Easter and on

We have had a family time over Easter, the Daughter’s family stayed with us for a week. We had good weather, so we were able to do some of the usual local walks and days out.  We had our version of an Easter egg hunt for the Granddaughter. It has been up to Grandad (yours truly) to create a suitable set of clues which are not too hard. But grandchildren grow and she is getting altogether too smart for any ordinary egg hunt. It will need something quite different next Easter. 

One trip out was to Lydiard House and Park, a onetime stately home now open to the public, where we walked around the grounds. Many years ago when I first moved to the area, the interestingly named Lydiard Millicent and Lydiard Tregoze were two small villages near Swindon. Nowadays Swindon is about to engulf the whole area and housing estates are right up against the boundary of this once isolated parkland. The house contains family portraits dating back to Elizabethan times and has its own family church. On this occasion, we did not visit the house. 

On another day, we went to Mouldon Hill park, which is within the boundary of Swindon and only recently created as a public park. 

The River Ray runs through this park which is a tributry of the River Thames. The walks are gentle and there is no sign of any hill, but there is a lake which was teeming with birdlife. 

We saw several types of water fowl, swans, geese, ducks, coots and moorhens. We even saw a crested grebe, but it was too elusive for a decent photo, diving regularly and reappearing in an unexpected part of the lake. 

 Some coots deciding who has breeding rights on the lake 

After a compulsory game of Pooh Sticks on the small bridge across the river, (compulsury by order of the granddaughter that is,) we walked around the open space along the river bank and eventually came across this rather odd stone with a modern plaque. 

The use of English is unusual for something so recent. It would certainly have received severe criticism from the English teachers from my school days. 

An Experience

After the family had returned home things quietened down for a bit until we went for an ‘Experience’. This was one of those things that people can buy you for a present. It is then up to you to arrange a date you can attend. This one was for a falconry kind of experience with owls at the North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre and was The Better Half’s (TBH) Christmas present from a friend of ours. Although it was primarily for TBH, who has always been fascinated by owls, it was made out for both of us and TBH had been able to book it for a time which did not clash with the family’s visit. The venue is at a place not far south of Bristol, about an hour and a half away from us. We had an afternoon event booked and so we arrived early and had lunch at a local garden centre. The meal was not special but sustaining, I suppose you could say.

Once at the bird place, we were each equipped with a leather gauntlet and we were able to hold and stroke various birds and eventually fly one. Well land it really, it flew to us rewarded by a bit of raw chicken. My glove looked as if it had once belonged to Colonel Cody, having an ornamental leather tassel just like the pictures you see of him and other Western movie characters. It was also badly chewed on one side, no doubt by one of the birds. I do not think it was so difficult an experience that one of the participants would have chewed it quite that much.

 

This was the smallest of the owls and although it looks a bit worried here, he was perfectly at home with being passed around and that seemed to be his normal expression.

We were each able to hold five different birds whilst their trainers told everyone what breed they were and something of their characteristics and place in British history. We were told we could pet certain birds but not others who may take exception.

This one did not like being petted but was happy to perch on your glove and be admired

One of the trainers was the best friend of a particular owl and each time he took it from one of the participants, it cooed and snuggled up to him.

This sleepy looking fella is the trainer's friend

 

Altogether our time with the birds took about two hours and was a fascinating experience, I have never been that close to any bird of prey before and it was a really great experience.

All the participants were asked that if they posted anything about the experience on the internet, they would like a mention.  If you are interested, the web address is http://www.nsbopc.co.uk/ 

 

Amaryllis

 Anyone who has followed my blog for a few years will know I have a red amaryllis which is over thirty years old and still going strong. But I have another.  In 2006, my mother in law from my first marriage died, leaving her son as the only remaining member of her immediate family.  He had arranged for her house to be cleared after he had taken anything he wanted to keep and gave me the keys to see if there was anything I would like. In the small conservatory, at the back of the house, there were a number of plants which had not been watered for several months and I took pity on one or two and took them home.  Most never recovered, but an amaryllis was sprouting again after a little t.l.c. and so I kept it.  Each year it grew leaves but never flowered.  After nine years of anticipating a flower, I had just decided that if it did not flower this year I would chuck it out.  It must have heard me because lo and behold, this year it has finally flowered. I had no idea what colour it would be and it is quite different from my deep red one, which is a bonus.

Because my other amaryllis has been with me for over thirty years, this one is now known as Amaryllis jr.  and will not go into the compost.

A Sunny Day

We had a dull start to the day and then gradually the sun came out, but something was wrong...

 The birds were vey quiet and a somewhere a dog was howling.  Had I missed something that was on the news for the last few days almost 24/7?

Well not really, this was about as much as it got.  Not a total eclipse, but pretty good and quite spooky.

It Must be Spring

We have just had a nice day out at Lacock Village and Lacock Abbey, both places that feature often as a backdrop for filming cinema and TV period dramas.

A street in Lacock village

Lacock Abbey

Although the daffodils are not yet all in bloom, and the snowdrops are just past their best, the whole place was covered in crocuses and the sunny day made it feel very spring like.

A mass of crocuses

Lacock Abbey was once the home of the Talbot family and Fox Talbot, the British inventor of the photographic process.  He was the first to use a negative.   It is one of the statetly homes of England and has many of the trappings of the luxurious life style of its past.  In order to prevent deer wandering into the formal grounds surrounding this kind of house, a kind of moat was used which became known as a Ha-Ha.  The idea was that your guests could see an uniterrupted view of the vast estate without being hindered by walls or fences.  It was invisible from the house and I have often wondered if any house guests ever fell in when slightly confused by the intake of strong drink.

A Ha Ha

Units of measurement

When did the football pitch, a London bus, Nelsons’ column and the Eiffel tower, become the official standard unit of measurement?

As long as four football pitches

Why do news stories always tell you it is about the length of so many football pitches or so many times the height of the Eiffel tower rather than giving it in some kind of recognised measure like the metre or the yard?    I believe they are still currently used when actually planning and building such things as football stadiums and such.
I personally have no idea how big a football pitch is. I avoided sport at school as often as I could get away with it, being rather puny, and have done so ever since.  My knowledge of football extends to subbuto or those machines where the players are all on metal rods, so to me a football pitch is about six foot long at most.

 

 OK, so if you are really interested you can look up the height or length of the thing used to describe whatever it is in the news and then do the sums but, if they only have such a vague way of describing things, why not say, ‘it is yay big’, stretching out their hands, or it is humongously tall, it would be just about as meaningful.

 

( apologies to the Telegraph Newspapers whos ship picture I have used)

Changes

A couple of years ago, we had some trouble with our neighbour over a piece of our front garden that he claimed should be a part of his garden. As far as we were concerned the builders had clearly intended it to be a part of our property, since it ran continuously across the front of our house up to his driveway. We could have fought harder but we had other things on our mind. Firstly we were away in the states for a few weeks immediately after he first raised the issue and then just as we were returning, I discovered that my brother-in-law from my first marriage had died. Apart from my two sons, his nephews, I was the only surviving relative and had to take care of all his affairs, which unfortunately had become rather complex. This meant travelling back and forth to his property for several months, dealing with banks, solicitors and all the paraphernalia involved in an unexpected death. So we had delayed dealing with the boundary for as long as we could, despite several threatening letters and unacceptable demands. We decided in the end to accept his claim, rather reluctantly, since it was cheaper than disputing them in the courts which is a really really expensive thing to do. For a few square feet of ground it was just not worth going for such a pyrrhic victory, so we then fought a prolonged rear action whilst we organised our tactical withdrawal from the battlefield. In the end we built a fence exactly along the boundary he had claimed was the correct line. In the front it was a an ornamental metal fence but, between the two houses a big six foot high wooden fence. Sadly in the process we had to dig up a lot of nice plants and a flowering tree.

As it was originally but, all the shrubs to the left of the tree and the tree  had to go

So the front garden has been a bit sad since and we decided it could do with a makeover. There were good reasons to change the driveway where we park our cars. We had become fed up with the drab tarmac drive, which was getting a bit crumbly and shedding its surface, whilst gravel we had around the edges was always scattering. We were forever kicking and sweeping the pebbles back into their proper place and removing weeds and animal droppings, so we decided to get rid of the lot and put down block paving, leaving a most of the original grass with planted borders against the new fence.
So day one out with the tired old tarmac.

Day one

Day two it snowed so they could not do a lot, so they left it as it was and we stayed indoors.

Day three, the snow had gone and the ground was levelled off and prepared.

All the tarmac and paving slabs gone

levelled and a base put down

A delivery of paving blocks arrived

Day four and blocks were laid.

The blocks marched across the prepared base

 I would dearly have liked to make a stop motion sequence of this process, but it was done so rapidly, I did not have time for more than one shot of it happening.

and that part of the job was done.

We were able to park our cars on the drive that night.

Day five and the ground has been cleared for the new lawn, the old turf removed and fresh topsoil put in to build the level up to the top of the edging blocks.

Day six the planting. Day six came and went and due to the ground being frozen solid, nothing happened. This continued not to happen for several days including a weekend and some prior engagements by The Better half and yours truly.  So it was not for another week that the turf finally arrived and was laid.

The final prduct,  The grass has yet to establish itself and we will need to keep it watered for the next few weeks, but soon enough, it will require cutting.  Oh well I will sharpen the blades on the old lawnmower...

It was once said that the United Kingdom and the United States are two great nations divided by a single language. This is clear in this kind of work, because if I said 'sod the garden', in the USA, grass would be laid whereas in the UK, it would be taken that I was annoyed with the garden and did not intend to do anything to it.  That word is not considered very polite in this country and is used more often than not as a swear word, derived from sodomy. The word is also known as meaning a clod of grass and soil here, but rarely used in that context.  So our friends in the USA, should never be surprised if UK residents are taken aback by an American using that term and UK residents, take note your American friends are not being rude about your garden.

Spring?

It looks like spring is on its way. It still is a way off but hints are appearing. Snowdrops are blooming and the birds are setting up home.

 
We had an old nest box which had great tits nesting for a couple of years, but we never saw any chicks. Eventually the box started to come apart, so I built a new one.

At first a blue tit investigated it coming back and forth for a while but stopped calling after a few days. Now a great tit has been flitting back and forth for more than a week.  He is alternately poking his head into the box or sitting nearby chirping loudly. No doubt he is telling the world that he has found a nice nest site and any suitable female bird would be welcome to come and share it with him.

So winter may be on its way out soon and more spring flowers will be showing themselves quite soon.