Wednesday October 31st 2018

I received my letter today. No not from the Queen. Not even from my mum and dad. But from the BBC. For tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of a speckly youth arriving at the front door at the BBC in Bristol,  in a suit (no one wears suits in the BBC, not even in 1993). How was I to know? I came from the north.

I remember the night of October 31st 1993. I'd come down from the North East a few days before, and not knowing anyone in a 200 mile radius, I'd booked myself into a B&B in Portbury, a village just outside Bristol. I ended up living at that B&B for the next 18 months, but I digress.  Not knowing anyone, or where I was (I had to look Bristol up on a map for my interview), I lay on my bed rigid with a heady mix of both fear and excitement, thinking of all the great things I'd be asked to do at the mighty Natural History Unit. I'd meet David Attenborough, travel the world, wear khaki shorts, wrestle vultures. In reality I arrived on a wet November day. They knew I was coming but had nowhere for me to sit. A tour of the building followed, meeting people like James Honeyborne, then a recent arrival researcher who went on to make Blue Planet 2. James recognised my Newcastle Agriculture Society tie, as he was of that alumni. But by 2pm Alan Baker my then boss had run out of things for me to do so I ended up leaving, my first day over and to be honest I thought, this isn't for me. But the next day was better, I was moved into a cupboard full of dusty files and no window, a TV perched on a couple of cardboard boxes and so began my life as a Wildcat Programme Classifier. WildCat being the library system for indexing footage for reuse. And my first TV show to be paid to watch? Life in the Freezer, made by a absolutely brilliant Alastair Fothergill, who drove the NHU to it's greatest achievements. On the day Alastair stepped down as Head, staff wept in corridors. 

Nothing has changed really. Nearly everyone I knew in the 'good old days' at the NHU has now left and I have become a fossil in a world of digital media evolution. I still sit in an office mostly on my own, many hours a day at a computer, and spend a long part of the day in a kit cupboard. That cupboard does have a window, but also smells of mice. I only came here for a year, and now it's 25 years. I did meet and work with David Attenborough eventually...but I have to say getting Michael Palin to record Tweet of the Day, can never be matched. It's been downhill ever since.

Tuesday October 30th 2018

My previous work mug. This plastic travel mug has brought much comment to the inhabitants of the BBC Club @ BS8 where I toil through the day. It is the colour. Jane and Ali who man, or is that woman, the beverage outlet in the Club first thing love its colour. I think it was the sight of me looming towards them carrying a fascia pink pot. Clashing horrendously with my ginger and white beard. I stopped using it for a few weeks as the rubber ring thing in the lid which makes it liquid-tight disappeared. Thus each time I filled it it sloshed tea or coffee everywhere, often over me. When I stopped using it the beverage duo would say "where's your mug Andrew".  But moist pantaloons were a stressful moment in my day, it was thus abandoned to a recycling demise. But I relented and it gained a pardon. I'm glad I did. I bought a new mug to replace it, a Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach ceramic mug with orange rubber top (I think it was meant for children.....and my problem there is!!). Yet, while I like my new mug, its not good at keeping the caffeine laced drinks hot, and has no handle. Why do we not have mugs with handles any more? So I am resurrecting pink-mug-gate and will just have to watch spillage on my slacks mid stride. Welcome back.

Monday October 29th 2018

It has been a bitter cold day today. Outside temperature hovering around 4 degrees, and about the same in the office as the heating for the entire site is being replaced, and, due to overruns won't be switched on until mid to late November. We've been sitting in coats, bobble hats and scarves to keep warm. The other way I'm trying to keep warm is reading around the world of podcasts. I've listened to many, and made a few podcasts over the last five years or so. This year however the BBC has rushed into this decade old way of broadcasting with a vengeance, with in the unique way the BBC operates,  an internal site the called 'Podcastology'.  Pages and pages to read, though oddly only a few quite short podcast instructions. Very interesting but at the end of the day, it can be all be summed up as content. A podcast is simply a piece of audio content, broadcast over the internet. In the same way as radio audio content is broadcast over the wireless. Different delivery, same skills needed to make this happen. I thought about this as I sorted through the microphones in the kit store, still trying to keep warm. 

Sunday October 28th 2018

They're getting older. It was my mums 85th Birthday today. I missed her 60th Birthday as I'd just moved down to Somerset to start my new job. Guilt then ensures I try and get to as many of my mums birthdays as possible, even though it involves nearly 700 mile round trips, which this weekend was done in 36 hours. I'm getting older. Lots of images of course of the Birthday when a few people popped in to say hello. But I took this first thing after the carers had finished getting mum ready for the day. It's in their dining room which they sit in to read the papers. Over all the years I've known my parents, their body language never changes. Always a physical gap between them in every photograph, dad often looking into the distance or not engaging with the image. Mum on the other hand posing for the snap. It may be a cluttered and chaotic image, but that's real life and that's my parents, as I see them. And they're just great.

Saturday October 27th 2018

Two images today 6 hours apart. For 25 years I have trudged along the motorway network betwixt home in Somerset and my parents in South Tyneside,  which I still think of as County Durham.  At it's shortest it is 325 miles and a minimum of 5 hours driving. The above image caught my eye at 4.30am as I made flasks in readiness to our 5am start. Sometimes images just compose themselves and reveal their story. Tea,  milk,  boiling kettle,  little imagination is required. I never imagined however that by 10am I'd be looking at snow out the car window. The journey was in two halves. Until the sun rose,  calm weather,  not a cloud in the dark sky and rather pleasant if only 2 degrees. From Sheffield we encounter rain which became sleat,  and strong gusty winds. By North Yorkshire snow was lying on the hills. By Peterlee it was giving a dusting to the road verge. October is a bit early in my book for the arrival of the white stuff. 

Friday October 26th 2018

I quite enjoy insomnia. All my life I've been a restless sleeper, spending many hours awake in the middle of the night. I like the darkness. That inward looking blanket of comforting stillness. The day is all bustle and hectic endeavour,  but in the dead of night, nothing stirs.  I'd been awake for around an hour when I took this image. The moon is high overhead. A full moon I think, a cloud shrouded orb bathing the landscape in a white glow strong enough for me to stand outdoors and observe the garden in monochrome illumination. There is a wind billowing through the trees, yet the atmosphere is at rest. Peaceful. Not a sound. Not a movement. Just my inner thoughts observing the cool lunar glow. Nighttime is wonderful, it's when I'm at my most alive, creative, thoughtful. As a very young child I'd be outside in the garden before dawn. My parents worried about my lack of sleep, but I fall asleep quickly, then when I awake, I am fully awake. No half state of sleep deprived befuddlement. I'm either asleep, or awake, no matter how short the sleep has been. I also love driving at night, relishing that mesmerising gaze ahead of me, those pathfinder light-beams searching for the road ahead, a road which races towards me with the therapeutic regularity of a waterfall. Yet peripherally there is no movement, it is as if I am travelling in a void, until that is a slim tear in the inky horizon is observed. Dawn is breaking the grip of night, as if by magic.

So, now I've written this daily post, I shall return to bed and grab a few more hours of sleep before the day dawns and World returns to bustle and hectic

Thursday October 25th 2018

I could have talked about carbon dioxide emissions in this posting after a Facebook chit chat. Or the fact that we had a frost overnight, unheard of on the Somerset coast. Or 10 teaspoons of sugar in my drink yesterday as pointed out by a friend. But no. This image caught my eye. It is Thursday, or curry day at work as it is better known, as mentioned last week. Despite the cool and foggy morning by mid day the sun was warm and so with my weekly treat I ventured outside to consume. In that hazy time of post imbibing,  when I gently doze in the sun the image of my glasses flung onto a tray and grappling with a pyramid of napkins caught by eye. Not the tray, not the glasses, not even the serviettes, but the triptych. The happenstance of this image will never be repeated, an upside down pair of glasses reminded me of Eric Morcambe's 'Invisible Man' sketch at the BBC, returned once more. 

Pure genius, him, not me. 

Wednesday October 24th 2018

Lunch perched on a low wall, with my thoughts turning to a burning question. What is a sandwich? How would our busy lives cope without the twin bread and filling morsel?

Well a quick perusal on the internet and a definition profligates the results

"The bread-enclosed convenience food known as the "sandwich" is attributed to John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), a British statesman and notorious profligate and gambler, who is said to be the inventor of this type of food so that he would not have to leave his gaming table to take supper."

Well no. The real inventor of the sandwich was the cook or other person unknown who whipped a couple of beef slices off the bone, wedged them into two slices of bread and headed off into the Den of Iniquity to change eating habits forever. Not the 4th Earl of Sandwich. Fake news then!

But it was fabulous sitting in the warm sun, sandwich in hand and a can of Italiano juice composing today's blog in my head. Belissimo.

Tuesday October 23rd 2018

Commuting. The scourge of the mortgage class. We earn therefore we spend,  therefore we commute to work to earn what we spend. Not that there's anything wrong with the daily drive into the place of toil. That time betwixt home and paid suffrage can be an inspirational time. Released from chores the mind can wander like an ox-bow river through the great planes of creativity,  accelerating latent threads which when knitted together provide a warming outcome.  Sometimes though a commute and its mind expansion is a sideshow. Tonight was such a theatrical tour d' force. Halfway home and I had to stop the car in awe of nature's creative bounty. I stood transfixed by this atmospheric phenomenon. The entire sky burning as if the Phoenix was returned. Behind me a creamy moon paused on the shoulder of the horizon for a brief moment. Dusk on the Somerset landscape,  a spectacular sideshow on the mortgage commute. 

Monday October 22nd 2018

Strictly speaking this is not an image I have taken today. The image was taken yesterday, but I received it today. That is the thing about a record of the day. Things happen which were never planned, such as receiving this image from my 2nd cousin in Canada just after lunch. They'd been for a walk yesterday and stumbled across this little beaver munching away on a tree. A bold beaver by many lengths whose table manners left something to be desired, as his comical chomping sounded like he was eating corn on the cob!  This connection across the miles is the reason this image is today's offering. We do have beavers in Britain, but they are escapees and controversial in some eyes. Yet my cousin and her family out for a stroll in Canada stumbled across what is their native fauna by accident. And today I receive the evidence. No sound, but I am partial to a gnawing beaver picture, it has to be said. They also have one of my favourite birds out there in Ontario, blue jays. If one thing got me on a plane and conquer the fear of flying, it would be to see a blue jay.

Sunday October 21st 2018

The existentialism of this image caught my eye tonight. The remnants of a raw carrot having been almost fully consumed. The red candles tower, guarding the carotene prisoner as a backstop for this story of reality. For what is reality? I saw, I sat, I composed this posting in the split second of a gnats crotchet. Liberating reality from the more bizarre aspects of daily life has been a lifelong process in me. I don't think I have ever seen the World as others do. Only Child Syndrome would be a moniker placed on me these days. Plain nuts being how my father used to call me. My poor late and much loved Aunt Lilla once suffered the insufferable seven year old me saying every few seconds "All you need is a Fairy Liquid bottle", before racing around the house or dancing on the spot, then repeating this phrase. After a week of this my Aunt, whose house we were staying in for Christmas, asked "Why?" My reply, "because I want to". These days I'd be sent to a centre for correction and told to conform. And that's why I have returned to blogging. Other social media conforms thinking into a straitjacket of non discussion. Blogging allows self expression. I see a carrot, I write about a carrot, and I publish. The process allows my existentialism of madness to follow the path less taken.

Saturday October 20th 2018

Shopping. Not good. Shopping in Dorset. Lovely.  This morning we beetled down to The Udder Farm Shop at East Stour in the Blackmoor Vale. Thomas Hardy's Vale of the Little Dairies. I've been visiting the farm shop since it opened in 2005. Back then it was a small affair, a butchery, some local produce and a tiny cafe with about 8 tables. Around five years later they built a new cafe in the shape of an agricultural gin-gan and a couple of years ago extended the retail side into a new wing. Despite all the changes one thing has never changed, the quality of the place. Both for food and for shopping. It is my mums birthday next week so using that as an excuse, we popped to Dorset for breakfast, full English for me and a full vegetarian feast for Julie. After that a hamper of 'made in Dorset' goodies was purveyed and we headed home to watch the racing on ITV. These are what I'd call, great days. Dorset is perfect for me.

Friday October 19th 2018

As I look out of the office window, my scene is....well actually I don't really have time to look out of the office window much. For today I'm catching up with press cuttings going back to late September. The backlog that never cleared after my holiday. Each morning at some godforsaken hour an email flops into my inbox with the latest summary of BBC in the press. I peer at this half asleep around 10am, after my fourth coffee. The vast majority of this grand opus  reflects TV hits in the papers. Reviews of the latest show, like Strictly Come Dancing or the Bodyguard. In Radio it is the big news output who dominate the coverage, Today, PM and John Humphries.  But nestling like a long lost cardigan in the backwaters of the BBC's Bristolian Borderlands, we do get an occasional 'worth a listen' mention. Ramblings and Any Questions? are regulars, alongside Great Lives, A Good Read, Costing the Earth and when the wind is in a favourable direction, Farming Today.  And I do personally get excited when Living World or Tweet of the Day get a mention. Not me the producer enveloped in stress and creative energy. But that's how it is. At least I can look out of the window now, an azure sky, golden beech tree and time for lunch.

Thursday October 18th 2018

Thursday is curry day at work. Delicious treats from the sub-continent are shipped into the canteen and very good they are too. It is the only day I venture over there, just for the curry, which today was a chicken ensemble with a lovely chilli and coconuty sauce. This was followed, as part of a calorie controlled diet I'm perfecting, by a Terry's Chocolate Orange. It's not even Christmas. Michelle Douglas, a Geordie lass who works at the BBC is sharing my office before being jettisoned off into the world of redundancy. Which is excellent, her sharing of, not the jettisoning of, as she brought in the citrus fondant treat. Far too many slices were consumed, which after the curry, has a most illustrious effect on my digestive tract. Sadly though the chocolate segments are not what they were. In my day, the segments were solid slabs of massed cocoa embossed with the logo. This version, obviously designed to bring  a flagellated feelgood factor to Millennial lives, has thinner segments resembling proper orange pips and sinew. Still as tasty, but they must be at least half the thickness. Shocking. Still, only 68 days to go to the big day.

Wednesday October 17th 2018

Butter wouldn't melt!! Mind you the stealth camouflage leaves something to be desired. Meet Oscar. We 'inherited' Oscar about a year ago. He should be living in the house next door. However it seems our garden teeming with wildlife is a bigger draw. He spends hours on this part of the wall waiting for the sparrows to arrive, of course they never do while he's there. Or gazing over the wall to rodent  movement unseen on the far side. There can't be much movement as he just sits there, his ermine-eske tail dangling over the wall, motionless like snowball in summer. I'm not a cat person, Julie loves cats. Thus the arrival of Oscar most days involves lots of ear tickling and purring, from Oscar, not from me. He is quite nice I suppose, and inept as a wildlife hunter, so I think he can stay.

Tuesday October 16th 2018

It's not often one hears the term Niche Packing on the BBC. Tonight however the ever informative Chris Packham, holed up in New England gave a super summary of how niche packing works. I don't think I've heard the term since university... the technical term is thus 

"A coevolutionary model of species packing is developed that allows evolutionary adjustment in both niche position and within-phenotype niche width of one-three competing species."

In simple terms it just means that over evolutionary time different species adapt to their environment by becoming tuned into their niche within that environment. Whether that be food, competition, resources or any number of variants. As Chris explained the UK has fewer species than New England due to the separation of Britain from the continent before species could cross over the Manche.  At University I studied multivariate analysis which looked at exactly this in a given habitat - thus with at the press of a button (and after much leg work gathering data) a numerical number on a Venn diagram gave the answer of spatial separation. A fascinating chapter in my life I'd almost forgotten about. Thanks Chris (nice chap to work with too).

Monday October 15th 2018

Tonight heading home, it felt as if winter had already arrived. In the turning wheel of nature there are days when everything changes. Tonight was that day. The streets were wet. That unique sound which only occurs when traffic moves slowly on sodden roads in town. The lights from shops and streetlights lit up the pavement, Wet leaves scattered like confetti. Yet is was before 6pm. Those months of hot dry weather this summer seems a long long way away now. I like winter nights, it is just the transition I don't enjoy. 

Sunday October 14th 2018

It's always fun when guests stay for a day or so. This weekend we had Henry. Happy chap, easy maintenance, didn't need food or water and likes cleaning up after himself. But of course he, was an it, and he had been left by the decorators over the weekend.  We're on the home straight of the hall decorating now, just two more days so we've been informed. But it was the pile of decorating accoutrements which intrigued me for this posting. Their is something artistic I feel when everyday items are left in an unusual place. Pots, decorators caulke, sheets, all on the top landing for two days. Hands unseen had placed them there. Hands unseen will use them again. Eventually their use will end; their brief subjoin into the spinning vortex of my world will have served it's purpose and they will permanently disappear from view.

A metaphor for life it seems, as the rain lashed down outside.

Saturday October 13th 2018

There are times when, even for me, as someone who observes with glee the more bizarre aspects of life, a moment arrives when I have to stop, and stare and wonder. Today I had planned to be on the Malvern Hills bird watching for ring ouzels with a couple of chaps. Storm Callum, gale force winds and driving rain had put the breaks on that activity. We cancelled yesterday.

Frustratingly I woke this morning to yes a strong southerly wind, but little rain and temperatures in the high teens. A classic October day during the windy season until mid November. Taking a long long diversion to get the morning papers and bread, I pootled along some of the lanes where I know corvids congregate when it's a bit windy.  They were there, swirling and dancing on the breeze like the myriad of golden leaves flowing in rivulets off the trees. And I watched them. 

It was later while in a really narrow lane, a lane only just wide enough for the car, I came around a corner and a gateway. It's not often one sees a cow dressed as a Pharaoh in Somerset.  I could have looked more deeply into the significance of this golden blue bovine in a field. But do you know what? I don't want to know. It's just being there in that field which is enough for me.  A plastic cow, dressed as a Pharaoh, Storm Callum scudding 50mph wind overhead. It made my day.

Friday October 12th 2018

Blustery day here in the South West. Storm Callum has arrived with a light gale. But what tickled me today was while waiting for the lights to change in the lane. The bridge goes over the main railway line, and like most of the lane I use to get to work, single track. Cyclists might need to obey lights but it seems the jackdaws are doing the same, as they flew off when the lights changed to green. Clever birds corvids.

Thursday October 11th 2018

The daffodils are coming.........is it spring already? Yet in the evening I heard my first 'seep' of a  the winter thrush, the redwing, as it flew over in the dark. Is it autumn, spring, or somewhere in-between. Strange weather.

Wednesday October 10th 2018

A pastoral scene of autumnal bliss. What may be one of the last times the autumn colours of the maples at work radiate their hue. For their days are possibly numbered. Nothing confirmed, nothing set in stone, but these four trees, planted when the new building was completed 20 years ago, now stand in the way of wheelchair access. I like many of my colleagues love these trees, yet we also see the dilemma faced by the site manager. It will be resolved in one way or another.

But today as an Indian Summer raised the air temperature to 24 degrees, I popped over to take a picture. Their shedding leaves were the first posting I wrote after finishing the year long blog in 2014. I hope I can write about these trees again - before it's too late.

Tuesday October 9th 2018

Wallpaper. Laura Ashley wallpaper. And from tomorrow, Laura Ashley wallpaper destined for the bin. For tomorrow sees the arrival of Gill, she of the flashing scraper, the whirling brush and an eye for perfection in the world of Decor. It has only taken close on nine years to get motivated and re-decorate the house after moving in in 2009. In my book, life is too short for DIY. So tomorrow Gill will arrive and remove the paper in the hall, stairs and upper landing, and make good. Then with a notion to being absolutely crazy with our zest for off the wall radical colour schemes, we chose magnolia paint to replace the current 'gold' paper. Or brown paper as Julie calls it. 

I knew the person who put this paper up in around 2005, when the previous owners who I knew through a mutual friend and whom I bought the house from, re-decorated from top to bottom with Laura Ashley everything, carpets, curtains, blinds, wall paper and fixtures.   Times change. Better get my cheque book a-ready then!

Monday October 8th 2018

A chap was coming today to repair the windscreen on our two main cars, though mine has been cracked since February. He had to postpone, I'm in no hurry. 

Work today then in the spare car. Sometimes I think being a three car family is a luxury I should not indulge in. But I do.  Over the 18 months since Julie bought a new work vehicle having this third car has proved invaluable at times when one or other of the other cars is off the road. The third car is now only used as emergency or weekend driving, but I have to say as a 2005 Renault Clio with 170,000 miles on the odometer, it's a joy to take out. I could get into long drawn discussions about it being a diesel (low Co2 more NoX gas), why have three cars (the other two are eco petrol models and dull to drive), the environmetal cost of keeping an old car vs building a new one and so on, but I wont. The Clio gave Julie fabulous service for 11 years as a gardeners car, packed with tools it get her to clients across Wiltshire. Now in Somerset the time came for a slightly larger car for the ever increasing workload. We could sell the Clio, worth a few hundred pounds at most, or heaven forbid just scrap it. But I love older cars, a box and four wheels and that it, so my sentimental side came out. It's now mine as a play thing. Small, black, 110BHP turbocharged diesel, and yes, bags of fun to drive as I zoom past newer cars with their electronic engine management packs making them dull to drive. I now use super diesel and since doing so the black soot older diesels emit has gone. No car is clean to drive, not even electric, not everything in life has to tick the environmentalism box. I don't fly, I don't buy new things that often, rarely go on holiday, so this is my one indulgence! 

That and proper 150w light bulbs (I bought hundreds before they became illegal)

Sunday October 7th 2018

Writing the daily blog entries in 2013 and 2014, this photograph of my Sunday volunteering at the National Trust property of Tyntesfield would never have happened.  I'm sure there will be more National Trust entries over the next 12 months, but this image came to me as I finished my shift at 4.30pm... 23 new memberships across the team today, which is great given the targer was 18. A busy day and some excellent conversations with visitors to this Gothic Mansion. I love it.

Saturday October 6th 2018

There is a certain hedonistic pleasure in wandering downstairs in a semi-state of awaken, only to find the milk is on the doorstep for the morning cup of tea. We've been getting bottled milk for a few months now and it's just perfect for us. No last minute trips to buy milk because we have run out;  every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday in the wee small hours, bottles of full fat organic milk arrive, as if by magic. It is the simple things which I enjoy.

Friday October 5th 2018

And Relax!  Mop-tank-gate is over and all is well. Coming down this morning, no leaks, tank working well and more importantly the 6 fish all survived over night. But last night developed into a very stressful evening. After coming home from work we set to. New tank quickly set up (it has multi coloured LED lights, including 'thunderstorm mode' for reasons I'm not sure about), but it was the right size. Tank filled and run for two hours to flush and clean it. Water emptied, then refilled it, added the gravel and plants from the old tank, in readiness for the fish. 

It was at this refilling point I looked at two strange leaves on the carpet... they were not leaves but two of the platies which had jumped out of the mop bucket. How long they'd been there I didn't know but probably a few minutes. Scooping the first one up, it wriggled into life. Quickly back into the bucket, it swam off. The second much bigger fish didn't wriggle but I popped it in the bucket anyway and it lifelessly sank to the bottom. 

An hour later on transferring all the fish into the new tank, that bigger platy (the upper one in the image on the left) halfheartedly swam away and disappeared. I thought "well we did our best". The remaining five fish including the goofy bronze cory's which we've had for over five years all took to the new tank as if nothing had happened and within minutes were exploring their new home, now with everything they were used to hastily installed. 

It was heartening then to come down this morning and all six fish are bobbling about as if nothing had happened, including that lucky escape onto the carpet big platy. Tough animals I'd say.

Thursday October 4th 2018

Slightly stressful start to my day. Emerging for the daily visit to the breakfast trough I chanced on a flood from out the back of the fish tank. A flood where there had been none the day before. Carpet sodden and fish waving flags of surrender as the level slowly dropped. All this caught my eye. I'd not even had my toast! So a mad dash to decant our piscatorial chums unceremoniously into a (luckily brand new and therefore uncontaminated) mop bucket. Oxygen pump installed, a plant and a rock cave for them to hide in. It's all we could do. I went to work, fingers crossed they'd survive. Julie went to Maidenhead Aquatics to buy a new tank. Will they survive 'mop-tank-gate'? 

Wednesday October 3rd 2018

This is wierd. It is funny how the mind plays tricks. I was convinced today was the 5th anniversary of the great motorway debacle where I sat motionless on the M5 near Clevedon for over three hours.  I even said this to Julie as I left home.

It was already on my mind (after having had a most pleasant and easy journey into Bristol to get to work) as I ground to a halt and remained stationary for 15 minutes on arriving at the Clifton Suspension Bridge for reasons I can not account for. Anyway it made me slightly late for work and as I sat there in the sunshine, the deja vu propelled me back to the same problem 5 years earlier on a different road but while commuting. 

Or so I thought. The anniversary was actually yesterday October 2nd. Oh well, near enough, and my commuting problems are a recurring issue...

https://365-2-50.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-2nd-2013.html

Tuesday October 2nd 2018

We have sparrows in the garden. Not just a few, but a whole host of sparrows. They also nest in the roof space above our heads. And I love them. We have two feeders in the fir tree at the bottom of the garden and regular as clockwork, 40 or 50 sparrows descend at around 8am at the moment to feed. The noise and activity is breathtaking. Once fed, they'll be off being noisily disruptive in the fields behind the house until at tea time they return once again to the feeders. It's a morning ritual for me, cup of tea and watch the bird activity without, before work.

Monday October 1st 2018

My office door. Somewhat a fitting start to the rekindled blog rising Phoenix like out of the ashes of 5 years. I'm just back from a two week holiday and the first image on this new year long process is my office door at the BBC in Bristol. I left the NHU in 2015 after the department was closed and now work across the carpark in Network Radio (principally Radio 4). Nature follows me and everything you need to know about returning to work after a break and what I do.