something to do. The swans were nowhere to be seen in the main pond, so we wandered round to the secondary pond.

There they were, as elegant and graceful as ever, only there was ... something else.

Something small and grey and fuzzy.

Swan Watch 2009

We hadn't been to feed the ducks for a while so we thought that we'd have a wander on over there today and see what's what. Heading for the bridge we usually stand on to throw food off (I like standing up there because they feel like my duck-minions) I expressed some concern, as only one of the black swans could be seen, and usually they're always together. The loner swan hurried over to us so we threw it some bread and I asked it where its other half was, but it didn't answer, because it's a swan. They can't talk.

I was really worried that a fox had made off with the other one, but Ben shook his head and said a swan would make short work of a fox, and just because they mate for life, it doesn't mean the other swan sometimes doesn't sometimes just enjoy time on his own; perhaps he was just off having a beer with his mates, they didn't need to be together ALL the time. I think there might have been some subtext there, so its probably a good job I'm going home for three weeks next Saturday.

I fed the poor lonely swan half the bread and we made our way round to the other side of the pond, just to see if the other one was hiding somewhere.

And it was - sat happily on six giant eggs, surrounded by bread crumbs, which we added to. We thought it was the lady swan at first, until the other one swam over to enquire exactly what we were doing quite so close to its next and we saw they were quite different in size.

(That is a freaky statue of what appears to be a drowned woman just to the bottom left of the picture. The Belgians truely are barking - "Alors, we've got this duck pond that will be popular with small children - we can either have a statue of a happy mermaid combing her hair, or we can have this statue of a naked dead woman with a crying child... shall we vote on it?")

The lady swan waddled up to the gentleman swan, who gave her a sort of 'it's about time you got back here' look; the effect of which was lost on her, probably because of the bread crumbs he had round his beak. After about half an hour of drying her tummy they decided to swap, and he began sorting out the nest, picking up bits of leaf from there and putting it over here, and tugging that bit of twig just so, for reasons he declined to let us in on.

Then some geese turned up and looked at us menacingly so we left. Not because of the geese, you understand; it was just a bit cold and we'd run out of bread. We definitely were not intimidated by birds. Ben did not say 'Amanda! Watch out - they're the mean ones!'.

Black Swan Sweethearts

Having exhausted all of Mon's interesting sights on the first day of their trip we decided to finish off Ben's family visit with a trip to the local duck pond. An adventure that manages to be better than it sounds, as this particular duck pond boasts a pair of gorgeous black swans. They are simply beautiful creatures and, unusually for swans, they're also quite sweet natured - although I don't know how they'd be with us if we dared to turn up without our usual offering of stale bread.

The pond looked a bit odd as we approached and Ben offered the opinion that perhaps the whole thing had been drained, as the swans seemed to be standing up in the middle. As we got closer we realised the pond was actually quite full, but rather than the swans being the foretold second coming of Jesus, the whole pond had simply frozen, and the birds were perched somewhat bemusedly on top of the ice.

We were just as bemused as they, as although it was very cold in the beginning of January (-14° centigrade at one point, a fact Ben's sister Jo couldn't quite get her head round - "C?" she repeated incredulously, "C?!") of late the temperature has hit such heights as 3° centigrade, thus thawing the snow we had hanging around endangering unwary pedestrians for a week or so. Nevertheless, most of the pond was still iced, except for a small corner which the swans wearily made their slippery way over to, apparently in order to menace a fat looking fish that had sleepily ventured out from under the ice.

As we were feeding the black swans a large white one saw us - or rather, the bread we were touting - and started to make its tiresome and arduous journey across the ice over to where we were standing. It took the poor thing ages, and then when it finally did arrive one of the black swans made it abundantly clear that it was not at all welcome and should possibly sling its hook. It rapidly did as suggested with a rather put out demeanour, so we threw some bread at it anyway whilst doing our best to ignore the irritated stares of the black ones.

I tried for ages to get a photo of one of the swans on its own, but one of the sweetest things about them is that they're always together, and - except for the incident where one of them had to see off the unwanted attentions of the white one - they were never more than a foot away from each other.

I took loads of videos of them slipping all over the place as frankly, it was pretty funny, so for your viewing pleasure I've uploaded one of them as they trudge towards the thawed area, and another that shows the white swan midway through its ill fated journey over to see what was going on.





And for those of you who would like to have a cockroach situation update, here it is: the little bastards laid low because we had guests. Thoughtfully not forcing their presence on visitors not quite accustomed to their ambush tactics, you say? No! Do not give them more credit than they are due. They're just trying to convince people that we're making them up, so that we get no sympathy. They're cruel and unusual beasties.