As Kate hardy requested it, this is a photo of the ducklings from mid June. They are slightly less fluffy now and are about the enter their dinosaur stage.
Imelda the bad mother duck is standing guard. She is pathetic. And of course the ducklings have no sense at all. They are apt to become lost/over waterfalls/fall down ravines or just run off the lawn peeping their little heads off as Imelda finishes that one last preen.
I have also discovered Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. It is where the upper class slang spoken in the Regency comes from. The members of the Varment club first popularised it. Byron and Sir Godfrey Webster founded the Varment club when they were at Cambridge. I don't know quite why anyone thinks Cambridge students were more serious than Oxford students in those days...Men were regularly sent down from both places. Byron obtained his degree from Trinity mainly by staying the course and simply being there. Idleness, debauchery and drunkedness seemed to have been the order of the day.
Still I was intrigued to discover the actual dictionary. The bucks and dandys were speaking an argot that was several years out of date. I wonder if this caused great mirth in the thieving faternity as these men attempted to slum it.
