Monday, December 19, 2005

What a Week!

Gosh, it's been an exiting few days. It started last Tuesday when I headed off for London for the day. I had to take the long way round as I didn't want to head down the M1 and get involved in traffic delays around the big fire at Hemel Hempstead. It was a smashing day and I enjoyed the drive down through Ludlow, Cleobury Mortimer and Kidderminster. The countryside there is gorgeous. I joined the motorway system just south of Birmingham and steamed on down the M40 towards London. As usual, the highlight of the trip was the climb up and over the Chilterns where I counted 12 Red Kites circling around.

It took about 4 hours to get to Stanmore. As I drew close to my destination I could see the great black smoke plume billowing up from the remains of the fuel terminal at Hemel. The smoke drifted off to the southwest for miles and miles. Where it was forced to rise over the ridge at Stanmore the smoke particles were acting as condensation nucleii and the plume turned to a big black cumulus cloud. Thank goodness it didn't produce rain. It would have been a nasty, greasy, sooty mess!

I went down to London for a couple of reasons. One was to take flowers to Mum, Dad and Grannie's graves and the other was to visit my friend Eve. Eve is the kind lady who kept an eye on Mum and Dad when they were alive and on our London house when we left it unoccupied for 4 years. Eve loves to play the piano, but doesn't have room for one in her house, so I was delighted to be able to help out by giving her my keyboard. We plugged it in immediately, and had great fun playing with it and experimenting with all the voices and orchestrations it has - especially the percussion. I think Eve will get so much more enjoyment out of it than I did. It was difficult to tear ourselves away, but eventually we went off to a local hostelry and had a good dinner before I set off home. Having seen that the fire was not interfering with the roads, I came back the shorter way - motorway all the way to Shrewsbury and it only took just over 3 hours to get back. Needless to say I was pretty tired, but I felt that the driving was all good practice for my test which will probably happen in late January.

Then came the highlight of the week. Most of you know that it was my 60th birthday on Saturday because John wrote to everyone I know and told them about it. The result was a flood of cards, phone calls, flowers, e-mails and e-cards. So once again I am swamped. I'm determined to reply to everyone, but experience tells me that it could take a long time to do that. When I found out I had cancer the response to that was similar and I still haven't replied to all the e-mails I had then!

My birthday was a wonderful day. We got up rather earlier than usual and over our morning cuppa tea John gave me my first present. This was my senior rail card (!) which enables me to get a discount on the trains. We used it immediately to take a train to Swansea, riding the lovely, scenic Heart of Wales railway line. The weather was beautiful and it was lovely to roll through the countryside, watching the green hills go by, seeing the sheep in the lush green meadows, admiring the glint of sunlight on babbling brooks and stopping in villages with unpronouncable Welsh names.

Here's John on the train:



This is not our first trip on this train. We rode it first when we were undergraduates after a week of sleeping rough in a barn and mountain walking in North Wales, and we've taken the same line a couple of times since. Swansea, of course, is where we went to University and where we took our brief honeymoon, so it was a return to the haunts of our youth.







Here's me!




As we rocked along John produced a fabulous brunch and when that was done he had all sorts of wonderful presents which included a couple of trial horse riding lessons (I'm keen to try horse riding as this is really terrific country for it) and a day's session on a skid pan. I've always wanted to try the latter - I've had a couple of spectacular skids in my life and found them quite thrilling. I would have enjoyed them more if they had happened under controlled circumstances where I wasn't convinced that I was about to die!



Here I am getting the skid pan present:



We arrived in Swansea in the early afternoon and just had time for a bit of a wander around and a cup of tea and a piece of cake before it was time to come home. We came back on another line, along the coast through Cardiff to Newport and then heading north through Hereford and Leominster. Again, it was really lovely till it got too dark to see anything.

We had about an hour at home to get changed and washed up and then we walked down into the village for dinner at the local restaurant. It was a great meal, and we both over-indulged, so it was good to be able to walk home. By then it was quite chilly, but the stars were out and it was a brilliant end to a lovely day.

Today I've been making (and eating) Christmas cookies. This is not a tradition here, but I wanted to make something a little different for Christmas. I've done brownies and lemon bars so far and expect to make mince pies and almond macaroons tomorrow. I'm having to convert parts of my American recipes. I'm OK with cup and tablespoon measures because I have my American cups and tablespoons, but butter is measured in grams here and it doesn't come in conveniently sized sticks. Baking chocolate is in grams and milk comes in litres. Ther are three grades of white sugar. Granulated is coarser than American, caster suger is a bit finer than American granulated and icing sugar is the same as American confectioner's sugar. There are several different kinds of brown sugar too, so sometimes it's hard to decide just what to get for a given recipe.

I'm having a helluva time with my new oven, too. I've never cooked with a convection oven before - you have to cook for less time and at a lower temperature. Most of it is guesswork right now, and we'll be eating our mistakes! Of course, it's also calibrated in Centigrade so everything has to be converted. Thank-goodness for Google's wonderful conversion feature! If you don't know about that, you should try it. Try typing the following into the Google search text window "32 degrees F in C" (without the quotes). It should come back with: "32 degrees Fahrenheit = 0 degrees Centigrade". You can use if for feet to meters, pounds to kilograms, etc. etc.

Well, it's time to go. Thank you all for your messages of congratulation/commiseration - it's been lovely to hear from you all. Please keep the communication lines open - we LOVE to hear from you.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Update on Yard Birds

The only notable additions to our yard list came this week with a pair of long-tailed tits. (OH SHUT UP - no more jokes, please!!!!!). They've been flitting around in the trees, but don't come to the feeders.

The pheasants are still about - 3 males and 5 females, but there's a lot more feather ruffling, displaying (by both sexes) and chasing around so we think they're starting to think about territories, harems and SEX! Because they keep harems we started giving them eastern sounding names like Fatima and Farouk, but have given up on that. Now the males are called Fatty, Thinny and Darkie because of their relative sizes and the coloring of their feathers. We can't name the females because we haven't been able to tell them apart!

Fatty does a lot of posturing and walks around with his feathers fluffed up. This hasn't actually seemed to have any benefits where the females are concerned. Thinny has a lot of grey on his back as well as his wings. He seems to be the most successful in rounding up the ladies! Darkie is considerably darker than the other two because his chest is a purply brown, he has no grey on his back and just a few streaks of grey in his wings. There is no grey on the top of his head either, just a slightly lighter shade of green. I didn't realise there was so much variation, but I gather that many different varieties have been bred and imported into the U.K.

The female pheasants remind me of a group of "old gals" out on a spree. They wander up to a plant and spend a little time pecking the seeds off it, then they all seem to drift off together in one direction or another. Occasionally a squabble will burst out. There will be a ruffling of feathers and a bit of chasing about and then they all go back to pecking and drifting about the garden.

We still have the same crowd at the feeder - lots of coal, blue and great tits and a couple of nuthatches - with a few blackbirds and robins scratching about on the ground. We haven't seen the woodpecker for weeks inspite of keeping a steady supply of fat for him so I think he's off to find a less cold spot for the winter.

So this is enough of an update for now. I'll try to write again before Christmas.

Stay in touch, please ...... mailto:joanarnfield@gmail.com

Engineering in the stream!

Remember how we all liked to play in streams or on the beach building and breaking dams and generally doing all sorts of waterworks? Well, I've been doing that today.

The weekend before Thanksgiving we had a tremendous cold snap. The temps in our valley never rose above freezing and we had frost on top of frost for five nights. Here's a picture I took:



The frost finally disappeared a couple of days before Thanksgiving, but it came back with snow on the day after the holiday. It was quite pretty and white when we woke up on Friday. And it put the whole town in a festive spirit for the Lighting of the Christmas tree in the town square on Saturday night. There was a childrens "fun-fair" consisting of some swings, a tombola and a roundabout; a parade led by the local fire engine, Bob the Builder and one of the Telly Tubbies, and carol singing in the square.

On Sunday, Church Stretton had its annual Christmas Fayre with stalls in various locations around the town, along with a hog roast outside one of the local restaurants, mince pies and mulled wine at the Scout Hut and various puddings (desserts) at the community center. The grand finale was a short service in the Church followed by a lantern/candle lit parade around town with stops for the singing of carols.

Since then, the weather has been slowly warming and getting wetter and over the last 2 days we've had a lot of rain. Of course, our little stream is swollen again and this time it was blocked by a branch which was collecting debris and starting to form a dam. This afternoon I donned wellies and rain-coat and went paddling in the ice cold stream to get the rubbish out of it. I don't think it would have flooded and I could have left it for a day or two, but it was actually fun to get into the water and do a bit of engineering!

Well, that's enough about the weather. I think I'll just do one more post.

Thanksgiving in Church Stretton

I meant to send you all a wish for a Happy Thanksgiving last week, but I ended up rushing around and never managed to post anything. Anyway, I hope all our American friends feasted and enjoyed themselves in the traditional manner.

Over here we don't normally celebrate Thanksgiving - it's a purely North American holiday, of course. However, I was determined to do something as we both really enjoy a holiday where the only thing required is that we eat a lot! So I invited some friends and relatives and set out to re-create a Thanksgiving dinner.

I nearly came a cropper on the Turkey. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't be able to find one, but I was looking around at the butcher's shop the week before and realised they didn't have any as it wasn't Christmas time. I could have gotten a frozen one from the supermarket, but I wanted a proper fresh one! I asked if they could get one and after a few phone calls the butcher said he'd have one for me on Tuesday. When I went in on Wednesday to pick it up he told me he'd sent it back because it was "blue". I imagined the worst, but he meant that it wasn't properly fattened and the skin had a bluish cast to it. He then told me that he'd sent his son off in the lorry to pick one up and his son would be back that evening.

I felt sorry that the blue turkey had met his end before his time, but was thrilled to be getting one at all. In the end I got a fine 14lb bird on Thursday morning. I thought it was really wonderful that they'd done all this just to get my Thanksgiving Turkey and I was profuse in my thanks when I stopped by on Friday! I think this bird had been dispatched rather quickly when the order came in as there were still a lot of feathers on it! We soon plucked them out with the needle nose pliers, though!!!!!

Raw cranberries weren't in evidence in the shops, either, so I had to settle for a jar of cranberry sauce. Still, it was tasty and added another layer of flavor to the lovely turkey with its cornbread and sausage stuffing.

Cornbread was another problem. There is no cornmeal to be had, as such. In the end, I took a risk and bought something labelled "Polenta". In the States, I think polenta would already be made up. The ingredients list of the packet I bought only contained one item: ground corn, so I took the risk. In the end, it made absolutely smashing cornbread. John and I scarfed a lot of it "just to test" and it was delicious so we had to make some more for the dinner!

I decided not make a green bean casserole and just did plain steamed green beans to which I added pine nuts and melted butter. Similarly, I didn't do glazed sweet potatoes, but cooked and sliced them and then added some crispy bacon bits and more melted butter.

One of our neighbours gave us a chunk of the huge pumpkin they had grown this summer (quite a rare veg/fruit for a Brit to grow in the first place) and I had pureed and frozen that some time ago. From this I was able to make a pie. Those of you who know me well know that I can't make pastry. Fortunately there is "jus-rol" frozen pie crust and I used that for the pumpkin and pecan pies. Pecans I found in the super-market, but of course there was no corn syrup. I used a very good substitute - maple flavored Tate and Lyles Golden Syrup.

So now you know more than you really needed to know about our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a good time. The food was good, the wine was uplifting, the company scintillating and the evening was a fine success. Next year, I think I'll invite more neighbours!

What a contrast!

Here we are at Ein Gedi beside the Dead Sea. It's early November and it's about 30 degrees C (90F).
























Now, here we are in Church Stretton (this is the same old view from my study window) in late November and it's about 5 degrees C below zero (<25F).


Thursday, November 17, 2005

We're in a FROST HOLLOW!!!!

In case you don't know what a frost hollow is, this is a place where cold air drains and pools up, usually experiencing temperatures which are several degress lower than the surrounding area.

We thought we might be in one because we're down in the valley and we have a wall at the end of the garden which prevents the cold air from draining away, and today we found out! Last night was beautiful with brillianr, clear moonlight and lots of stars. Needless to say our temperatures dropped to about -4C and we awoke to a thick heavy frost over the whole garden. The frost stayed all day. It never melted in spite of it being a lovely clear sunny day. The problem is that the sun doesn't get into our garden. It's so low in the sky that it never shines over the hill. It was quite warm in the village when I went to the market, but as I came down the drive I was amazed at the temperature gradient.

I don't think we'll be seeing the sun down here till February at the earliest!!!! Don't get me wrong. It's lovely and bright down here, and we can see the sun shining on the hills. The trees are glowing with colour, too. There's just no direct sunlight. Even if we were on the flat land, there wouldn't be much at this time of year. The sun rises about 8 and goes down before 4. But we'll make up for it with lovely long days in the summer.

On the bird front, we seem to be having a bit of a lull right now. We've had a few waves of tits come by, but the large numbers we were seeing before we went away are a thing of the past. We also seem to have lost one of our male pheasants. I think they've started to set up territories, so one of the males has claimed our garden and taken over the three females now. They seem to stick together more now and every afternoon they work over our lawn and patio for whatever they can glean. The male seems to like something that's stuck to our french windows as we've heared him pecking away at them a couple of times!

Our good news is that we both passed the theory and hazard perception parts of our driving tests this week. We got full marks on the theory and I did better than John on the hazard part - tee, hee!!!!!

John is just getting over the cold he got on the plane back from Israel and I think I'm coming down with it now. Since we also expect to have quite a few visitors over the next couple of weeks, it might be a few days till I post again. Please bear with us and keep checking back.

Write when you can .... mailto: joanarnfield@gmail.com

Sunday, November 13, 2005

We're Back!!!!



And you didn't even know we'd gone, did you?

Well, we've just got back from an 11 day trip to Israel. It was nice to get away from all the rain for a while. In Israel the weather was smashing, with temperatures in the low 70s during the day. Add lots of sunshine to that and you can see that it was a real treat.

It was great to see my twin aunties - Suzy and Louise. They seem very fit and well and took great care of us. We stayed in their appartment in downtown Tel Aviv. My two cousins are also well. Hagai chauffered us around and Becky came to visit from Haifa. Last Wednesday, while John gave a lecture at Tel Aviv University, I went to Haifa on the train along with the twins and Hagai's wife, Chantal. We met up with Becky and had a girls day out which included a wonderful lunch at a fish restaurant and a brief visit to the new gardens at the Ba'hai Temple. These are amazing - covering the side of Mount Carmel with both formal and informal plantings.

I had prepared a CD with old family photos and was able to give one each to my cousins - they were quite a hit! It started up some discussions about family history and I was able to get some information for my Turkish family tree. I doubt if I'll be able to get any more, the records are a bit hazy beyond my great-grandparents.

While we walked a lot in Tel Aviv, we weren't realy terribly touristy this time. We spent a lot of time visiting with relatives and friends, and we did manage a bit of bird-watching. Took most of a day to bird along the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv, and also took a trip to the Dead Sea with Hagai. While there we had a short walk in the Ein Gedi reserve and have decided we have to go back and do it more thoroughly. I took only a few pictures and they're quite disappointing, so I won't be including any in this post.

Here's our trip list - 42 species in total.

CORMORANTS
Great Cormorant
DUCKS, SWANS, GEESE
Egyptian Goose
Mallard
HERONS, EGRETS AND BITTERNS
Little Egret
Gray Heron
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
IBIS AND SPOONBILLS
Glossy Ibis
FALCONS AND CARACARAS
Eurasian Kestrel
RAILS AND COOTS
Common Moorhen
CRANES
Common Crane
PLOVERS AND LAPWINGS
Spur-winged Plover
PIGEONS AND DOVES
Rock Dove
Laughing Dove
Eurasian Collared-Dove
PARROTS
Rose-ringed Parakeet
KINGFISHERS
Common Kingfisher
White-throated Kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
BEE-EATERS
Blue-cheeked Bee-eater
HOOPOES
Hoopoe
WOODPECKERS
Syrian Woodpecker
CROWS AND JAYS
Eurasian Jay
Eurasian Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
Fan-tailed Raven
STARLINGS
Tristram's Starling
European Starling
Common Myna
OLD WORLD FLYCATCHERS
Black Redstart
White-crowned Wheatear
Blackstart
SWALLOWS
Rock Martin
BULBULS
White-spectacled Bulbul
CISTICOLAS AND ALLIES
Graceful Prinia
OLD WORLD WARBLERS
Wood Warbler
BABBLERS
Arabian Babbler
CHICKADEES, TITS
Great Tit
OLD WORLD SPARROWS
House Sparrow
WAGTAILS AND PIPITS
White Wagtail
Red-throated Pipit
SISKINS, CROSSBILLS AND ALLIES
Chaffinch

Let me know if you're reading this - I'm not sure who my audience is!!

email me:joanarnfield@gmail.com

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Aggression and the Greater Spotted Woodpecker!

Hurray! Saw our first Greater Spotted Woodpecker in the garden today. It came to a fat ball that John has on a hook in the "front" garden. This is the garden that he can see from his office and so he monitors it well. I come running everytime he yells!

Agression levels seem to be rising amongst our feathered visitors. I don't know why - it's still very mild so I don't think food is getting short yet. Maybe they agree with all the forecasters who say we're in for a cold winter this year. Here's the list of fights we have seen:

1. Yesterday one of the male pheasants chased a squirrel and pecked its tail. It actually stalked the little devil before it attacked! This is good news really because the pheasants tend to feed below the bird feeders to pick up all the stuff that drops and if they keep the squirrels away we'll have fewer problems above.

2. Today there were two males at the same feeders and they both chased a squirrel away.

3. The coal tits only come one at a time to the feeders. If two land at the same time, one of them chases the others off. Sometimes they actually grab onto each other and fall about as they fight.

4. The robin will take up residence inside the mesh (we have some armoured "squirrel proof" feeders) and will fight off any one else who comes nearby. Sometimes he sits there for quite a while and the tits won't come when the robin is there. He tried to chase off the woodpecker, too, but the woodie held his ground. There was much flapping and exitement, but the robin retreated that time.

5. This afternoon there were three female pheasants on the lawn. Two of them had a face-off which included much head bobbing, pretend pecking of the ground, squatting with heads thrust forward and the ocasional lunge at the other. In the end they had a real squabble with lots of wing flapping and jumping up into the air. It all ended when the third female intervened. She's bigger and just ran into the melee and chased them off!

Here's a list of all birds seen in the garden so far. Only 20, not a very long list, realy, but it's a start:

HAWKS, EAGLES AND KITES
Eurasian Sparrowhawk
Common Buzzard
PHEASANTS, GROUSE, QUAIL AND TURKEYS
Ring-necked Pheasant
PIGEONS AND DOVES
Common Wood-Pigeon
WOODPECKERS
Great Spotted Woodpecker
CROWS AND JAYS
Black-billed Magpie
Eurasian Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
THRUSHES
Eurasian Blackbird
OLD WORLD FLYCATCHERS
European Robin
NUTHATCHES
Eurasian Nuthatch
WRENS
Winter Wren
SWALLOWS
Common House-Martin
CHICKADEES, TITS
Coal Tit
Great Tit
Blue Tit
WAGTAILS AND PIPITS
Gray Wagtail
ACCENTORS
Dunnock
SISKINS, CROSSBILLS AND ALLIES
Chaffinch
Eurasian Bullfinch

Time for dinner .... bye bye!

E-Mail: joanarnfield@gmail.com

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Driving Lessons!



Well, we're taking our driving lessons and it ain't easy. After 40 years of driving, we're having to learn/un-learn an awful lot! We thought we could get away with just a couple of hours of refresher lessons, but it's going to take a bit longer than expected as we have so many habits which would fail us if we didn't change them.

The driving test over here is very strict. First you have to take a theory test, which consists of multiple choice questions based on a book called the "Highway Code". Then there's the hazard perception test in which you watch short videos and click the mouse when you see a potential or developing hazard.

The actual driving test comes after all that. They watch you like a hawk and you have to complete various sections. The backing up part can be parallel parking, backing into a parking bay and/or backing around a corner. You have to do a hill start and a three point turn. There are certain ways you MUST do things or they fail you and that's the part that's really hard.

Still, I think we'll come out of this as better drivers. If it wasn't such a bureaucratic nightmare I think it would be a good idea to re-test people at regular intervals. We all forget what we learned in driving school and we could all do with a refresher. In this country, especially, where the roads are so narrow and people drive so much faster, driving lessons are a great way to keep up your skills and boost your confidence on the road.

I'm experimenting with format for this posting. George asked me to post my e-mail address at the end of each post so you can send me your comments. I would have turned on the "comments" thingie on these postings except that I see people use them to post spamming adverts.

E-Mail: joanarnfield@gmail.com

Friday, October 21, 2005

Rain, Rain, Go Away




This isn't the last rose of summer, there are lots more to come yet, but it is looking a bit bedraggled as heavy rain hits the Stretton Valley.





E-Mail: joanarnfield@gmail.com



Posted by Picasa

Here's our pheasant!

I think this is the father! Posted by Picasa

Autumn is here

It's time to report on our doings of the last couple of weeks. These amount to not very much, actually. Progress on the house has slowed right down. We now have lots more boxes - this time full of bookshelves that John has to erect. Once they're in, we can see what else we need in the way of storage.

The garden is sinking into a decline as the autumn comes on. There's lots of stuff lying down and I'm not sure whether to cut it off or just let it go back into the soil. Other things seem to just be coming into flower so it continues to be very interesting. Next week I'm having a driving lesson in Shrewsbury and I think I'll hit the library to get some more info.

I'm loathe to really get stuck into the garden when there's so much to do in the house, but at the same time the house is at a standstill till we get the storage problems sorted out. AAAAARRRRRGH! It's all just excuses for me to loll about and feel sorry for myself. ;-)

We've been adopted by a family of pheasants. At least, I think it's a family. There are two females and two males. One female and male are definitely mature adults, and we think the other two are just now growing up. They're very pretty and John has been putting out some corn for them. The male calls everynow and then - it's very exciting except when he does it in the middle of the night!

The garden is also full of coal tits. They're everywhere. We've got several feeders up and there's a constant stream of birds (mostly coal tits, but also great tit, blue tit, nuthatch and robin) to all of them except the nyger thistle. We haven't seen any finches at that yet. There are chaffinches about, but they haven't visited yet. We haven't seen any green finches or gold finches though John saw a small flock of bull finches coming through up the drive.

The weather has deteriorated a bit, now. It's raining a lot more now, although there are usually bright spells in between the showers. Temperatures are now mainly between 8 and 13 C (or just between the upper 40s and lower 50s for our American friends!), which is just right for a light jacket when you're out walking about. We still haven't had a frost, which is a bit peculiar. Usually, we would have had a light frost by now. Still that isn't stopping the trees from turning.

We have a good few maples in this area and they are doing their fall thing and turning beautifully. Our next door neighbours have a sweet chestnut that's dumping spiky fruit in our driveway. The chestnuts are shrivelled and inedible, unfortunately. At the top of the drive there's a thick, wet covering of beech leaves and at the bottom we have a good coating of moss on the tarmac. Things could get slippery so we're going to have to do something about this soon.

Well, it's time to stop avoiding work and get on with something .... maybe I can put it off a bit longer by making a cup of coffee ..... mmmmmm

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Pictures at last!

Hi all!

Thanks for your patience. I've finally dug out my camera, taken some pictures and hooked it all up so I can upload them to the web. You'll see a representative sample below.

Autumn is on its way now. The Virginia creeper has turned a deep, dark red and there's quite a bit of colour in the trees now. The local churches and schools are having harvest festivals and the evenings are really drawing in. I'm not looking forward to the long, dark nights of the winter - let's hope we'll have the moving chaos sorted out so that we can get on with some indoor projects.

Welcome to our patio - all we need now are some friends, some warm, dry weather and a gas grill! We put a bit of cat food out there the other night, hoping to see a hedgehog! We didn't, we got a badger instead! The next night we got a cat, so we've abandoned that project and will let our local mammals fend for themselves.Posted by Picasa

Here's what you see when you get to the bottom of our driveway. The kaffir lilies are just beautiful right now. This bed is the one that's going to need a bit of work. There are lots of wonderful plants in there, but we may have to cut some back to expose others, and we may have to move a few about. Those of you who know how I garden, know that I'm a bit afraid of moving things about and digging and splitting things up , so this is going to be hard for me!Posted by Picasa

The garden is still looking lovely - it's amazing how many plants start or continue to bloom in the winter here. Behind the little rock garden is the stream. If you sit in those Adirondack chairs you can hear it as it splashes over a little waterfall a few yards away.Posted by Picasa

We have the living room set up enough so we can sit and watch the telly. Thanks for all the cards! What you can't see in this picture are all the piles of "stuff" behind me. Posters and pictures are stacked against the wall, there's a second rolled up rug and we have a complete collection of my Mum's living room furniture in this room as well!Posted by Picasa

This is what the chaos is like in our house right now. This is going to be my study one day! Other parts of the house are equally messed up, but we're making progress - honestly!Posted by Picasa

Here's a picture from the window of my room, taken just after a shower passed over us. I have the best view from the house. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

We've got Broadband!

Hurray! We've finally set up our broadband connections and found enough adapters to plug in our normal computers. At last, we're back on line at less than a snail's pace and it's heavenly. We've been very frustrated by the slowness of our phone/laptop connection. Those of you who have been holding back on the e-mails can feel free to write to us now. We'll do our best to respond in the next couple of weeks.

Our container arrived last Thursday. Well, it got to the top of the driveway, but the driver refused to come down 'cos he didn't think he'd be able to get back up! Then the movers arrived and they too felt their lorry was too big to come down. Meanwhile a major traffice jam (one lorry - this is major for C.S.) developed as they were blocking the road. They called for a smaller van, which had to come from Hereford, and while they waited for that they transferred the stuff from the container to the big lorry so the container driver could get back to Manchester.

These little snafus have occurred at every step of this move, starting more than a year ago when I first got breast cancer, and continuing today when John's driving license was returned because he sent in his old passport number for identity purposes and by the time they processed his license application it was no longer valid because he'd renewed his passport in the meantime!

In the end, our goods from the U.S. were all unloaded by about 3 pm, leaving us with an almighty mess. There were boxes and curiously shaped packages throughout the house. We've been unpacking ever since and there's still an awful lot of stuff left to unwrap. In spite of buying what seemed to be a huge house, we have way too much stuff and no-where to store it. English houses rarely have enough closet space.

John's 63 book boxes are unopened in the breakfast room (which has now been re-named the library) and we've also used that room to store all the packing paper. We've been tossing it in there and rapidly built a paper mountain. Every now and then one of us goes in and smooths some of it out and folds it. I want to keep it as I have plans for some papier mache sculpture. However, as soon as the mountain is eroded by folding we build it up again by tackling more boxes!

On the wildlife front, we've seen another badger. This is a smaller one and it came onto the patio to eat some cat food we had put out to attract hedgehogs. We haven't actually seen any of the latter, but there must be some about and we're hoping to get them out where we can feed them. Unfortunately, the cat food also attracted a big black cat (duh!), a carrion crow and lots of flies!

On the food front, we've found that the C.S. butcher makes wonderful sausages and is a supplier of other good meats and we've been enjoying some good, simple but hearty meals at home. We've both lost a couple of pounds from all the manual work we've been doing, but it's hard to resist all the goodies especially when we see things we haven't had since we were teenagers.

And on that note .... it's time to go pour a glass of ginger beer and settle down in front of the telly ......

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Sunshine in Church Stretton!

Many thanks to all of you who have sent cards, e-mails and notes of welcome to our new house. I haven't replied to any of them yet because we're still busy unpacking and organizing. We have a VERY slow phone connection and this combined with my old VERY slow laptop makes it very difficult for us to do much on-line stuff at present.
Never mind, we've heard that our container will arrive in Thamesport on Friday, so we will soon have better computers (if they work once we get them set up!). We're still debating about what broadband service to hook up with - there seem to be lots of providers and each does something or has some different perk. It doesn't help that I've never used broadband over the phone; I don't understand the equipment or the process - need to do a bit of learning and it's difficult without rapid web access.
To those of you demanding photos - please be patient. I haven't even found my camera yet! And when I do, I can't upload anything 'cos it's too slow and I don't have the software to get the photos up to the blog. George suggested that our e-mail and blog silences meant we were playing golf. Ha Ha! This afternoon was so lovely that we decided to go for a walk and climb up the hill you can see in the photo of the house. To do that we walked up through the golf course and there is NO WAY we will ever be able to play on that course. You tee off on one hill and the green is on the next mountain!!!!! It's the highest golf course in England and it looks to be a killer. If your ball doesn't go down a badger sett it will get lost in all the bracken. There are sheep sheltering in the bunkers and ravens flying over head. We saw bunnies, kestrels, stonechats, and crows while we were out. It was a strenuous climb but worth it for the views from the top.
We were really tired when we got home, inspite of a stop in the National Trust Tea Shop at the base of the hill. I took a nap. Yesterday we worked all day trying to get stuff sorted out. I'm trying to make some room to take all the U.S. stuff when it comes. John has his study up and running so we can both use the laptop in there, and the kitchen, living and dining rooms are tidy enought to keep us going till the rest of our stuff arrives, but my room is a complete shambles as I've been dumping everything in it prior to sorting it and moving it into the attic. Unfortunately, that's the room where a lot of the furniture coming from the U.S. will end up!!!!!
With all the work in the house we've been neglecting the garden. John did mow the lawn because that won't wait, but there's a lot of dead-heading and weeding to do. I'm beginning to identify some of the plants, and I've started to get a few ideas of what shrubs should be cut back or cleared out. Everything here grows like wildfire and if you're not careful the good stuff gets engulfed by the things that self seed and run riot. The place is full of beech, holly and laurel seedlings which I'll have to get out before they're too big.
We've put out our first feeder and have attracted coal tits, great tits and blue tits. We're already fighting the grey squirrels, too! We seem to have three regulars. We put out some bread on the lawn the other day and had magpies, crows and jackdaws all over the place. Blackbirds feed on the lawns at dawn and dusk, and we can see lots of chaffinches, but they haven't come in close yet and in the evening the sky is full of house martins. The most common birds are the wood pigeons. These are the B2 bombers of the neighbourhood, swooping and powering around from tree to tree. A couple of immature pheasant wandered through last week, don't know where they came from or where they went, but we also saw a fox about the same time so I hope they were cautious and wary!
I guess I'd better stop now. Keep those e-mail coming and I'll write back as soon as I have some energy and time!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

We're Salopians!

Yes Boys and Girls, we're finally here in Church Stretton. The movers packed up our Stanmore house yesterday and they loaded the truck and brought us here today. It was a good run .... just about 3 hours door to door .... but as we came north and west the skies clouded over and it started to rain just as we started to unload the truck. It has been raining on and off ever since, but that's ok.

We've seen a few birds already, but the big thrill of the evening was the BADGER!!!!! It ran across the lawn at about 7:45 this evening. I think it had been to the stream for a drink.

We've set up our bed, bought a few staples in the local supermarket, had dinner in the local Indian restaurant (quite yummy), and now we're sitting in the room which is to be John's study. That's because we found a co-ax connector in here and can pick up 3 channels on TV.

Our next door neighbours came over while we were out and left a card. I called and had a chat - things are really looking up now.

Time for a cup of tea ..... it's so good to be back here and in a real house at last.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Stage 1 Complete!

Hooray! We've finally made it to the U.K.

The movers did a great job of packing up our U.S. flat and we waved goodbye to our stuff on Tuesday. In the end, I only found one thing the movers had missed - a pewter tankard that was a present from my college room mates when I turned 21! Fortunately, there was plenty of room for it in my suitcase, and it is now with my Dad's old tankards waiting for the next set of movers.

Spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights in a hotel at Columbus airport. Wednesday we tied up the last of our loose ends, sold the car, finished cleaning the flat and generally raced around like mad things! In the evening we drank champagne and dined on Big Macs!!!!! Thursday we flew out at 6:55 am!

Our trip over was uneventfull. Everything went very smoothly and we arrived here, in Stanmore, soon after midnight on Thursday. We had to get up early yesterday (Friday) to get to the bank and take care of the final transfer of money for the house. That is now all done and, hopefully, the movers will show up on Tuesday to pack us up.

Wednesday is the actual moving day. Jill will move out of Peel Wyke in the morning as we are moving out of Ladycroft Walk. In the afternoon she will take up residence in Devon and we will move into Peel Wyke. It's a stupid system. Too easy to hit a snag and foul the whole thing up. I wonder if there's a movement to change the house buying and selling process over here. If there is, I want to support it. In some ways this move has been more stressful than the breast cancer was.

Still, never mind. It's almost over. Let's talk about nicer things. The weather here is glorious. Temps in the high 60s and crystal clear blue skies. Very unusual, but extremely pleasant. This weekend is a long bank-holiday weekend, so we are going to do a few things and take it easy the rest of the time. A little break will be welcome before we tackle the next move. After that, there's only one more upheaval when the american stuff arrives in 6 to 8 weeks. Then we can really start to settle in.

For the moment we will be living in a gorgeous house with some very grotty old furniture. We reckon it will take at least a year to get organized and probably longer to really get all the furniture and decoration done the way we want it.

Well, stay in touch - we now have our laptop set up and are ready to continue with e-mails, and ..... stay tuned for the next installment of the Arnfield Moving Adventures ...

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Our New House


Here's our new house in Church Stretton. This is a view of the east end of the house, taken by the estate agent early this year. The French windows that you can see open from the living and dining rooms onto the patio. Bodbury Hill lies behind - it's the location of the highest golf course in England!Posted by Picasa

At Last!!!!!

We've just received the e-mail from our solicitor that contracts have been exchanged! That means the sale/purchase will more than likely go through. Our English move is booked to take place on August 31st, so with a bit of luck we will become residents of Church Stretton on that day.

We haven't booked our flights yet ... still waiting to find out the exact day when we will move out of our Columbus flat. That should take place sometime next week and then we'll hightail it out of here for a few months.

We're planning to get a return ticket and come back in February (brrrrrr!) for the Columbus/Dayton Polymer Clay Guild's Buckeye Bash followed by the AAG in Chicago.

We've been building a mailing list of all our e-mail contacts (over 290 so far) and will send out our address change information within the next week.

Stay tuned .... and keep in touch, please.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

No more real news

I'm soooooo frustrated!

It's now almost a month since my last post and we STILL don't know when we'll be moving. We have heard that the contracts will be signed shortly, but until that happens we can't be sure that the whole thing won't fall apart on us.

I can't believe how long this is taking. Our U.K. friends warned us that it is a long, slow, stressful process, but this is even worse than they predicted.

We now have estimates from moving firms on both sides of the Atlantic, but we can't confirm with them until we have a fixed date for leaving here and moving my Mum's stuff from Stanmore to Church Stretton.

Stay tuned .... we'll be posting here as soon as we know anything, and we'll be sending out a change of address e-mail at about the same time.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005


Here I am!!!!! Posted by Picasa

More Hair!!!!!

My hair is now back to full thickness, although it's still very short. Latest doctor reports are very encouraging - my radiation doctor says he'll come visit me in England for my next checkup!

Haven't heard anything from our various estate agents and solicitors since we came back to the U.S. so have to assume that all is well. I can't believe it - we could be on our way in 5 weeks time. I feel like I ought to be doing something, but since most of our stuff was packed a year ago and never got unpacked, there isn't much to do really.

For those of you who haven't visited the Church Stretton web site yet, here's a link:

http://www.churchstretton.co.uk

Our house is very close to the Carding Mill Valley National Trust site:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hbcache/property123.htm

Here's a web site featuring Shropshire:

http://www.go2.co.uk/

and here are some panoramic views of the Shropshire hills (scroll down to the Shropshire section):

http://www.walkingbritain.co.uk/gallery/panoramas/index.shtml

and finally, the Shropshire Ornithological Society Web page for our birding friends:

http://www.shropshirebirds.com/

Hope this has given you a taste of our new area, we're looking forward to seeing you there!

Thursday, July 07, 2005

We're Back - and safe!

Hi all!

We're starting to get phone calls and e-mails about whether we're safe after the troubles in London. The answer is YES!!!!!

We got back from the UK very late on Monday night and are still trying to catch our collective breath and recover from jet-lag.

It was a really successful trip. We've "sold" the house and "bought" another. All this is subject to contract, so we're not celebrating just yet. However, if all goes according to plan we'll be leaving here in mid-August and moving into our new home the 1st of September.

I had hoped to have pictures of the new house, but unfortunately it has been removed from the realtor's web site already. Anyway, it's a 4 bedroomed "chalet" bungalow (a sort of Cape Cod, I think). It has a large and absolutely beautiful garden complete with a little stream. It's about 6 minutes walk from the shops, pubs, restaurants in Church Stretton and about 2 minutes walk from the Carding Mill Valley which is a National Trust property which leads up onto the uplands of the Long Mynd.

The latter is a long range of hills complete with winberries (blueberries), heather, gorse and lots of sheep. The Mynd is criss-crossed by footpaths and bridleways and is breathtakingly beautiful. The whole area centered on Church Stretton is called the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and most of the town itself has been declared a conservation area, so there are limits on how much more development can be done there and constraints on building design, use of space, etc.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Moving along!

Well, we put the house on the market on Friday and had an offer on Monday! We've now accepted it, so the sale of the London house is going forward.

Yesterday we took a look at our two short-listed properties in C.S. along with Joy and John. After a long discussion in the pub we decided on the top property and this morning we put in an offer. A short while after we got a call back, we negotiated a little and it's all settled!

So, now it's up to surveyors and solicitors. If all goes well, we'll be moving to C.S. within a couple of months.

What a relief.

Stay tuned for pictures and more information. ......

Friday, June 10, 2005

Wanna buy a house?

We put the house on the market today. We've decided not to rent it out, so now we're waiting to see if we've priced it right and if anyone will like it enough to want to buy it. I have vewry mixed feelings about this. We first moved here in 1959 - that's 46 years ago!

We visited John's school friend and his wife last weekend. They have agreed to act for us in the sale of the house, and in the purchase of the new one. This is good news as we may not be able to see the whole thing through before we have to go back to Columbus.

We spent the last few days looking for houses in C. S. We've found three that we like, but we really can't procede till we have some sort of bid on ours, so we're taking a break for a week while we wait to see if there is any interest in the house.

The weather here has been very good so far. Sunny a lot of the time, and very dry. It's so beautiful at this time of year with lots of flowers and spring-fresh foliage.

Tomorrow J. and C. arrive for their holiday. We're meeting them at the airport and we're off to the seaside for the day. We're going to introduce them to the English seaside experience - sheltering from the wind, walks on the pier, cockles, winkles and sticks of rock. Tee-hee!

Friday, June 03, 2005

Progress Update

Hi there!

Everything is fine. We've been interviewing realtors and entertaining John's sister and her husband. They've been very helpful - doing lots of work in the garden and giving us helpful advice on house hunting and car buying.

Realtors inform us that our house shows well, and they've all agreed on what price we will get. It's pretty well what we expected, but it's nice to know that our estimates are in the right ball-park. All the work of re-decorating and updating seem to have paid off.

I've had a chat with my primary school best friend - what a treat. It's been about 40 years since we were last in contact!

Now to start talking to lawyers and doing a bit of house hunting.

Stay tuned ........

Monday, May 23, 2005

Change of E-Mail address

Please note that my e-mail address is changing. Please use joanarnfield@gmail.com for all communications from now on.

Here I am today. I'm wondering whether I should turn it completely white! Posted by Hello

Here's our trip list from our recent birding foray to Lake Erie. We stayed in Port Clinton, Ohio and took the Jet Boat to Leamington, Ontario for a day at Pelee National Park. Because of the strong East-North-East winds most of the little birds were on the Ohio side and we had a couple of great days at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

Trip List (5/11/2005 to 5/14/2005)

GREBES
Pied-billed Grebe
CORMORANTS
Double-crested Cormorant
DUCKS, SWANS, GEESE
Trumpeter Swan
Canada Goose
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
HERONS, EGRETS AND BITTERNS
Snowy Egret
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
IBIS AND SPOONBILLS
Glossy Ibis
White-faced Ibis
NEW WORLD VULTURES
Turkey Vulture
HAWKS, EAGLES AND KITES
Bald Eagle
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
RAILS AND COOTS
American Coot
SANDPIPERS
Greater Yellowlegs
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
PLOVERS AND LAPWINGS
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
GULLS AND TERNS
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
PIGEONS AND DOVES
Mourning Dove
SWIFTS
Chimney Swift
HUMMINGBIRDS
Ruby-throated Hummingbird

WOODPECKERS
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
TYRANT FLYCATCHERS
Eastern Kingbird
CROWS AND JAYS
Blue Jay
American Crow
VIREOS AND ALLIES
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
THRUSHES
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
MOCKINGBIRDS AND THRASHERS
Gray Catbird
STARLINGS
European Starling
NUTHATCHES
Red-breasted Nuthatch
WRENS
House Wren
GNATCATCHERS
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
SWALLOWS
Tree Swallow
Purple Martin
Barn Swallow
KINGLETS
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
CHICKADEES, TITS
Black-capped Chickadee
OLD WORLD SPARROWS
House Sparrow
WAGTAILS AND PIPITS
American Pipit
SISKINS, CROSSBILLS AND ALLIES
American Goldfinch
NEW WORLD WARBLERS
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Palm Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Common Yellowthroat
BUNTINGS, SPARROWS, TANAGERS, ALLIES
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
BLACKBIRDS, GRACKLES, ORIOLES
Baltimore Oriole
Orchard Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird

Species seen - 84

This is what I looked like at the end of chemo, with no hair at all! Posted by Hello

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Some of my Figurines


Sheila's Weaving Woman Posted by Hello

Wes Montgomery Posted by Hello

Larry Posted by Hello

Patsy Posted by Hello

A pair of nature lovers in my mother's garden! Posted by Hello

Terry's merman Posted by Hello

Bob's geeky binary clock Posted by Hello

Gail's clock Posted by Hello

My Resume

JOAN M. ARNFIELD

E-Mail: joanarnfield@gmail.com

Current Position

I am now retired, although I sometimes take part-time consulting jobs helping people with the Ohio State University main-frame, web pages and other computer related problems.

Positions Held

Senior Systems Manager, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 7/98 to 10/00
Working title: Lab and User Services Coordinator

I was the day-to-day manager of the Sociology Research Laboratory and I managed and developed the department's computer/user interface. This included user-interface design and maintenance; procurement, installation and maintenance of software; training of and consultation with faculty, staff and students on the use of this interface and its software; management of graduate teaching associates who help with maintenance and consultation and maintenance of network functions which directly impact on users.

Computer Specialist/Systems Manager, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, 1/90 to 6/98

Job involved the provision of software (both micro and main-frame) and hardware consultation to faculty, staff and students; equipment installation, documentation, maintenance, repair and inventory; software installation, documentation, and maintenance; presentation of workshops on departmental and university computer equipment and software; and maintenance and administration of the Sociology Department Banyan Network.

Laboratory Supervisor, Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, 9/84 to 1/90

Position included most of the jobs listed above, in addition to work on cartographic and micro-meteorological instrumentation, the departmental equipment and space inventories, helping to plan the renovation of Derby Hall and providing assistance to the State Climatologist.

Partner, WCMH-TV Weather Service, 5/82 to 8/84

Providing weather forecasts and other meteorological services to agriculture, broadcasting and construction industries.

Temporary teaching and research positions at The Ohio State University and Ohio Wesleyan University, 9/74 to 9/94

These include full responsibility teaching of Physical Geography and Programming courses, research assistant to the State Climatologist and Coordinator of the First International Symposium on Acid Precipitation and the Forest Ecosystem.

Prior to immigration to the U.S. in 1972 I held full time positions as a teaching assistant at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario and as the Circulation Supervisor in the Science Library at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.

Education

Atmospheric Sciences Program, The Ohio State University. Admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D., Spring 1979

Geography Department, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. M.A. degree awarded, November, 1971

Geography Department, University of Wales, University College of Swansea. B.Sc. Honours degree awarded, June 1967

South Hampstead High Schools for Girls (GPDST), London, England

Ecclesbourne Road Primary School, London, England

Awards Received

American Field Service Scholar to Bettendorf High School, Iowa, 1962-1963

Middlesex Major County Award, 1964-1967

Ontario Graduate Fellowship, 1967-1969

Community Activities

Numerous presentations to community organizations (Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Sierra Club, Girl Scouts, Garden clubs, elementary, middle and high school classes) from 1963 to present.

1996/2000 Membership Chair, Columbus Audubon Society

1997/2000 Member of Board of Trustees, Columbus Audubon Society

2003/present Database and GIS Volunteer for Audubon Ohio

Personal Activities

Nature study, hiking, travel, polymer clay modelling and domestic crafts

Personal Statement

I have been very fortunate in my study and work opportunities. On the one hand, my year as an exchange student in Bettendorf, Iowa and my jobs as librarian, salesperson, teacher and weather forecaster have taught me how to deal with both academics and members of the general public. I used this experience to teach workshops and to help members of my department solve their micro and main-frame computer problems. I also coordinated a university wide mailing list of computer professionals (DISTCONS) and have served on the Provost's Task Force for Implementation of the Computing Plan and the University Computer Guidelines Committee.

On the other hand, my experience as a graduate student along with my jobs in Geography and Sociology have given me a good background in computing. From the late '60s till the late '80s most of my computing experience was with main-frame FORTRAN programming. Since then my attention has turned to micro-computing, networking and database management, although I still help faculty and students with JCL and other main-frame computer problems. In Sociology I was part of a team of three full-time professional staff, eight graduate students and six undergraduate lab monitors who maintained three labs, seven network servers and fifty faculty/staff desktop PCs. I think of myself as a team-player, but took responsibility for the day-to-day running of the labs and the installation of networked software. I developed a departmental database for administrative use in addition to the Sociology Web Pages and on-line help system. Since "retiring" from Sociology I have done some work for OSU faculty transferring data from main-frame tape to PC based systems, assisting with data cleaning and manipulation and developing data bases.

Since retirement I have been working on volunteer projects. These included development of web pages for the Columbus Polymer Clay Guild and work on an Important Bird Areas Database and GIS for Audubon Ohio.

This is me with some of my polymer clay figurines. Posted by Hello
This is a test of the blogger. It's the first time I've done this and I'm not sure what I can do and what I even want to do.

Basically, I'm wondering if this could be a replacement for my web page.