Almost there...

I'm writing under my new alias as I have changed my identity, moved to the Outer Hebrides, dyed my hair red and am starting a new life.  OK...just kidding, though over the past two grueling weeks I have fantasized many, many times about doing exactly that.

We are on the last leg (literally..!!) of this effing DIY project, with the final room being carpeted tomorrow.  Over the weekend we will hang the pictures, clean the last of the mess up, and sometime early next week I will post photos of the newly restored house.  This has been a nightmare of epic proportions, though like childbirth, the truly painful parts are already fading from my memory.  Sort of.

One day last week, in an attempt to clear my head and smell the fresh air, rather than paint fumes, Alan and I took Oz for a long, lovely Fall walk.  Below are some cool photos of the day.


Walking along the river, we saw this Heron in a tree.  Honestly, I never imagined Herons in trees, but they do it here all the time.

Here's another one.  This part of the river gets lots of sunshine, so they must like not only the privacy (across the river from humans and other riff raff), but also the sun.

Just where the river meets the sea, I saw this lovely one wading in the water.  For some reason the photos came out with a very blue and gold cast, which I like.  It was early in the day, shady on the riverbank, and with the Heron on the other side of the river I had to use the telephoto.  Maybe all those things combined made the shot blue/gold.  I don't know, maybe it was just me still learning about my camera.  Whatever, I like it.

After the river, we came out along the beach and spied this group of Herons.  They are usually a solitary bird, so this was very cool to see them in a bunch.  Altogether that day we saw about ten of them along our walk.

As always, we walked home through the woods.  The early morning sun was just gleaming in this glade, the orange leaves a thick carpet under the trees with their yellow leaves.  It was very cool.

So, we have nearly reached the end of this long, hard travail of DIY.  Tomorrow the last carpet, Saturday getting everything sorted and cleaned, and Sunday I am not getting out of bed.  Well, except to walk Oz, twice.  And maybe a time or two to wander around the house admiring all the work.