LJ informs me that is timbo baggins birthday today...how kind of them to remind as  if I could posssibly not know that date of the birth of my eldest.

The only thing cleverer than that is facebook tellling me to congratulate XZ on his having been my friend on FB for so any years when he has been quite dead and buried for six of those years.

As often as I can I take the 5.5k route from home, past the cricket field and bowling green and then round the Wayoh Reservoir.I usually reckon that there will be at least one surprise in my bird observations by the time I am home.

This morning the first ssurprise came on the field:none of the usual birds were there, there is quite a list of what I ( Read more... )

There has been a bit of it about.I can remember the results of some storms in the past,standing beside the root disc of a tree blown over, clearing fallen branches from pathways, restoring fence panels which had been blown down, seeing an Edinburgh street closed down because a shop frontage was bulging. Nothing quite like that today, at least not ( Read more... )

There are three bits of advice I really value.

A zero result is still a result. That was given to my son after a physics practical but I have applied it to birding on those few occasions when I have gone out and seen nothing….and rather than being frustrated at the failure I have learned to enjoy the experience of looking never the less.

Get ( Read more... )

No sign of a rat now for three days.I'm hoping we miight have seen the end of them in the garden.When we lived in Brierfield we had them in the garden and the house. The house then was easy to deal with. I cleaned up the mess which was really foul.They had lived at the back of a cupboard under the sink which we rarely needed to go into.They had ( Read more... )

Feeding the birds is a very satisfying occupation...though sadly it doesn't always please everyone.I have feeders which dispense mixed seed, sunflower hearts, peanuts and suet pellets and in addition fatballs(now minus their green plastic netting overcoats) and half coconuts filled with suet  and usually some supposedly bird attractive additives. ( Read more... )

At one time I used to post regularly describing appallling examples of motoring observed mainly on my regular trips from Lancashire across to Newcastle and particularly on the A1M.

Today I can report that you dont need to be on a motorway to act like an idiot.

One road was very badly flooded with water spreading over half the road from the gutters, ( Read more... )

Not sure how I lost contact but it is time to my LJ.

Its a foul day weatherwise with sleet falling and more sleet and raing fortoldl for the rest of the day. So glad we don't live in a flood risk area.

Yesterday we went to Skipton and the flood plains there were well under water.There is news of flooding nationwide that just leaves me amazed that ( Read more... )

and it has almost run its course...after tonight's sessions but two sessions more before this course reaches its Omega..

The course consists of about a dozen sessions of teaching, normally presented on DVD about aspects of the Christian faith. These sessions normally follow on a simple meal shared by the group and   are followed by an opportunity ( Read more... )

It's Easter Bank Holiday Monday.No one in this house is going anywhere. Snow falls silently....and the whole world is going white....rooftops , hedge tops, the grass patch...I can hear my eldest pedant  say "that's not the whole world"...(to be pedantic I can only imagine him say that  at a distance of 100 miles plus...) The house is quiet...not ( Read more... )