My first ever thanksgiving was truly lovely. It was pretty much as anticipated: loads of excellent food, loads of nice drink and lots of jocular family banter.
I even managed to get thrashed at chess a couple of times; there’ll be more about the chess thing later.
The only grey spot on the day was Humph; she’s still not a well bird, after after the excitement of the day, complete with all of the parrot scaring events, Michele and I were convinced she was about to cock her little legs up. So much so that we went to bed very teary. We weren’t sure if it was the events of the day, the amateurishly administered injection, or the infection, but she was very weak and sad by bedtime.

This morning we were delighted to see our plucky parrot was not only still alive, but looking really quite chipper. She ate and drank loads (which is apparently a good sign), came out of the cage (likewise) and then as the morning progressed we picked her up and stabbed her in the chest with a needle again. Poor little love. This time she didn’t scream too much, and call me a simpleton, but I’m convinced she now realises that getting towelled and stabbed by us is not going to result in anything serious. She bit away at the towel, but stopped screaming after the first few bursts. This was the last injection, but we now have to give a twice daily dose of yucky medicine…from a syringe. She’ll be ok.

After our disgracefully large intake of food and drink yesterday Michele and I decided to go for a wander through the beautiful tail-end of Autumn.

To make it more interesting, and because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, we decided to try and find the Cave of Kelpius. We walked three or four miles, through some dense, raw, and very beautiful woodland and across some very steep hillsides until we stumbled upon it! Just where Google earth said it was.

A lovely walk, followed by a lovely dinner of thanksgiving leftovers. Humph is still getting better.