Book,book

This is another of those days when I’m not sure what to write about, so I guess the only thing to do is to start and see what happens. 

I wrote a couple of days ago that we had seen a display of lights put on at the Crystal palace areal. A formal display was supposed to happen at nine o’clock last night. And did it. We checked out the kitchen window at the right time and nothing. Just a lot of low cloud. We did think that perhaps it had been a bit delayed. But no. About half an hour later The Man wet to make us a drink and there hardly lighting up the clouds was the light display. A pity it was so heavily overcast as the display the other night was quite impressive. Apparently among the celebrities to celebrate the turning off of the digital signal was the one and only Sir David Attenborough.

I remember being absolutely delighted to receive some of his early books as Christmas birthday presents. One in particular was Zoo Quest for a Dragon. There were a lot of Zoo Quest books. There were written while he was making the TV series. This link should take you to the very first episode which was the aforesaid Dragon book http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/attenborough/

Animal books were my absolute favourite. Not just reality books but stories too. One that I really loved was The Incredible Journey   by Sheila Burnford. It is the story of three animals Tao a Siamese cat, Bodger, an Old English Bull terrier and Luath, a golden Lab who is the youngest in the trio. The animals trek 300 looking for their owners.

The animals' owners, the Hunters, leave to England for university lectures and leave their animals to John Longridge, a family friend and godfather of tung daughter, Elizabeth. One day, after John Longridge leaves for a two week trip of duck hunting, the animals, feeling the lack of their human companions, set out to try to find their owners, the Hunters. Mrs. Oakes, who is taking care of Longridge's home, doesn't find the animals and thinks that John must have taken them with him. The animals follow their instincts and move forward toward home.