To refer back to Pratchett, one of my favourite characters is the Luggage. I haven't read any for ages, but we have the collected works lying around the house in various stages of disrepair.
I took B&B for a short walk this afternoon. It was 32C, so I would have been told off on the Doghouse for not keeping them in a darkened room with a fan, but they are slim and fit and acclimatised to the weather, so a 50% shady and fairly breezy 30-35 minutes was absolutely fine.
We came through trees onto the long drift that has a wonderful view across what I've previously described as looking like a landscape from a Ladybird book: crops, pasture, woodland, glints of water, grazing horses, hedges, curving tracks, distant houses, closer barns, a tractor raising a cloud of dust, all in a big semi-circular sweep. As I stood there admiring it, and appreciating the stiff breeze, a buzzard - I think a young one from its size - got up calling slightly forlornly from the copse. It didn't look particularly confident or capable as it got airborne over the hedge, and it shortly stopped squawking, perhaps to allow it to concentrate.
I watched as it angled itself to glide directly across the wind, sliding through the air at a slightly upwards angle. It then shifted to face the wind and hung for a few moment like a kestrel, before turning and letting the wind blow it along. Then a few lazy flaps of its wings, and another slide through the air, and another turn-and-hang. I watched it until it was hard to see against the trees along the road, and wondered if it was the one I saw having its flying lesson a few weeks ago.
The other young animals all seem to be growing up, though there was a panicked little rabbit on the lane the other evening as I drove home. I slowed right down to give it a chance to work out where to go, and it regained the verge still in one piece.
The pigeons are still madly shagging. A pair were at it in a churchyard tree this evening. No shame. None.