This week’s WordPress photo challenge was announced just this morning and I have what I think is the perfect photo for this week’s theme ~ Refuge.

There are times when I’m sitting quietly at home, listening to the beautiful sounds of silence in my sleepy little village, when the silence will be shattered by a sound I simply love ~ the croaking of a green frog, coming from just outside my office window.

Over the years we have traced our resident frog families sounds to behind a block retaining wall out the front of our house. We hear them there, but we never see them there!

My only sightings of our froggy friends has been a few years ago, when for reasons only known to the frogs themselves, they took it upon themselves to hitch a ride in the boot of my car! You can imagine my surprise at opening the boot of my car at the supermarket, only to find a frog inside!

Not wishing for the frog to lose its way in an unfamiliar place, I would gently close the car boot, drive home and return him to his retaining wall.

I think the frogs became adventurous about three times, always by somehow managing to get into the boot of my car.

One night a couple of weeks ago, my daughter Emma walked out the front of the house and shrieked, thinking she had discovered an unwelcome cane toad, but no, it was one of our little green friends, no doubt thinking it was safe at night to venture out from behind his retaining wall.

So here he is; one of my little garden friends who constantly brings delight to my day with his low-key vocal chords!

Shortly after this photo was taken he was gone again, no doubt having taken refuge yet again within the safety of his home, behind the retaining wall.