Things to do in 2011 - busy busy

Christmas has come & gone. The rain is washing away the snow & ice. 2011 is here. Time to take stock & plan for the coming months & years.
.

The church project has reached another very busy phase that I anticipate continuing into the next 6 months or so:
.

* An action with the Local Goverment Ombudsman re: the appalling behaviour of a local Councillor.
.

* Continuing clarification of our Rights of Way (hopefully avoiding the need for recourse to the law).
.

* Continuing clarifiation of boundary issues (ditto).
.
* Management of the English Heritage Grant & resolution of issue with the scaffolders (ditto).
.
* Establishing a "hut" to drink tea in (no mean achievement on a Scheduled & Listed site).
.

* and of course - the REALLY important, hands-on work on the site itself! Tree planting, hedge & wall repairing, setting-up the wildlife zones, general tidying up & getting ready for work on the monument itself.
.

I joked to Mr PoppyM that we should try & resolve all these issues by 2012 as I dont want to have to deal with these and, the impending revelation of the truth about aliens Aliens & big domestic dramas in one year is just TOO MUCH!
.
Then there are new pieces of legislation to keep track of:
.

* Draft Bill on Easements & Covenants - matters very relevant to our ownership of an ex-church property.
.

* Changes to the Listing & Scheduling of monuments.
.
* Changes to Planning Rules nationally & locally.

.

* Changes within the Land Registry
.

Moral - Owning an ancient monument is not an easy option!
.

One task I am really looking forward to, is getting the boundary hedges along the lane leading to the church surveyed & dated. I'm hoping that Herefordshire CPRE can help here. I am sure the hedges are hundreds of year old.
.

Happy 2011 to one and all. May you encounter kindnesses & fairness in your daily lifes and end the year in high spirits ready for 2012.

* - *

Suburbia

Every now and again I came across an article that answers a question I had not realized I was asking. I often walk around where I live & wonder what motivates people to do the things they do to their gardens & houses, things that neither my self or husband would dream of doing. And are these actions and decisions indicative of how other parts of their lives are lived. I am talking about privet hedges, washing cars on Sundays, neat tidy gardens and clean windows with net curtians. This seems to go with small pretty dogs, paving slabs or gravel on the drive, regular trips to the supermarket & of course regular visits to the garden centre. I realize now, after reading the article, that I am describing suburbia.

.

I have good friends who live happily in some form of suburbia but I have always know that it is not where I can comfortably reside & even less so my husband. Why is this - it is where a majority of the UK's residents live. Just one reading of the key features of suburbia, as described in the Independent's article (8th Oct 2009), explain this easily. Now I list these not to criticize as they are fine values but they are values for some reason I do not have even though they are things my family hold dear. There's the privet hedge, social uniformity, safety, security, comfort, fitting-in, have something "in reserve", living within your means. A sense that safety, suspicion & survelliance are the valued norm. My parents did have a big thing about "drawing the curtains" when the lights were on & having nets at all the windows, locking doors & having no valuables on show - not that there was anything or value that I can particularly recall.

.

I am currently living in one of most socially uniform counties in England which starkly contrasts with the cities, towna & villages I have previously worked & lived in. And I miss the colour & variety that more soxially & ethnically mixed places have. I am fully aware that I am extremely fortunate to live in this county with it's chocolate box black & white market towns & orchard-rich, truely beautiful country-side. Sometimes it seems like I've been transported back to the 1940's! I've recently acquired from the library several of Monty Don's books. Dipping into the "Ivington Diaries" (Bloomsbury) I came upon a piece about cities (and moles) and felt it resonnate:

.

..."Most Britons live in towns or suburbs and most get their countryside from a car window, Emmerdale or The Archers. I am out of kilter, unrepresentative snd hopelessly marginalized.

This does not bother me in the least. But I do have to restrain myself from time to time from writing about things that have a major impact on me & my garden but which probably have no relevance to the majority of people's lives".

.

So I feel good knowing for sure where I do not belong (with suburbia), the tribe I dont belong to. And the tribe I do belong to - well I'm sure that to will name itself when I least expect it.

.
.

Sunny November Day

What a difference the sun makes. After a week of grey stormy weather the sun appeared & the PoppyM household "went out to play":

* The hens sun-bathed

* I took the horse's coat off & she rolled & rolled in the mud. A very relaxed horses greeted me this evening.

* The dogs both had leisurely walks.

* Mr PoppyM did something important up on the scaffolding at the church

* I put up the temporary cloches for the lettuces & dug up root veggies

And we've all gone/are going to bed tired & happy. Marvellous.

On ephemeral things. One of the architects involved with our ruin made an interesting observation about ruins in general . Discussing our ruins he was saying how much we had changed the environment that they are now set in. I commented that some people had bemoaned the fact that they are no longer "romantic ruins" and are on their way to being preserved & eventually incorporated into another building. The architect's comment was that "ruins are moments in time". I'd not thought of that - a ruin come into being from a "whole building" & then degrades into nothing. So our ruin's moment is passing - what a poignant thought - well not for us but certainly for some. Our covenant states that it should be kept as a monument - which is "anything intended to preserve the remembrance of a person, event, action" - the opposite of a ruin. It is also Scheduled & Listed - so definitely not a ear-marked as a "moment in time".

I'm a fan of BBC's Autumn (and Spring Watch). Yesterday's programme contained an astonishing passing event. They had an amazing piece about hungry waxwings sitting on the arms of a person and eating apples. That must count as a "once in a life-time" experience. ( fair-isle.blogspot.com)

Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. I find it a confusing day as I am naturally a peaceful person - vegetarian, liberal, Green etc etc. But the truth I have arrived at is the humans, like most other mammals, have an in-built ability to fight & kill. There is no use in denying this aspect of human nature - it is no different to cats & dogs that will kill small- furries if the opportunity presents itself - we dont love our pets any the less for this part of their nature. Most mammals will also kill members of their own species if circumstances force them to behave this way. Now I have accepted this aspect of human nature I can mourn & honour those who have died & suffered as a result of conflict. I can also admire those, who in these conflict situations, display the best aspects of humanity and hope that if I ever find myself in such a situation I can behave in this manner to.

.

.

What a busy few months. This week scaffolding is going up around the chancel of our ruined church - so far so good. Much to my surprise it does not look that intrusive. The protective fencing goes up in the next few days then the real work can begin on stabilizing the structure.

It is a pity that other changes at the site have not gone so well. Various formal complaints to official bodies & help from the police have just about kept things under control. It's strange how normally sane people can behave so oddly about something that does not really concern them when roused by untruths dispersed by a person in authority (in this case a local counsellor) - it must be a weakness in the human condition. Maybe the blessing ceremony scheduled this weekend will spread calm & truth amongst the villagers. It is All Hallows this w/e - I feel that it is going to take a full compliment of saints to achieve this.

I have recently been re-reading the No 1 Ladies Detective series (Macall Smith) and some books by the children's author Jacqueline Wilson. A parallel struck me between the poverty experienced by those in Africa and those homeless families living in bed & breakfast accommodation. Both live in cramped conditions, often insanitary, with no or heavily shared access to basic utilities such as water & cooking conditions. Yet those Africans living in this manner have dignity & an understanding that poverty is just the card they have been handed in this life - those in this country are stigmatized and blamed for their condition . It's food for thought.

I'm looking forward to Halloween - I've managed to grow 2 pumpkins this year & they are ready for carving & eating. Then there is bonfire night with fireworks, then there is the Longest Night celebration & Christmas. These Autumn Winter celebrations are amongst my favourites.

.

.

Change

Tonight I stepped out of the door into a dark night of wind & rain. It was quiet - not a soul moving about. Doors & windows shut, curtains drawn with light shining through cracks & thin fabrics. On the road were slugs & snails & a few frogs/toads and I thought to myself "I've stepped into another world". Tove Jansson captured that feeling of different-ness in some of her books - especially the "Moominland Midwinter". The warm cosy world of family & friends, are contrasted with coldness of the weather & the emptiness left by the sleeping family. Of course comfortable order is returned, just as it is when I walked back through the front door into light & the wagging tail of the small dog.

Familiarity can equal reassurance. Matters relating to our "great church project" have been very very fraught over the last few weeks. I fully expect the turmoil to spill over into the next few months. What was comfortably familiar is all set to change & we are meeting resistance. The church was once linked to the Cistercian Abbey Dore (Holy Trinity & St Mary) which I gather from various articles has had a chequered history. From it's creation in 1147 to it's dissolution by Henry VIIIth in 1537, it's decline to a roofless ruins (just like our church) in 1630 to it's restoration & reconsecration in 1634 & then various repairs & restorations - then threatened again with closure in 1993 but saved again and is now a much used & loved Grade 1 listed parish church. The history of this mother church make the history of our ruins seems positively tranquil. According the list of services St Mary (the church patron) is celebrated on 12th September - I wonder if that will be a date for us to remember?

Picture - wikipedia

Occassionally an everyday object shows itself as something other than everyday. I had just such an occurence with a white wild rose. It suddenly became The Tudor Rose & I finally understood the stylized heraldic rose associated with this royal house. Previously I had thought "what an odd depiction of a rose" the Tudor rose was, having in my mind the multi-petalled garden rose. It seems a small thing but this new knowledge has changed my view of the rose - taken it from being an exotic import to an integral part of the English country and locked it firmly into English history. So now when I look at wild roses in the hedgerows I wonder if this is the type of rose a woman in the C15th would stop & admire. Perhaps she would pick a few blooms & seperate the heart-shaped petals & dry them to scatter amongst her clothes or collect a small posy for her beloved. A romantic rose indeed and one of peace representing the joining of two warring Houses.

Recent activities on the church restoration project has also plunged me back in time, it's not everyday that I get an epistal or use the word "terrier" in it's non-canine way. The Epistal was an instruction from the Bishop regarding the tombstones. A terrier is "a book or roll in which the lands of private persons are described by their site, boundaries, umber of acres etc" (The "King's English Dictionary"- this edition has a picture of H.M. King George V as it's front plate). I suppose that makes those ho work in modern day Land Registery "a pack of terriers" - how apt is the phrase "let sleeping dogs lie"! Land disputes are one of those areas that go from petty to deadly in one stride.

I've had good views of three fast moving things this week:

* a Red Admiral butterfly obligingly sat still with open wings - what gorgeous colours
* a green woodpecker flew straight in front of the car - startling green, yellow & red.
* a bright green cricket found it's way into the car - it's the bright-greenest creature I have ever seen.

Finally - this week we managed to upload our own photos. Until e do thanks Wikipedia for the images.

Home Produced Food & the Pumpkin Patch

Today I feel like awarding myself (and Mr PoppyM) a 1st level badge in Self- Sufficiency. All our food today was NOT home produced but a majority of it was - onwards & upwards. Today there was: home-made bread, eggs from our own hens, home-grown potatoes, Swiss chard, baby turnips, mint & rosemary.

The Swiss-chard has been a revelation - I struggle to find leafy greens I like eating & I like chard - hurrah. An easy to grow crop,with a very long season & very versatile, plus, if grown from seed - very very cheap. Shame I just cant get to like turnips - on the plus side Mr PoppyM does & so do the hens (the main reason I am growing them).

I still get a real thrill from watching seeds turn into plants. At the present I am extremely proud of the parsnip & cabbage youngsters that have emerged from seeds. Today there is great excitement at the arrival of my new radish & spring onion seeds (plus some climbing nasturtiums) from Moles Seeds - I can barely wait to get them planted. The weather has obliged this small wish by producing rain - it is gently falling as I write.

A number of years ago, when I travelled to work by bus, I passed a Pumpkin Patch. In the late summer orange fruits sat proudly amongst large chaotic leaves. As the days shortened, some of the leaves were removed to expose the pumpkins to the sun. By the time of harvest, large fruits sat boldly in a clear patch of soil soaking up the last rays of sun. It created a lasting image & now to me this typifies Autumn - perhaps my favourite season of the year. Well this year I have one of my own - it has cucumbers, courgettes, marrows & 5 squashes that could be either mini pumpkin, butternut squash or a mixture - I forgot to label them! The early squashes already have magnificent leaves & small fruits that I anticipate picking from next week. Another one of life's wishes fulfilled!
.

Pumpkin Patch photo from: Flickr- the fiends photostream.

.

Geese & parenthhod

Where I currently live there is just one domesticated goose who wanders about "free-range". Last year, through a series of misfortunes this male goose lost his companions & there was doubt how long he would survive. But he is very robust, this combined with lots of feeding through the long harsh winter has seen him through. In the spring some Canada geese arrived to breed on the very large pond - last year two set of goslings were successfully raised. The domesticated goose made a determined wooing of one of the females but lost out to one of the Canada Geese. Now an extraordinary thing has taken place. Instead of wandering off to look for an available female he has joined up with the breeding pair & helped raise the brood of 8 goslings. All three adults move about as a unit watching over the youngster, often with the big white goose sat next to the goslings. All three adults are fiercely protective and not surprisingly perhaps all 8 youngster are now large birds just starting to showing adult plumage.

Ver sadly - since the post was written George the goose has been killed in a RTA.

.

goslings: Hakoar flickr

June at the church site

On my almost daily water-collecting trips at a gravelly shallow on the Froome, I have seen damselflies. Some as delicate as needles others relatively substantial, in small & large numbers. They are also found on the now magnificently large butterbur leaves in the church yard. What has struck me most strongly is the vivid metallic-ness of their bodies. Colours & textures not seen in mammals, emphasising their difference & alieness to us warm-bloods. To my mind the organism that comes closest in these qualities is the buttercup (excluding of course other insects). A field of buttercups seen close-up or at small remove reflect sunlight off their petals as a hard, shiny gold. A regular peacock visitor is currently sporting breeding plumage that reflects the light & has a "sheen" but it lacks the metal-ness of the damselflies - the feathers looks warm not cold, soft not hard - though the klaxon screech of the male does certainly have a metallic edge to it!

.

The church site is beautiful at the present - the hawthorns are in full blossom, petals drift down like a summer snow. On a sunny day, walking past the butterbur sends up a cloud of damselflies & in the warm afternoon air, mayflies bob up & down - destined to eventually rain on the ground at the end of their brief lives.

.

Haiku - a Sunny June day

Sunshine, big green leaves,

iridescent wings alight,

moments of joy,

.

I'm currently dipping into the excellent "Notes from Walnut Tree Farm" by Roger Deakin & was delighted to find that he has an explanation of why familiar British flora & fauna often trigger a comparison with an exotic counterpart. His entry for 23rd April reads "..as I looked up at the hawthorn all covered in ivy that grows on the common just outside the house, I thought of a date palm and of how we often project the identities of exotic plants or animals on our own native species as a way of expressing their newness & magic." I like that explanation.

.

It's still peak vegetable planting season at the church site & a rabbit/badger-proof fence it in the process of being built around the plot. I'm beginning to feel very earthed & routed to the site - perhaps this is what the Benedictines mean by their vow of Stability (to remain in the same monastery). An odd feeling for someone who has moved a lot - perhaps the move to the church site will be my last major move - what an odd thought.

.

Flickr stas1963 (butterbur) : dragonflysoc.org.uk for Beautiful Damoiselle.

Herefordshire & Australia

A piece of writing has been rattling about in my head for a few days now. It's May, the heating is on, it cold, windy & raining outside & hot custard featured as part of the evening meal. And yet, at the forefront of my mind are eucalyptus trees & parrots!
.

My mind insists on creating parallels between Australia & Herefordshire. It may be because recently I have noticed a small number of magnificent gum trees growing in my area - tall, slender trees with pale trunks & delicate leaves making a distinctive open, grey-green canopy. There are several species of eucalptys sufficiently hardy to thrive in the UK - the only one I recall seeing for sale in garden centres is the Cider Gum (Eucalyptus gunnii). I am not sure what variety the elegant ones are that I see as we drive about our business. I have been trying to decide whether one would grow well at our church site, whether it would look right & whether it was really appropriate - perhaps a good companion to a unidentified redwood- that creaks & groans in the wind and looks unbalanced missing it's partner, long since dead.
.
As is often the way when themes occur, I opened at random the book I am currently reading (Wildwood) to a chapter entitled "Cockatoos". In it the author describes being awaken by screeching cockatoos "as they barrelled through the gum trees" and later he describes the ghost gum as having the "fluidity of a dancer" - all very exotic. Then quite surprisingly he says "it reminded me of the ash tree at home in Suffolk: smooth and pale skinned, with the graceful sinews of a dancer in the wind". So I am not alone in travelling so far, to a place with an alien flora & fauna, and yet finding an unexpected link with a familiar friend - an ash. At the entrance to our ruined church stands a magnificent ash & within the church yard itself we have preserved a 30 foot ash; through some expert crown reduction. Although we don't have cockatoos & galahs calling us to wakefulness, there are flashy raucous jays, yammering woodpeckers &, quarrelsome jackdaws nesting in the ruined church tower. Just once I have been to Australia & I find it odd that like the author of the book - the magnificent Roger Deakin (Wildwood A journey Through Trees) - I seem to have formed an emotional link between the two countries. To me the call of the jay always makes the word "parrot" appear before the word "jay" & similarly with a yammering woodpecker, the word "kookaburra" forms first.

.
Perhaps the link is to do with movement, freedom, adventure & surprise - our church site certainly provides all those. Or perhaps it is to do with still feeling a newcomer to this lush, tree-filled county of Herefordshire - my birthplace is a dry part of the UK that according to some definitions could be classified as a desert - in fact rather like parts of Australia!
.

Ghost Gum picture Flickr aussi-gals' photostream.
.

.

May Bank Holiday.

Sometimes it feels good to be busy, with a long list waiting to be done. Other times it is not so good - when your natural rhythm at that point in time says "nice & steady", "take time to sit & watch". Before I met-up with Mr PoppyM it was easier to follow my natural rhythm. Now of course there are two natural rhythms to get into synchronicity - sometimes this is easier to achieve than others.

The April rain has finally arrived so it's time for a "breather". The ground has been rotavated & the potatoes, parsnips & first batch of chard are planted. The mini-greenhouses are filling well with brassicas, lettuces, some annuals and, the summer bulbs are planted & shooting. There are still packets & packets of seeds to plant, gates to install, fences to build, but tomorrow will be a rest day, one for planning & dreaming.

I've just started to read "Wildwood" by Richard Deakin - what a brilliant nature writer. In it he describes the joyful & restorative nature of nights spent in his shepherd's hut or railway sleeper, both positioned in fields away from his house. They resonate deeply with the experiences I had when I lived for a while on a small boat. The closeness to nature, candles illuminating the darkness, the leaving-behind of the clutter of a house, happy days that I think about most days.

The next big phase of our church restoration project involves the building of a workshop-cum-over-night accommodation. I am so looking forward to spending at least a few nights there listening to the owls & night sounds & waking-up to birdsong and the sound of the wind in the trees. One of the many advantages of owning a piece of land is being able to grow your own woodland. It's next to impossible to get any form of permission to live in a wood - the only way around the planning restrictions I have found is to grow the wood around your home & that is essentially what we are doing.

It's May Day - time for the Maypole Dance. Photo from Jane Williams photostream Flickr

Time for sleep - time to visualize my sleepy parsnips seeds waking & putting forth shoots, time to remind the potatoes & chard that frosts are still possible for another fortnight. I fully expect to have the fire going tomorrow morning - a real British May Bank Holiday weekend.

.

Buttons

Time & space at last to sit & think & write.

Buttons

Over the last few months I have tried to buy some basic buttons and been unsuccessful. When Mr PoppyM asked for some for his trousers I thought it would be a simple case of vi sting a wool-shop - and sure enough, they sold a variety of buttons but for exorbitant prices. I turned to supermarkets - all they sold were pre-packs of tiny buttons probably aimed at shirts. Oh to have a John Lewis on the door-step. It set me thinking about why I hadn't suitable buttons, I used to have a tin-full of them, all sorts of sizes & shapes. These were gleaned from clothing that had come to the end of their life & some came from charity shops, where occasionally big, mixed bags could be had for around a pound. My mother, her mother, my aunts and friends all had tins of buttons too. The tins were usually biscuit or cake tins with a pretty picture on the front. Inside were buttons from a variety of clothes along with zips & clasps snappers and safety pins, often there'd be part-skeins of embroidery silk & empty cotton-reels. They were fascinating to a small child, almost as much fun as a jewellery box. Looking back I can see that they held clues to family life - I guess my tins have become lost during my many moves. Back to the search for the trouser buttons- I found a great site on the Internet - The One Stop Button Shop. Here are buttons as I remembered them - 35 ordinary buttons for around £3.50. Of course they also sell pretty buttons. The moral - don't put -up with the paltry offerings that some shops offer!

I've had a quick look at the history of this everyday item. Purely decorative, functional, status symbols, objects of legislation, highly collectibles, humble and valuable.

The fabulous picture is by Rima Staines - thehermitage.estsy.com

.

The snow has gone

What a difference a day makes. Today I took the big dog for a walk, taking in a visit to the chicken pen. The hens were out & about scratching & strutting in the sunshine, for most of the previous snowy week they had been huddled in their houses just coming out when a person appeared to see if anything tasty was on offer. Today I looked back at the view & all was green & full of bird song. Last week, after a slow & slippery walk up the hills & footpaths to this same spot outside the hen pen, I looked and saw white and heard muffled distance sounds.

Normally I stride-out, walking fast to a view-point & then stop and look and listen. The big dog trots along beside me or out front when it is possible to use the full-length of the long lead. For the last few days, with snow & ice on all walking surfaces this has not been possible, we've both carefully picked a non-slippery way up to the end point of a shortened outing. The big dog is designed for snow with a thick coat, large body size & decent-sized paws &, a nose that can pick up an interesting molecule at at thousand paces. The snow has brought so many exciting smells for her - I wonder if they are new scents or familiar scents emphasised in some way by the weather. The ability to scent a pile of horse-poo under inches of snow has been a wonder to behold, the following game of toss-the-poo a great laugh. I'm going to miss the snow ploughing with the nose followed by rolling in the snow & chasing round in circles leaving great pock marks on the pristine snowy surface. Life is one big change!

We visited out ruined-church site 2 days ago, no flooding there. The Froome, that runs just a few meters away from the boundary wall, had risen about 2 metres and was racing along, especially as passed under the nearby bridge. At this site there is about a metre to go before the banks are burst - it did that in 2007, moving large bales of hay & straw around the adjacent fields like footballs. I read today that the TS Eliot poetry prize has been awarded to a work that focuses on the River Severn - I'm being to appreciate why one river could provide sufficient material for such an enormous achievement (Philip Gross).

..

.

Horse Power

Yesterday, for the first time in months I watched some dressage-to-music on TV. The sound quality of the music was awful but the horses & some of the riders were magnificent. I have seen exquisite thoroughbreds & Arabs, coats gleaming, beautifully turned-out, moving with grace & confidence. I have watched countless cowboy movies with the cowboys cantering & galloping horses of various shapes & hues, & the Native American's head-tossing, spirited,bare-back mounts. Innumerable beloved ponies, hacks, cobs & riding-school mounts have passed before me. Without doubt, the only ridden horses that make me stop-in-my-tracks to watch them are beautifully schooled dressage horses, of any level.

Dressage horses at the top of their art, at Prix-St.George level & above, are truly the elite athletes of the horse world. Those trained to this level with sensitivity, care, patience & real knowledge are a joy to watch, happy in their work. Partner this with a skilled, sensitive & courageous rider & the potential to see the magnificence of the horse shine through is there. It is possible to indirectly sense the power of a movement, as a breeze accompanying the passing horse. It is possible to visually witness the grace of a well-executed manoeuvre, a pirouette, a piaffe, even a high-school jump. But only when the horse & rider are working as one joyful, moving partnership is it possible to feel, as a spectator, the essence of horse. It's heart, it's purpose, it's life-force, it's power. All the sensory components may be there, but these alone do not reveal what a horse is - witness the near-impossibility of finding a horse portrait, sculpture or artistic representation that has "life". Horses are creatures of movement - as a car only comes to life when it moves, it's soul is released & revealed in motion, so it is with the horse. The colours, nuances, range, limitations, magnificence's are teased-out & predictably displayed by a master driver & rider under precise, testing conditions. My own personal make-up attunes me to certain aspects of physical & "spiritual" power", it's grace, poetry, scale. A top-flight race-horse is no less an athlete than a top-flight dressage horse but explosively-released power travelling directly from A to B, this revelation of power does not affect me in the same way as a balletically-moving horse. I love dance & music and in these too I respond to grace, elegance, order and that most elusive of virtues - beauty. I can appreciate most types of dance but only get pleasure if beauty is there whether it be in the interpretation of the music or the story, revealed in the lines made by the dancers, or more rarely & magnificently, when the essence of the whole performance becomes known. Like that moment when a poem stops being words & leaps out as "thing" - the word, sound, smell, person, place, object that IS the poem. And so back to the dancing horse & rider - my own little grey mare is now semi-retired but I know that inside her will always be that essence-of-horse all horses share but only some can reveal to us limited humans.

(I've lost track of who owns the photo of Goldstern)

Listening

While I was taking the large dog for a walk yesterday I stopped to listen to a bird song. It was a song that I haven't heard since moving here - the distinctive pee-wit pee-wit of the lapwing. Sure enough in the distance I could see a small flock of the birds -distinctive with their black & white wings & odd flight. I associate these birds with Nottinghamshire farmland - great flocks of them whirring in the sky filling the air with their shrill, whooping-whistle call. I checked out details about the bird and was surprised to discover his huge range over the UK - I thought it was a bird of the South & midlands - it's like finding an old friend that you left in a previous home (http://www.rspb.org.uk ).
.

Today I went to look for the lapwings but they had moved on. instead I was treated to two great sights. I threw a piece of left-over Christmas pudding into the hen pen. Only Alfie the cockerel expressed any interest in it, the hens wandered off pecking at the grass & other bits I had thrown in. Alfie stood by the pudding and on the other side of it stood a crow. Three crows regularly patrol the strip of land the hen-pen sits on, they normally only fly into the pen after scraps when humans leave the area. The pudding must have been a great prize as not only did the bird stay put whilst I was just a few feet away with the small dog but, it marked it's prize while Alfie hovered about beside it undecided what to do. Then the bird pecked at the lump & tried to fly away with it but as it must have weighed at least 3x as much as it did, satisfied itself with a small piece. Such bravery inspired by a left over piece of Christmas pud!

.

Half an hour or so later I was out walking the large dog when I stopped and looked around - I could hear the raucous racket only a groups of corvids can make. I spotted a small group at the top of a tall hawthorn. As I watched a buzzard lifted up off a near-by tree into the air & the crows mobbed it until it flew away. As it did so 2 other buzzards & another large bird appeared. The 3 buzzards circled in the air like vultures in a cowboy movie, lifting higher on a spiral & then disappearing from view. The 4th birds was not a buzzard, it's lower body appeared snowy white in comparison to the creamy/buff of the buzzards. While the buzzards soared in the thermals this bird dived away at amazing speed with broad, black-tipped wings and vanished amongst a stand of alders lining the brook. Seeing the two types of birds together in the sky clearly showed the difference between their movement, energy & shape. I am surer than ever that it was the goshawk I've caught glimpses of before. I know they are in the area as a few week back a local farmer reported seeing a dead one by the road-side. To think, if I hadn't stopped to look at the crows making a racket, I'd have missed that wonderful sight.

.

Mr PoppyM is a local man & has a pronounced local accent & use of dialect. I'm trying to record some of his colourful life as part of a book-project I'm working on. I have no illusions that I am a writer of stories and certainly not a writer of plays. So it has been quite an experience turning someone else's tales into a written form. The first two stories have been a disappointment as whilst I can capture the plot everything else gets left behind - they become a soulless catalogue of events! The latest plan is write the tales out verbatim & to go from there - it can only be an improvement.

.

The final listening thread - over the Christmas period I have listened to two radio plays - what a treat "The No1 Ladies Detective Agency" in Radio 4 & the "Wizard of Earthsea" on Radio 7. It brought back to me the simple joy of being read to! I'm now onto the "Adventures of Tin Tin" via the wonder of BBCi player - I can't recommend that facility highly enough.

..