Pre-Christmas Updates

It's December already! I've been working to catch up on all sorts of indoor jobs because the weather has been too wet to go outside. Of course, I couldn't do much outside anyway since I haven't been able to kneel down for the last few weeks. That being said, my knee surgery has been quite successful. I can straighten it a lot better and I can almost do a squat now! Getting it completely bent is now the object of exercises and stretchings and then we must work on strength so that my knees are stable enough to go rough walking in the hills.

Last month I was busy making stars like those you can see in the picture above.  Each one can be made from a sheet of A4 or letter sized paper.  Or you can make a huge one by making each point from one piece of A4 or letter sized paper and joining them together.  I made one of those from white card and it's on our front door - it's the biggest snowflake you ever saw!!!!!  We're selling the shiny ones pictured above at Scrappies and I've also posted the instructions on the Scrappies web site - they're really easy to make.

John has been away in Montreal this week on his annual EPIIC meetings. I stayed here this time. I took the opportunity to live on smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and get on with my filing. I've invested in a nice new filing cabinet and I'm slowly getting my room sorted out. What a chore! I have un-filed things that have been piling up for three years!

I'm also taking the time to catch up on on all the blogs and websites.  The Arts Festival events are now fixed for next year and Scrappies is ready for Christmas. There are some new pictures on the Peel Wyke Gardening site, even though there's been no work!  I've also started a new blog for the owners of our shared boat, the Narrow Boat Longsdon.  It will be open for all the boat owners to post logs and photos, but I'm the only user so far.  We bought our share back in May (I think) but the boat went into the water in August and we had our maiden voyage (down the Oxford Canal) in early September, click here for photos.  The boat is part of the Ownerships scheme.  This is a long running scheme where multiple people buy shares in a boat and the boat is looked after by a central organization.  It's not a time share as such.  You don't get the same weeks on the boat each year, but there's a rota where each owner's choosing priority changes each year.  So some years you get to choose your weeks early, and other years you're further down the list.  Joy and John have bought a share in the same boat.

Longsdon is 58ft long and only 7ft wide.  It has a rear galley and is steered from the outside at the back of the boat.  Many of our friends from overseas aren't familiar with the UK Canal system, but it's a large network of canals which were used commercially up till the 1950s and which are now maintained mostly for tourism.  Boaters run and steer their own boats and manipulate the locks by themselves, also.  For a plan of the boat, click here then click on the link for a plan.  For a series of interactive panoramic shots of the inside and outside of the narrow boat Torksey click here.  Longsdon is very similar except for slightly different patterns and fabrics in the upholstery and curtains.

Well, it's Sunday night - that means its time for a nice roast dinner (duck tonight - yum) and an evening in front of the fire and the telly!  Gotta go and get the table ready.

Ooops - a little problem in the operating theatre!

Well, that was interesting!

On Saturday I went to the Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry to have minor arthroscopic surgery on my right knee.  I had a torn meniscus and my knee kept "locking up".  In addition, I couldn't straighten it completely and I couldn't bend it as far as the other one.

After a bit of discussion it was decided that I could have a spinal block, so I would be awake during the surgery.  If I had general anaesthesia they would keep me over-night in the high dependancy ward because of my sleep apnoea.  I was hoping they could do the 20 minute operation and there would be nothing to stop me going home later in the day.

Unfortunately, this didn't work out.  The block spread up my spine as well as down, so the paralysis and numbness first made me feel sick and then made me faint.  Apparently, my blood pressure fell and my pulse rate dropped to about 20.  I'm not sure but I think the block reached the nerves controlling my heart.  It got most of the thoracic nerves, but didn't get up into the cervical nerves, so it didn't stop my diaphragm and I kept breathing.  There's a good article on spinals at this web site.

They treated the problem with atropine and ephedrine and after a little while (I don't know how long it took, but the anaesthetist said it seemed like ages!) I came round to find the anaesthetis calling my name and looking very anxious.  Once my blood pressure started to go up they got on with the operation and since I was concious I was able to watch the action on a monitor.

So now I've seen the inside of my knee!  The surgeon found a tear in the meniscus and cut it off and then clipped off lots of rough bits of cartilage.  At the end he showed me the healthy bone (white) and the parts that have osteo-arthritis (pink).  There's not much can be done for that, but it isn't bothering me much yet, so we'll hope it doesn't progress much further.

When I got back to the recovery room, they tested to see how high the block had reached.  It was up to my armpits!  It shouldn't have gone above my waist! The aneasthetist stopped by to make sure I was all right and to explain what had happened. I was pleased to see him - he's very attractive! He came by to see me on the ward, too, twice(!) - a really nice guy!

Eventually, they wheeled me off to a ward and I was told I would stay the night.  I'd pretty much figured that out ahead of time ;-)  The anaesthetic slowly wore off.  I felt the numbness leave my chest and then found I could wiggle my toes.  As all this was happening I was making friends with the three other people in my bay.  They were all very nice and we had a good laugh.  But they are all in there for far worse stuff than me.  Two have had hip replacements and one a knee replacement.

After a while I was just able to lift my legs off the bed and sometime after supper they let me use a zimmer frame to walk to the loo!  I was glad about that as I didn't want to have to use a bottle or a bed-pan.

That first walk was very weird.  Not particularly painful, but my knee felt like it didn't belong to me.  Since then I've been exercising it and walking about on it and now 48 hours after the op I'm able to walk about the house, including up and down stairs, without the crutches they sent me home with. 

They also sent me home with painkillers that I haven't had to take, exercises which I am doing faithfully and letters for doctors and physios.  It appears that I will be doing some physio with a local practitioner and I'm glad of that for my knees need strengthening if I'm to tackle the hills and take my friend's dogs out for walks.

The bandages have come off and I'm left with two small dressings covering the places where the instruments went into my knee.  It's still a bit stiff and swollen but I made it to the neighbour's on crutches this afternoon and let them feed me with tea and cake!  I haven't tried the hill up the drive, yet.  I may leave that for a day or two!

Well, that's all the gory details - I'm glad it's over and really pleased at my progress so far.

Nothing Since April?

I last posted on this blog in April. You might be tempted to think that we've done nothing since then, but you'd be wrong! We've done a lot!

May:

We spent most of the month of May at home, working on the garden and our volunteer commitments. The willow nest got finished and is absolutely lovely, though we haven't been able to sit in it much because the weather for the rest of the summer was abysmal. There's more garden information at peelwyke.wordpress.com. Helen and Kelvan kindly let us do a couple of rows of the weaving ourselves, so we learned first hand what hard work it ways! The second photo shows Helen and Kelvan helping us celebrate when the whole thing was done. You can see how tired and mucky they look.

We had a great deal of fun with Helen and Kelvan. We sat on the patio and swapped craft ideas and did a bit of willow work at the table. I also made a polymer clay head to embellish the nest. I'm planning to do some more embellishment, but it may take a while - it's so hard to find time.

But the most exciting thing about May was that we became boat owners.  Well, part owners.  We now have a 1/12 share in Longsdon, a Narrow Boat moored on the Grand Union Canal at Stockton Top Marina near Leamington Spa.  In my next post, I'll be telling you more about this and about our maiden voyage!

June:

June was spent mostly working on volunteer activities, particularly the Arts Festival. Entry forms were coming in from artists, publicity had to be distributed and there seemed to be a hundred and one things to do. However, we did have a wonderful day with Joy and John's Swiss Relatives who all came to visit. After they walked around our garden, we all had coffee and cake on the patio, then took off in three cars (there were 12 of us!) for a tour of the Mynd. We had lunch at the Crown in Wentnor. I think everyone enjoyed that. It's a very traditional English pub, with low ceilings and a cosy interior and they make superb pies!

July:

July was another busy month.  A look at our diary shows activities almost every day.  The beginning of the month was taken up with last minute work for the Arts Festival - delivering and setting up notice boards, data entry, web site work, making sure we had all the necessary supplies for the exhibition, etc. etc.

Then the last two weeks were taken up with the actual festival itself.  This was a resounding success this year.  We managed to break even on funds, even though we had no external funding.  We had three sell-out performances and most of the rest were well attended.  The program of events was spectacular beginning with a lovely concert by Emma Johnson and ended with a raucous evening of entertainment by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen.  I hope to have the photos on-line soon (the Arts Festival web-site is down right now for unknown reasons), but in the meantime, this is a picture of me at the opening of the Art Exhibition (I'm the organizer right now).  The gentleman in black to my right is Jon Baker - the guest artist.  Visit his on-line gallery to see some lovely images.

August:

In August we started to relax and take a breather, but there was still lots to do.  Apart from gardening, I had to finish up the paperwork from the Arts Festival and catch up on work for Scrappies which I had severely neglected in July!

Towards the end of the month we took a few days off to visit the British Bird Watching Fair or Birdfair.  This is an amazing three day event, which attracts thousands of people from all over Europe.  It's the biggest fair of its kind and it makes lots of money for conservation projects.  There are lectures; demos; entertainments; lots of marquees with stalls advertising and selling books, art, optics, clothes and holidays; all with a birding theme.  The weather was lovely and we really enjoyed browsing.  We had a beer with Peter Carty, Malcolm and Helen Loft and friends from the Strettons, but were particularly pleased to catch up with Paco Madrigal, our tour guide in Costa Rica.  He was at the fair to publicise his company and it was a joy to meet him again and to make the aquaintance of his brother-in-law, Marco.

We also took a day to tour around the Rutland area and after a smashing lunch in Wing, found ourselves in a fabulous sculpture garden called artdejardin. Do click on this link to see examples of the lovely work and the beautiful landscaping.

We came back with lots of "stuff".  John got a couple of books and we shelled out for a lovely recycled iron sculpture of a Dodo from Baobab Trading Company!  We've called him Frodo and he is standing proudly in the west part of our garden.  Other purchases for the garden this month included a wire-work love seat (also in the picture with Frodo) with two matching chairs and a naughtly concrete gnome who flashes at people when they emerge from the willow nest!

 

That's all for now, folks!  With a bit of luck I'll be able to catch you up on September tomorrow!!!!!

 

Is it, or isn't it?

Check out this photo. Does this dog remind you of another you once knew? If you've ever visited us in Columbus, you'll know the answer. Of course it isn't the late departed Monty, but it sure looks like him! This is Ruby, a mixed border collie/lurcher and we've been looking after her for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, with that mix she has immense energy and stamina. We've been taking her for long walks, but we can't tire her out. When we go up on the hills she runs up and down them as if they were flat while we're puffing and blowing and staggering about.


Here she is, hiding in a stream, waiting to run after the stick at John's feet. She can run as fast as we can throw it! As we walk along, she'll grab the stick and run ahead. Then she'll drop it and hide till we come by. Sometimes she lets us pick it up and throw it, sometimes she'll burst out of the undergrowth, grab it and run on ahead. The only times she drops the stick are when you get the lead out and she realises she has to get leashed up, or when she gets the scent of rabbit - if that happens she takes off and can run from one hilltop to the next in no time flat! Mostly she keeps us in sight and will eventually come back when she's looked in every rabbit hole on the hillside! Fortunately, she doesn't chase sheep as the hills are full of ewes with lambs. To the left is a pair we came across on one of our walks.

Ruby does like lying in streams and this is a bit of a problem as she is in and out of our stream all day. She'll swim too, if you throw a stick in a pool and she's not averse to a good wallow in a stinking mud puddle, either!

We were only supposed to have her for a week, but she is such a darling that we asked to keep her for another few days. She is a lot like Monty in her looks, but she's got her own personality and behaviours and she's made us both very happy. I haven't heard so much laughter about the house for a long time.

Columbus Motmots Explore Costa Rica

This post is based on an article I've just sent off to the Song Sparrow, which is the newsletter of the Columbus Audubon Society. That article also has some extra stuff from Dave Horn and I've modified this one to make it more personal and add a few more photos.

The Columbus Motmots are a group of friends (including me and John) who have just returned from a “relaxed” birding trip to Costa Rica. Most days began soon after dawn with a bird walk. We took walks or trips in the morning and late afternoon, but after lunch most of us avoided the heat by taking a siesta or a dip in the pool (except for the mad butterfly hunters who made chase amongst the vividly coloured tropical flowers). After dark we would meet to compile our daily list and later there were evening rambles to seek out moths, amphibians and reptiles.

This trip was organized for us by Cotinga Tours and our guide was co-owner Paco Madrigal, who gave a talk in Columbus a couple of years ago. Paco and Carlos, our super bus driver, took great care of us throughout the two week adventure. Both men kept a keen lookout as we travelled along. When they spotted something interesting (mostly birds, but also rattlesnakes, monkeys, sloths, iguanas, turtles, crocodiles, etc.) they would quickly stop the bus, set up the scope, and we’d all pile out to see it. Paco can spot birds when no-one else can, identify them and set up a scope in the wink of an eye! Carlos was pretty good too!

The first region visited by the whole group was the central mountains. At 10,000ft, beside the Savegre River and in the cool cloud forest, we searched for Resplendent Quetzals. It took a while, but we were finally rewarded with really good views. Other highlights of this region included lots of hummingbirds (especially Fiery-throated, Magnificent, and Volcano Hummingbirds, Green Violet-ear and White-throated Mountain-Gem - what a delight!), lying on our backs watching the Swallow-tailed Kites circle overhead and some spectacularly-colorful species such as Flame-colored Tanager, Golden-browed Chlorophonia, Sulfur-winged Parakeet and Collared Trogon.

Dropping down to the Pacific coastal lowlands, we were lucky enough to see Double-toothed Kite, Crested Guan, Baird’s Trogon and yet more hummingbirds in Carara National Park. A highlight of this stay was a boat trip on the Orotina River where we were treated to great views of Turquoise-browed Motmot, many herons (including Bare-throated Tiger-Herons) and Amazon Kingfisher.

Moving further north along the Pacific coast, we found ourselves in the dry forest of Guanacaste, where we had our first encounter with Howler Monkeys. These guys make strange, grunting, moaning howls, especially in the very early morning! This is a region of deciduous tropical forest as the trees here shed their leaves during the dry season. We stayed on a large hacienda and visited marshes, lagoons and salt ponds. Among the treats at this location were Jabiru, Snail Kite, Yellow-naped Parrot, Passerini’s Tanager and Laughing Falcon. One of the lagoons was crowded with a large, noisy mixed flock of water birds including Jacanas, Wood Storks, Roseate Spoonbills, and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks.

It was really hot and humid in the lowlands, so it was a relief to climb up into the mountains again. We stayed at the Arenal Volcano Observatory where we could lie in bed and watch the volcano spitting out boulders and steam! Our only tropical downpour caught us just as most of the party had descended a steep flight of steps to see a waterfall but it brought out the fireflies in the evening, so it wasn’t all bad!

The lovely gardens of the Observatory were teaming with wildlife. White-necked Jacobins, Black-crested Coquettes and Bananaquits flocked to the Jamaican vervain plants, and when fruit was put out on the bird feeders we were able to admire Montezuma’s Oropendulas, various tanagers and both Red-legged and Green Honeycreepers. The feeders were also raided by two tropical members of the raccoon family – Kinkajou and Coati.


Crossing the mountainous backbone of the country, we descended to the Caribbean lowlands. We lodged by the Serapiqui river and on our early morning walk were treated to great views of the elusive Great Tinamou. We visited the famous La Selva Biological Station, run by the Organization for Tropical Studies where we found White-winged Becard, Vermiculated Screech-Owl, Slaty-tailed and Violaceous Trogons and Pygmy Kingfisher. A boat trip on the Serapiqui river yielded Bay Wren, Green Ibis and, for some, King Vulture.

Our final stop of the trip was at Tortuguero. This village is on the Caribbean coast and only accessible by boat. In fact, we spent most of our stay in boats as we explored the rivers and canals of this region. Paco explained that the land was too swampy for people to explore on foot. Here we found the smaller Caimans, Howler, Spider and White-faced Monkeys, turtles, Red-eyed Tree-Frogs, Poison Dart Frogs and a host of interesting birds including White-faced Puffbird, Green-Rufous Kingfisher, Great Potoo and a splendid Agami Heron.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. The group as a whole saw more than 350 species. John wrote:

I have finally got around to finishing my bird list for Costa Rica. (I delay gratification with impunity!). Overall, I saw 291 species (meaning I saw their field marks and stand some chance of identifying them again on my own), of which 212 (73%) were life birds. Joan and I had never been to Central America before
and had only limited experience birding in the south-west of the US - hence the
high percentage of new birds.

Good food and lodgings, excellent company, a skilful bus driver and a superb guide combined to make this a holiday we’ll never forget. I would unreservedly recommend Cotinga Tours to anyone.

More photos can be found on my Picassa web space.

Feel free to send me e-mail when you have time!

A Busy Week!

We've been preoccupied with work around the house and garden this week. Monday and Tuesday were taken up with asbestos removal, Wednesday with the installation of our new combi boiler and Thursday and Friday we were in the garden with Nick and Mike. The latter will be covered in our sister blog http://peelwyke.wordpress.com/.

I'll try to update that tomorrow, meanwhile here's a picture of Nick and Mike working hard!

I mentioned the asbestos removal in my previous post. After the guys in the hazmat suits removed it, another guy came the next day and did tests on the air around the boiler and in the containment unit. We passed the tests with flying colours, so they took down all the stuff and Neil (from British Gas) moved in to take out the old boiler and install the new.

For the sake of our American friends, who do things a little differently, I should explain how our old water system worked. It is fairly typical of many houses in England. The boiler is located in the kitchen (it's the white object on the right of the picture). It heats the hot water for household use and the hot water which circulates through the central heating radiators. Very few places in Britain have basements, neither do they have forced air central heating like they do in the US.

In the old days all of our water systems, except the tap in the kitchen would be tank fed. In our case there was a cold water tank in the attic that supplied water to the heating system and to the taps in the bathrooms. Hot water was stored in a copper hot water tank found in the airing cupboard (it's on the left of the picture, the tank is enclosed in an insulating jacket). Keeping the hot water tank in a cupboard gives you a nice warm place to finish drying your washing and air your damp clothes. Most tank fed systems give you rather low water pressure.

The thing we have installed is called a combi boiler. It still heats the water for the hot taps and the central heating, but it does it "on demand". There is no hot water tank and it works with water on mains pressure. Here's what it looks like in the kitchen now. The flue pipe is gone. The boiler is a condensing boiler with a counter-current heat exchanger and it vents to the side. Condensation is collected and drained away. The little red object just above the ground is a large magnet that collects up some of the rust and iron that circulates through the central heating system. The airing cupboard is now empty - it's going to become a larder for me and a cupboard for John's study. Believe it or not, it has two doors!

In the foreground of this picture you can just see our double oven. I'm in the middle of cleaning it. In fact, we spent most of today cleaning up in the kitchen. There was quite a bit of dust on all the surfaces, and it was time for a spring-clean anyway!

Later today I took my first long hot bath. Now we're on mains pressure we get a much better flow of water and I was able to fill the bath in 5 minutes rather than 20 minutes. And there was no worry about draining a tank. The water was lovely and hot the whole time! If I'd needed to I could have topped it up at any time. What luxury!

Alien Invasion?

I took this picture in my kitchen today!

What is this masked creature you ask? Well, he's obviously not too dangerous as I lived to tell the tale.

The next picture explains it all. While we were being surveyed for a new gas boiler they found a small asbestos board stuck to the ceiling around the flue of the old boiler. We had to have it removed before they could work on the boiler.

So we've been invaded by men in hazmat suits. They came down the driveway in a very big van and towing a portable decontamination shower-unit. They just made it down and were able to separate van and trailer to get them turned around.

They sealed off the part of the kitchen where the asbestos is and joined that up to a polythene tunnel leading outside. They set up a negative air pressure in the house and air in the tunnel has to be filtered several times as it is drawn out.

The guy doing the work wore a red suit while working in the tent in the kitchen. Then he had to change into this blue one before coming out. The red one is in the bag and will be disposed of. He then walked about 10 feet to the portable decontamination unit where he showered and disposed of his blue suit.

All this for a board which was no more than a foot square!

A New Pheasant in the Garden

Mr. Magnificent, our lovely tame male pheasant disappeared last summer. We think he'd been in the garden for about 3 years, so it's not surprising - they don't last much longer around here.

We now have another cock. We've called him "Greenback" for obvious reasons. He's much shyer than Mr. M., won't come for peanuts and visits at quiet times of the day (like early in the morning). However, this morning he hung around for quite a while and I was able to get some pictures. They're not very good, but they do show how green his back is.

I was playing around with Picassa and really love what happens to pheasant colouring when you saturate it.

Check out the Peel Wyke site, I'm just going over there to post about this week's work.

Encaustic Art - WOW!!!!!

We've just had a volunteer's craft day at Scrappies. Irene and Sheila taught us some of the basic techniques of encaustic painting. This is where you use melted wax to make a image. We used small irons and stylus's to make some wonderful images. I've just updated the Scrappies web site with lots of photos from the workshop. You can find them by clicking here. The pictures above are some of my experiments. I was very pleased with them and would like to have another go at it sometime in the future. I went out on the web and found the site of the guys who developed the technique. They have lots of examples in their galleries - take a look!

Sun and Snow!

Today is a red letter day. We saw a sunbeam in the house for the first time since November. Here's photographic evidence of it. I love that first sight of the sun, it means that spring isn't far away and that we shouldn't see much more of winter's depression.

You'll notice that there's plenty of snow in these photos. We've had about 6" in the last couple of days. Actually, it's been quite a cold winter altogether and there's more to come. There's so much snow that we've had to cancel this week's gardening session. More about that on our sister site.

We were finally able to test the 4-wheel drive on the RAV4 today. John drove up and down the drive - he said it was a piece of cake. That's a relief as it's a pretty steep, shady drive and the snow takes a long while to melt off. It's good to know we're not snowed in if there's an emergency. It's different for Steve and Marjorie next door. They face a hairpin bend to get onto our drive and with a normal car I don't think Steve would be able to make it. Never mind, we're here if they need us and we check up on them from time to time.

Here's another photo from the garden. It's of our lovely old Mahonia. Right now it's in full bloom, but the snow is hiding all that. However, we were impressed with how the snow emphasised the shape of the leaves. Hope you like it too!

It's snowing again!

The snow is falling in the valley, the wind is howling and the temperature is dropping rapidly. So I'm staying in to do some catching up on blogs, websites and volunteer jobs.


First I want to ask all of you to do me a favour. If you have time, please check out the Church Stretton Arts Festival Web Site at:

http://www.strettonfestival.org.uk/

I want you to imagine that you're visiting Church Stretton and you want to know what's on. Tell me what you think of the web pages. Do they make you want to visit us? Do you find them exiting or interesting? Can you find all the information you need? Is there anything else I should include?


Please send me e-mail with your comments. Thanks.


So far it's been quite a cold winter. I'm not really complaining because it's really nowhere near as cold as it was in North America, and we need a cold spell to kill off the bugs and convince the plants that summer is coming. However, it's sad to see that some of the plants had already started to put out leaves. We're expecting it to be a very cold wind with cold air flowing into Britain from Siberia, so there will be freezing temperatures every night for the next few days.

In addition there are dire warnings of more (and possibly heavy) snow to come. Now over here that means anything over a few centimeters of snow so we may not be able to get our cross-country skis out!

Our snowdrops are out already. In fact, they've been out for over a week. Unfortunately, we managed to trample a few of them when we were working in the garden last week. There are big works going on in our garden. We're working with a real live garden designer to give it a makeover and make it more wildlife friendly. I've started a new blog for this, with pictures and descriptions of the work as it goes on. You can find that at the following address:

http://peelwyke.wordpress.com/

We've been working on the garden for the last three weeks, in spite of the low temperatures. I guess it's been between 2 and 8 C while we've been working (in the 30s for the Americans!), and some of the time it's been windy or drizzling. But we Brits don't let that stop us. If we did we'd never do anything outside!!!! Last week you would have been amused to see us serenely drinking coffee and eating cookies outside. We've even set up a table and comfy chairs so we can relax during our coffee breaks!



The picture shows us piling up the old fence sections to make a habitat pile. The thing that looks like a dead dog is in fact a soggy mess of old newsprint paper that we found behind the garage. We moved it out there after it got wet when the upper garage roof leaked on it. I had been keeping the paper to make into paper mache - yet another brilliant craft idea that never went anywhere! That's me behind the fence and in front is Mike Russell who is our designer. Mike specialises in Nature Gardens, so he's the perfect person to work with. He's not only designing the new garden, he's helping us to do the work.



One of the benefits of staying out all day is that we've seen some new wildlife in the garden. We've spotted a goldcrest several times (it's a close relative of the Golden Crowned Kinglet of the US) and we saw a tree-creeper one day too.

We've been a bit worried that we would disturb our badgers, but two of them showed up on the patio a couple of nights ago and today we saw our diurnal badger for the first time since before Christmas. He still seems to be doing well, even though he continues to make forays during the afternoon. Here's a nice picture of him that I took in December. You can really see those strong claws in this picture. No wonder they do so much digging about the place. Now that we've taken down our fence we'll be able to watch the badgers as they walk about on the bank to the south of us. Hopefully, we'll be able to see the babies playing when they first come up from underground.

Oh well ... I suppose I'd better get back to work .....

The Mom Song

Jane sent me this wonderful video and I'm going to try to post it here. Enjoy!

New Year, New Colours!

Hi all!

Messing about with blogs, webpages, templates, stylesheets and the like and decided to change the way my blog looks! It's the same old material, in a new wrapper - I suppose I should put the price up to match. Isn't that what they do in the shops?

Bah humbug!!!!!

Happy New Year!

Well, we're well into the New Year already! I expected to spend New Year's day doing this post, but I had a bit of a hangover and John was in bed with a feverish cold, so I loafed around the house doing absolutely nothing all day!

On New Year's eve John was well in the morning and we spent it with Mike Russell, going around the garden and doing some planning. There will be more about that in my next posting. In the afternoon John's temperature started to climb and he went off to bed. Dave and Pam came down the drive for their dinner and the three of us saw the New Year in, while I ferried small amounts of food and drink up to the invalid in bed!

Yesterday was John's birthday and he insisted on a bit of birdwatching. That was a mistake as he is now coughing and feeling quite poorly again. Tomorrow is our Ruby (40th) wedding anniversary and we have plans to go to a local carvery for a big Sunday lunch. We'll see if he's up to it.

John did quite a good review of the year for his Christmas letter, so I'm going to include it here [with comments, of course!]:

"In February we spent a few days on the "Jurassic Coast" (http://www.jurassiccoast.com/) in Dorset and Devon, in the Lyme Regis area. An artist friend (Karel Hughes) was having an opening of her work in a Devon gallery and another artist friend (Pam Jordan) was contributing to the show, so we decided to make an appearance. Not totally irrelevant to this decision was the fact that many of the people there were old Swansea University cronies and that a party of significant proportions and intensity has been promised. The show and the party were excellent (we bought paintings by both artists), the scenery and bird watching were very good and the walking along the coast invigorating.

In April, I went to Norfolk for some birding and a meeting that requires a bit of explanation. Every 10-15 years, the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), http://www.bto.org/, in conjunction with other bird watching organisations, seeks to produce an atlas of bird distributions and abundance for the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (http://www.bto.org/birdatlas/). This involves organising a vast number of volunteers to survey bird populations in 10 km x 10 km grid squares over the two countries, both in winter and the breeding season. At the same time, the Shropshire Ornithological Society (SOS) is "piggybacking" on this effort to produce a county wintering and breeding bird atlas, with sampling at 2 km x 2 km (http://www.shropshirebirds.com/Atlas%20Intro%20Page.htm). These data are invaluable in studying the changes in the fortunes of different bird species and to inform conservation and biodiversity efforts by government departments and other nature-oriented groups. Well, I am the organiser of this effort for the south-central area of Shropshire and it falls to me to find volunteers, assign sampling areas, provide support and assistance etc. In addition, I am "Data Manager" for the Shropshire atlas project and am responsible for statistical analysis and mapping of the data collected in the surveys. The Norfolk meeting (at the BTO headquarters in Thetford) was for local atlas workers to be briefed by the BTO and to exchange ideas etc. I took the opportunity to go two days early and explore the very birdy north Norfolk coast.

In late May, it was again off to the east coast, to Suffolk this time. Joan and I had been invited to a wedding of the son of an old school friend of hers [actually older than that - friends from the womb!]. The wedding was made notable by the fact that we met there a woman who we had last seen in Columbus, Ohio, as a postgraduate student in Geography, and with whom we had had no contact since. It turned out that she had been to university with the bride. Weird coincidence (but then aren't all coincidences weird by definition). Unable to forego the ornithological attractions of Suffolk, we spent some time at the RSPB reserve at Minsmere before returning home. [John's emphasis on birding means he forgot the mention the wonderful day at Sutton Hoo!]

June took us further afield - to Cucugnan in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. Our friends Dolly and Chris have a house there are were driving down for a few weeks so we accompanied them for the first part of their stay. The weather was quite stunning while we were there and we spent time touring around taking in the sights, especially the Cathar castles perched impossibly in the rugged terrain. Naturally, there was good bird watching to be done, so trips to inland hills and coastal lagoons were part of the plan and some superb species unfamiliar to northern Europe were seen. Naturally, eating good French country food and assisting the natives in disposing of recent wine grape harvests were major foci of the trip too. Following just over a week in Cucugnan, we took the train back to Church Stretton (TGV to Lille where we spent the night and most of the next day, Eurostar to London, and from there back home).

In July were almost became boat owners. You may be aware that we love boating on the British canals and have been looking to buy a part share in a narrowboat for some time. So has my sister Joy and her husband. Two shares in a boat of the type we were interested in came up for sale in July, so we went to look at it with the possibility of both couples taking a share each. Unfortunately, the craft was not quite as well looked after as we thought (it was quite old), so we decided against the purchase. However, looking at that one has helped to crystallise our ideas about what we want so we are still looking.

Later in July was the Church Stretton and South Shropshire Arts Festival (http://www.strettonfestival.org.uk/). Joan is heavily involved with the visual arts part of this event (painting, sculpture, photography, fabrics etc). That show runs for two weeks but there are many other performances during that period, mostly of a musical nature. I have no official role to play in the arts festival but do get involved as manual labour, setting up and tearing down displays, and was also conned into taking photographs at all of the events. An additional duty is putting up and feeding some of the guests to keep festival costs down. This year we had two members of the Wihan Quartet (http://www.wihanquartet.com/) and also three singers and one orchestra member from the Opera East performance of "The Marriage of Figaro". Joan takes over running the visual arts part of the festival this year and is also their web designer and maintainer.

August brought bathroom renovations. The previous owner of this house took out all of the baths and replaced them with showers. Joan wanted a bath back so we had the downstairs bathroom knocked through to include the adjacent toilet and put in a whirlpool bath, along with a complete renovation of the room (which was looking a bit "tired"). The job was done very professionally and we are very happy with it. Joan now spends time submerged in foam bubbles in there, "thinking through the problems that face her"! [One of the problems being that we havn't painted the ceiling yet, or fixed up the hallway where the old door was blocked up. Oh well, there's more important things in life than working on the house!]

Also in August was the Church Stretton Food Fayre (yes, I know the quaint spelling is appalling but it's not my fault). Joan and I were both involved with this event, which has been a successful promotion for the town and source of money for local charities for several years, ever since foot and mouth disease closed the countryside to walkers and devastated the economy of Church Stretton, which is very much oriented towards walking tourism. This year we almost had a disaster due to the weather, which would have meant that the large balance we had accumulated over the years would have been dissipated. As it happened, the rains let up for the two days of the fair (mostly) and the event was a great success, despite a soggy site and no proper car parking because of the state of the ground. Nevertheless, the committee decided that this was to be the last Food Fayre in this form and we disbanded, which meant about £37,000 went to local good causes, including our new Leisure Centre being built at the school (but for the general public). I had responsibility for the Food Fayre website as well as general labouring during the fair (including seven hours of directing traffic this year due to poor parking conditions). It is a relief to be done with the website but I have now been dragooned into continuing to do the web pages for the Church Stretton Walking Festival, which was part of the food event due to an accident of history but which will now continue independently (www.churchstrettonwalkingfestival.co.uk/).

August and September brought overseas visitors. HaPe Schmid (http://imk-ifu.fzk.de/21_900.php), a fellow climatologist (erstwhile of Indiana University and now in Germany) and his family stayed with us overnight on their Father Cadfael (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael) odyssey.

Shortly thereafter we received a longer visit from various polymer clay artist friends of Joan's from Columbus. They spent a few days in London, Bath and Stonehenge with Joan before coming on to Shropshire. [Our three days in London were crammed - went straight to Windsor Castle from the airport on the first day. Then the other two days included Tower of London, St. Paul's, Greenwich, a ride on the Thames and lots of rubber necking walking around town. Our journey back to C.S. was beset by rain and flood, but we managed to see Stonehenge and Bath so we did OK!]

In September I was conned into giving a talk to the Ludlow branch of the Probus organisation on "Global Warming: a Review of the Science and its Critics", which seemed to go pretty well although there were a few rather vocal sceptics in the audience raising the usual criticisms. (This is not to say there might not be some valid arguments against a human origin for recent warming but these weren't those arguments!)

Immediately after that we drove up for a few days in Skipton, Yorkshire, where Joan was representing Church Stretton at a meeting on the revitalisation of market towns, along with a local councillor and friend. [Not a very productive meeting, but we made a few contacts which may serve well one day - who knows?] Needless to say, I avoided that and spent the time walking in the Yorkshire Dales (http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/) and (what a surprise!) birding. The weather was not great but we did all have a superb walk in the Malham Tarn and Cove area on the one sunny but very windy day after the meeting was over.

Nov 4th saw us staying up very late, with a bottle of wine and a few snacks, watching the US election results come in. It was an exciting election that attracted quite a bit of interest this side of the Atlantic, not least because of the impact that the health of the American economy has here in Europe. There was also quite a bit of interest in Barack Obama and a type of uncomprehending perplexity about Sarah Palin. The outcome was as WE had hoped but it still astounds me that so many ordinary Americans find it possible to vote for candidates whose interests diverge so markedly from their own, whose agenda are so transparently self-serving, who are associated with an administration that has been characterised by corruption and constitutional jiggery-pokery, and are imbeciles into the bargain. I did have a great deal of respect for John McCain as an individual (although I was not sure his particular strengths were quite those needed by the US right now) but his choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate raised in me issues about his grip on reality. The most benevolent interpretation I can come up with is that she was forced on him by the Republican Right. Apart from the fact that she possessed no qualifications to be president (and given McCain's age, that is what she stood a good chance of becoming), she was a very scary woman (maybe even scarier than Dick Cheney). How is it possible that a goodly fraction of the voters of a civilised, developed, forward-looking country like the US could bring themselves to endorse a person like Ms Palin? On this line, I very much like <http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/2008/10/29/dont-cry-for-me-sarah-palin>.

Joan and I continue to volunteer at the Shrewsbury Museum (http://www.shrewsburymuseums.com/). After completing the identification and cataloguing of Victorian bird taxidermy specimens, we are now identifying, cleaning, cataloguing and conserving birds eggs. The eggs are largely from amateur collections established in the late 1800s and early 1900s. (It is, of course, now illegal to collect wild birds's eggs in the UK.) Many of these collections have been poorly looked after over the years and take quite an effort to conserve. Since the museum is moving in the next few years to new facilities, there is something of an incentive to get the job done before the move. Also, next year is a big one for Shrewsbury as it is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and he is a son of the town. All sorts of celebratory events are planned, some of which will involve the Museum and our bird Victorian taxidermy and egg specimens.

Much of my other activities are bird-related, as you might guess. I write regular articles for the "Buzzard", the SOS magazine, [his Buzzard articles are also published on a web site] do assorted bird surveys and help run the Church Stretton branch of the SOS.

We have recently decided that we need more help with our garden, which is quite large and not that easy to maintain. We have employed a garden designer to suggest limited modifications to make it easier to look after but to enhance its wildlife potential. It already is pretty good for nature but we would like to extend this by introducing some different types of habitats (e.g. meadow) without losing the environments we already have. Additionally, we will work with him in person doing most of the work required. I am paranoid about losing cover and nesting habitat for birds but he seems to understand my perspective as he specialises in nature gardening and has a background in conservation. Keep your eyes on Joan's blog for developments in this area.

Joan's health check-ups have been good with no recurrence of cancer. We are hoping that in a couple of years she will be able to finish with the drugs she was prescribed for five years, which have lots of nasty side-effects. She is making something of a name for herself as a local wheeler-dealer, working on the sustainable tourism initiative and insinuating herself into various aspects of local politics. She also takes a major role both in the Church Stretton and South Shropshire Arts Festival and in Scrappies - a local charity "scrap for arts and crafts" store, for which she is again web person (http://www.scrappies.org/). She has not yet agreed to run for the local council but I see it in the future! [Forget it - there is NO WAY!!!!!] She is a one-woman non-governmental organisation!

The downturn in the economy is, of course, very evident here as this area depends quite heavily on tourism and folk have less disposable cash to spend of travelling. However, as most of the tourist focus here is on hill walking and mountain biking, I don't think we have been affected as much as areas depending on more expensive leisure pursuits. From a personal point of view, the drop in the value of the pound relative to the dollar has been a great boon to us as our pensions are paid in US dollars and are, hence, buying more pounds here.

We have just returned from a week in Montreal [where I took the picture at the top of this post!]. I am on the oversight board of the EPiCC (Environmental Prediction in Canadian Cities) project, which is concerned with urban climates in Canada (http://www.epicc.uwo.ca/). The board meets annually and the Montreal trip was for this purpose, although we stayed on for a few more days of city life, museums, concerts etc. We had a great time although it was pretty cold (-19 deg C was the coldest while we were there) with lots of snow.

Christmas will be with my sister Joy in Nuneaton, a pattern we have followed since our return to the UK. We will, of course, overeat, over-drink and lie about like bloated walruses before being consumed by guilt and shame, prompting plans to look after ourselves in 2009 (which we will be unable to do, thus leading to depression and low self-esteem). Tidings of comfort and joy to you too! [We've been and done that - It was lovely!]

What else? I continue my involvement with photography, especially nature photography [me too, but I mostly take snaps! This is one of the waxwings we saw on New Year's Eve]. We have frequent trips to Symphony Hall Birmingham for concerts by the CBSO and other orchestras and also take in a few plays each year. I have become increasingly interested in cookery and have improved considerably, having shaken off the tendency to panic when things don't go quite as I had planned, although I still have a long way to go. I do virtually all of the day-to-day cooking now and, as long as I have my glass of wine and some music on, I find it very relaxing. [So do I as I'm off the hook! And he is making the most delicious meals - YUM!]

Next year will be our ruby wedding anniversary (!!!!!!) so we are planning a few special occasions. One will be a trip to Costa Rica in March for a bird watching trip. The tour is a small group one organised by some friends from Columbus Audubon, who asked whether we would be interested in joining them. We have never been anywhere like Costa Rica and it should be very interesting, with lots of new (and spectacular) bird species to see."

Well, that's all for now. I hope to be posting a lot of stuff about the garden this year as the renovations go ahead. This is going to be the place where we document what we did and how it's all working out.

Stay tuned ... and write when you can.