Of pigeons and knitting

I write this as our poor router tries to persude the phone line to co-operate. This is happening more and more, TalkTalk say they're going to update the interchange near us "soon" to deal with the increased load but until then it's first come, first served.

It appears we are a pit-stop for racing pigeons. We had a trio stop and hang about for about 4 days who have now flown on and now there's a new pigeon looking hopefully at me when I go in the kitchen. they've seemingly done the pigeon equivalent of putting up a sign saying "free grub here, look pathetic" Okay, I did buy a 15kg sack of black sunflower seeds last year, but that was for the tits, we have the coal and blue varieties here along with a wren or two and a pair of robins, one is skinny and the other looks like a brown tennis ball with a head and tail. Luckily these little birds don't get their seed nicked as it's in a huge feeder hung by some handy tall plants in the back garden but since we started putting oddments of bread, flapjack and such on the back wall I am now expected to put some seed on said wall atleast once a day for pigeon delight.

Once they're indulging in their meal I can usually get a good look at them without them taking flight, they all had/have green rings and some even a white ring on the other leg which, I believe, denotes them as racers. Alas, I can't be certain as the internet, as mentioned, is down. So far luckily no-one has complained that I am feeding them, i know it's common practice in towns and cities to put up big signs saying "do not feed the pigeons, they are pests" but as these are ringed and look well kept it's only fair to give them some fuel to get home. Okay, we have three again, photos when I can upload them, but only one is ringed so the others could just be taking advantage.

Anyhoo, yes.

My commission is coming on okay. I've almost done the back, I would be done but I had to frog two repeats (about 7cm) as I'd gone 1 stitch over and they were skewed horribly. Anyhoo, about 8cm to go then the shoulder bits (about 5cm each) and the back is done.