Our neighbour, Susan, has got a rather strange flower in her garden.

It’s a foxglove, it’s light pink and at the top of the stem, above all the normal foxglove flowers, is one big flower; the same colour pink with the same brownish freckles, but it is round and open, not bell-like – most peculiar.

But the flower is not the only unusual thing that has been in Wharfedale this week – over the weekend a rather unusual bird took a fancy to the stretch of river north of Yockenthwaite.

Roger Ingham came down to report the first sighting of the visitor, which at the time was sitting in a water hole being hounded by crows – later in the afternoon when the roads were quiet and everyone had gone home, it came down onto the roadside and settled in an old ash tree by the river side, gliding down periodically to feed on tit-bits offered by nearby campers.

Stuart, Eddy and I were out on Saturday afternoon, but David kept an eye on things and tried in vain to find out where it had come from.

It was after 8pm when we got home and by then it was just sitting up in the tree, after having polished off half a chicken (offered by the campers) content and obviously settled for the night.

It turns out the Falconry Centre at Settle was the bird’s home and it had gone missing a few days earlier; I managed to get in touch with someone and arrangements were made to come to retrieve the escapee.

Thanks for the flowers and a box of chocolates; that was a lovely surprise.

On Saturday, Upper Wharfedale YFC was on form once again at Clitheroe and in the “tug of war” at the Northern Area Finals they successfully pulled their way through to the National finals in September.

The eight-man team failed to topple the Durham team, but considering Durham was a county team I think our lads should be pretty please with their achievement.

The conditions were not ideal, baking sun, little wind and the ground as hard as iron and turning to dust; not much chance to “dig in”.

We have since had some nice warm rain which has been very welcome, but as yet it has not made enough of a difference – the river is still bone dry, the garden and tubs of flowers are needing constant attention, but much more of a worry is the lack of water for sheep and cattle in fields and pastures. Stuart and Eddy are going round every day checking and making sure water is fresh – pipes and tanks have had to be rigged up in three fields and where the soil is thin there are visible signs of burning.

According to the Met Office, we should get some rain this week. But all we want is enough to freshen everything up; knowing our luck it will not know when to stop!