Thursday 29th February 2024

 

On the theme of rejection today. At work this morning I noticed this joke on the back of a padded envelope.  Someone at some time had taken the time to write this dreadful joke, but funny, and send it to one of my work colleagues, the envelope presumably containing something dry and workaday, hence the levity outside. Soon, as this now languishes in a waste bin, the effort will be lost in the recycling of landfill.

Later I had a hot chocolate in Clifton. Outside Costa was a beggar playing an accordion. I watched him sitting on the pavement from the warm confines of the coffee shop. There are a lot of beggars in Bristol but this chap caught my eye, not least because he fell asleep on his accordion. As I watched a young women left what looked like a wrapped sandwich for him. When he eventually woke and took it out the bag it was just her half chewed crusts. Really? I couldn't believe it. Finishing my drink I went out to him, would he like food? He couldn't speak much English so he came into the shop with me and I bought him a tuna melt, which was warmed, and a tea. He went outside to eat it. £7.95 isn't a lot to give someone a little bit of warm food. And where, but for the grace of God, could I and anyone end up!

Wednesday 28th February 2024

Animals are much cleverer than humans, or at least more intuitive. Gingernut knows Julie hasn't been well. All day yesterday he stayed with her while she was in bed. Normally he's in and out of the house, but yesterday wasn't more than a few feet from her. It was a great comfort. By this morning Julie was feeling better and I woke with him snuggled up at my feet, he looked up when I woke but had no intention of moving off the bed, he just unfurled a little and went to sleep. Later in the day I came home from a quick dash for some food at lunchtime. As I stopped the car he appeared at the end of the road and almost ran up the pavement to meet me, meaowing all the way. It's almost like he's saying I know everything's not quite right but I'm here, I'm not going far. They say cats can detect illness, even cancer, dogs too. There's a lot we could learn from them I feel. 

Tuesday 27th February 2024

What has water ever done for us? Despite Julie being a little unwell and dad still being on hospital ( he came home in the afternoon) I had to be in work today for a Rare Earth recording on our overuse of water. I don't usually sit in recordings but today I did and these images are a reminder of recording days, which are often chaotic until the switch is pressed and it all happens as if by magic. Above is Michael, with Tom Heap and Helen Czerski behind the glass. Below Emma the producer with Michael. Today was especially chaotic as there was an all site fire alarm planned for 10.30am. We couldn't stop so after a little tooing and froing we got an exemption and carried on. Except we couldn't as the sound of the alarms was being picked up by the microphones. As I say, recording days are chaos but somehow the programmes get made.

Monday 26th February 2024

 

It was a busy day at work but at 1.30pm I had to have a break so went for a walk around Cotham. There's an Oxfam bookshop on the hill and I should avoid it. I don't. Today to pass the time I entered and casually eyed the stock. I was about to leave when I spied this 1993 edition of a Richard Jefferies classic, one I don't have. The dusk jacket is near perfect, in fact the whole book looks like it's never been read. I paid my £4.99 and to be honest felt a little related by this purchase.

Sunday 25th February 2024

 

I had a helper in the greenhouse this afternoon. It's another miserable wet day and we'd just come back from a trip to the tip at Backwell, and a rather nice Sunday lunch at the Pottager cafe at Cleeve Nursery. By the time we got home heavy rain had set in, but I wanted to plant some sweet peas. I'd collected the seed from the garden on a very hot day on the 9th August 2022, and hope they're still viable. Working away in the greenhouse Treacle the neighbours cat came in out from the rain for a bit of a play. She is lovely but very inquisitive and playful. Everywhere I wanted to be she came to investigate, things were knocked over but eventually I got the seeds out of their dessicated pods and into two plantpots. This is late for me as I usually plant sweet pea in October, but they'll catch-up and with luck flower in May or June.

Saturday 24th February 2024

I visited RSPB Greylake today. During the previous week I'd had an inkling to go birdwatching but not 100% sure where as a lot of the sites I go to are suffering from flooding. Then yesterday a chance conversation reminded me of Greylake, and that I'd not been here for a year or two. There's a Baikal teal on the reserve but on this visit it was nowhere to be seen. That didn't bother me as I simply wanted to just have a quiet day outdoors. I wrote in greater detail on my blog, no need to repeat myself here. It's a nice reserve especially for snipe which I enjoy observing, and having known it as still farmland not that many years ago it is good to see it develop into an important wetland.

Friday 23rd February 2024

Sometimes I need to do something for me. I'd had a depressing phone conversation with a friend about an ex-colleague who is in hospital. I've been talking to another hospital about my father. Those conversations build up, so to distract myself I'm reading the biography of nature writer, poet and broadcaster John Moore. In the spring I hope I can head up to Tewkesbury to see his grave in the Abbey, whilst visiting some locations associated with his books. I've been in touch with members of the John Moore Society so hope to visit areas not that obvious. I'm a late convert to Moore having only discovered him about ten years ago. Long before then I read the books of Fred Archer who wrote about the same area of Worcestershire as Moore, around Bredon Hill. I like that part of the world quite a bit.

Thursday 22nd February 2024

Like everyone I meet we are all getting very fed up with the rain. It seems that since October we've had rain, wind, or both. There have been a few brighter days but few and far between. It is depressing. Today we were under yet another yellow weather warning for rain, but for once it was patchy. When it rained it was like a shower being switched on, in-between though sunshine. I was about to leave the office at 5.45 when Julie texted to say it was a monsoon at home. I looked out the window in Bristol, clear skies with a dark cloud towards the west. Behind me a full moon too. Quite a contrast to 20 miles away back home. Turned colder too, just 4 degrees driving home, is that a portent of dryer days to come? Let's hope so.

Wednesday 21st February 2024

It's becoming all too common. My father has a chest infection at at 92 the acute care team that came out to check on him suggested he goes into hospital for treatment. This all happened less than an hour after one of his carers rang me to say she was a little worried. They are brilliant up there looking after my father, without them I'd really struggle being 6 hours drive away. The ups and downs of growing old.

Tuesday 20th February 2024

The home page of the South Tyneside pension service. I have a very small deferred pension stored here after my few years working in the Library service. In those days I had a superannuation benefit, in basic terms I didn't contribute to my retirement fund. And as a 22 year old in 1986 that seemed an awful long way off, too far off to give it serious thought. I left after three years and decided over the years to just leave it there accruing value. And so it has, not a huge amount, but a small amount each month. What struck me though was the process of looking at my retirement figures. Everyone goes through this, one minute you're at school with a whole life ahead, the next you're planning to retire, while all the time in my mind I'm still that young man of 22 years of age. A sobering thought indeed.

 

Monday 19th February 2024

My legwear at work today. I purchased these red corduroy trousers around a year ago. Until this weekend I'd refrained from unleashing these on an unsuspecting public. But I do like wearing bright colours so on Saturday they brightened up Shepton Mallet and today I let them illuminate the office in a warm glow. Comments were made. Possibly due to the clash of orange sketcher and pillar-box red strides. Peter Christian the purveyor of such gentleman's clothing, where these originated, do a most fetching teal corduroy trouser. I'm tempted.

Sunday 18th February 2024

And so the experiment begins. The perceived wisdom is that snowdrop do best in moist but not waterlogged soil, in dappled shade, preferably under trees. Pots are not recommended in the long term as they can dry out or be prone to frost. I've never followed perceived wisdom, therefore I plan to grow my small selection of snowdrop varieties in specimen terracotta pots. Yes these will take quite a bit of work during the dormant season, watering regularly, but having researched around this it's possible as long as the snowdrops are repotted every year with new compost. A labour of love if you will. And so today I potted up six varieties, including G 'Merlin' below which Julie kindly bought for me yesterday. Aside from G. nivalis I now only have G. 'Marjorie Brown' in the beds. My species snowdrop G. Gracilis bought in 2023 isn't bulking up and did not flower this year. When I dug it up the bulbs were tiny still. I don't think it was happy where I'd placed it, the soil maybe too cold there. Only time will tell whether this experiment works, but I do like a project though by the time these bundles of joy flower again, this year long blog will be well and truly over.

Saturday 17th February 2024

 

This lovely snowdrop display was inside St Peter and St Paul's church in Shepton Mallet. This was one of the venues for the 5th Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival, a celebration of James Allen (1830-1906) who lived in the town. Allen was a renowned Galanthophile who created hundreds of varieties of snowdrop. The event held over a week involves walks, talks, workshops and plant sales. By chance today we ended up chatting to the organiser, a very chatty lady, who is also the organiser of Shepton's art scene and involved with Shepton Walks. One of those ladies who gets things done. Although I drive through regularly it's the first time ever that I've looked around Shepton, and it's not a bad town at all, the people here seem very friendly.

Friday 16th February 2024

And there is me thinking I worked for Radio 4, not Radio 2. I'm not sure why our car park signs made me think that but it did as I pulled in first thing. These are fairly new signs, until December our delineated spaces were shown via my own produced laminated A4 sheets tied onto the old signs. All quite posh now.

 

Thursday 15th February 2024

 It is extremely difficult to know what to say about this image. Last night on our works WhatsApp group a website was circulating for Valentine's day. A bit of fun, simply the software took an image via a mobile phone and superimposed it onto a software driven picture. This was not the picture I chose either. What emerged was astonishing, a cross between Brian May of Queen and Shirley Temple. What went on in that software to create this hybrid half man half freak is anyone's guess. Oddly I posted this on Facebook and nobody commented or liked it, they were probably in too much of a state of shock. Truly baffling.

Wednesday 14th February 2024

 

It was January the 3rd when I last popped into Costa in Clifton for a hot chocolate. I'd come out this lunchtime only for it to begin raining. Spying a window seat in Costa, inbound and with my large drink ordered I found a window seat and sat back to watch the world go by. After yesterday when everything that could go wrong did, today is a much better day. It's funny that. Some days really do test us as we career from one problem to another disaster, almost as if the guiding planets have become misaligned and the bad energy emmanates cosmically.  It started well today with a call by Dr Moss, as he now is, on a catch up call. I've not spoken to Stephen for years, it was good to have a natter. Maybe there really is love in the air with it being St Valentine's Day. The hot chocolate is good too.

Tuesday 13th February 2024

 

Better known by his nom de plume 'Little Ginge', our cat Gingernut had a routine injection and check up at the vets today. He is so clever. Julie got his cat basket into the lounge last night and he stood looking at it as if to say "and you want me to go in here? When?" The witching hour arrived this morning and he was nowhere to be seen, but eventually we caught him and popped him in the basket. From there on in until he came home there was regular, and pitiful sounding, meow. Just the one refrain, spaced out every ten seconds. In the vets we had to wait a while and so popped him onto the cats-are-less-stressed-if-higher-up waiting structure. He settled but still at ten second intervals emitted a meow. Eventually, twenty five minutes late we were ushered into the vets room. Could we get him out the basket? It was almost vertical before he slid out with a plaintive meow. Anyway for a fourteen year old (we think) he was given a good bill of health - 4.56 kg, same weight as last year, good body condition. Very slight heart murmur which he's had for a while and apart from a little bit of an inflamed gum the vet said he's in very good condition. I could tell that anyway he's a fit as a lop and rules the neighbourhood with a claw of iron. Injection and worming over, Ginge knew it was time to go home and beetled back into his basket, exactly as he does every-time he is at the vets, as if to say "right that's over, come on, time to go home". Five minutes later we were home and he wandered about the house as if nothing had happened. He's such a character and very bright too. I'm glad he decided to adopt us back in March 2020, they've been wonderful years, many more to come we hope.

Monday 12th February 2024

 

Why should I be surprised? Every year it is the same, around the middle of February there is a day when I walk out of the office at 6pm and there's a half light, the days are lengthening. It's such an uplifting moment and it takes me by surprise every single time. From now until the clocks go back in October the days will be long and I can't wait after these long dark winter nights of midwinter. 

Sunday 11th February 2024

 

This may well end up winning the most boring image during this year recording my 60th year blog award. It's a 600 litre compost bin made from recycled plastic. It was purchased at Sander's Garden Centre, Brent Knoll. Full price £119.99, I paid £59.99 in the sale. My life has descended  into the unbridled excitement of a Sunday trip to buy a compost bin, after that we went for a coffee at the Hub and then bought some milk and eggs from the farm vending shed at Westhay. Top day out in my book.

Saturday 10th February 2024

The Somerset coast between Kilve and Watchet is in many ways an amazing landscape.  Geologically internationally important, culturally nationally important and for the visitor a quiet area steeped in history. Today our visit coincided with warm sunshine at Kilve in the morning, with changing weather turning to rain in the afternoon at Watchet. I like this area, and the adjacent Quantocks very much, it pleased the poet Coleridge too. It is an area both friendly of inhabitants and stunning of scenery. But shhh, don't tell anyone how nice it is here.

Friday 9th February 2024

I think I'm going a little potty. I woke at 6am this morning fully dressed but under the duvet, last night I must have gone to bed and flaked out before getting undressed for bed. Heavens! Anyway I woke with the mountain of work to do today buzzing around my mind, thus instead of sitting there worrying I got up and began work, downstairs, at 7am and by 2pm I was battered and bruised, unable to think and realised I'd not eaten since last night. Rescue came in the form of Julie who, fancying a scone, suggested we went to Sander's Garden Centre for a cream tea. Actually that was for Julie, I had a meringue-fruit ensemble, which is unlike me as I don't like cream cakes as a rule. It was delicious and a great hour or so break, which allowed me, after observing the pots for sale and Brent Knoll, to come home and do another two hours, finally switching the laptop off at 6pm. I've earned my salary this week.

Thursday 8th February 2024

All I can say about this image is that having been so busy today working from home, I never had time to take an image. But this, taken on the day afterwards (Friday), is exactly the same view. I'm unbelievably busy at work but thankfully technology lets me work from home, avoiding a numbing commute after a long day. So tired was I today that I went to bed at 9pm and can't remember anything about going to sleep. I'm possibly getting too old for this.

 

Wednesday 7th February 2024

 

An unexpected treat today. I found myself in Exeter where I'd taken my Celerio for it's annual service. From Tracks, the garage, it is a pleasant 25 minute walk along the canal to the quay quarter of Exeter, which last year Julie and I explored. Today I bypassed the quay, and the very full foaming river and in 15 minutes I stood outside the Cathedral. £6 to get in made me think, though in the end as I'd got this far, what's money, so in I went. It was while grabbing a hot chocolate from the vending van in the nave, seen in the distance, that I noticed Mars spinning in the air. I had no idea this bit of artwork by Luke Jerram was on this month. It was stunning, more so as the unique sound installation featuring sounds heard on the red planet, was accompanied by hammers and saws from the choir where a new floor is being laid. I have to say that's impressive, installing an audio-visual artwork while building work continues. That said I loved my visit. Car collected at 3pm, home just after 4, then at 7.30 the Richard Jefferies Society Exec Council Zoom meeting which ended after 9pm. Busy busy day.

Tuesday 6th February 2024

When I began in this strange media business in the early 1990's emails were not around. When I began this blog ten years ago smartphones didn't exist, just Blackberry phones, and Zoom certainly didn't exist. Today technology drives so much of our lives and I find it fascinating. The screenshot here is of a Zoom recording of Radio 4's Rare Earth taken this afternoon. I'd set up the Zoom link and had just started the 'meeting'. In the studio in London's Broadcasting House were Tom Heap and Helen Czerski, producer Sarah Swadling and a studio guest Chris. In the United States Professor Henshue beamed in in perfect clarity, and in Belfast Connor an ecologist spoke loud and clear from a BBC radio booth, and me in my home office in Somerset. We were all chatting away as if we were in the same room, then I dropped out to allow the recording to begin. It will broadcast on Friday, alien invaders. We take all of this for granted now but a huge amount of technological development has taken place in the last few years to get all of us here and accepting that we can speak to people anywhere in the world in real time and see them, thanks to a little bit of software code and a laptop. Quite remarkable. 

Monday 5th February 2024

Breaking my own rules again, this is not my own image but one sent to me by my lifelong friend Chris. I've known Chris since I was about six months old. He was adopted by friends of my parents. We went through school, I was his best man and we've kept in touch ever since. In November he and his wife moved to Cumbria and are having the roof replaced during a northern winter. A brave undertaking and it is taking a lot longer than planned but they're slowly getting there. He sent me some progress images today, this being one of them and also mentioned he'd bumped into my ex girlfriend in a local pub. Which I'd half expected as she lives in the next village to Chris's new home. Small world indeed.

 

Sunday 4th February 2024

 

It was warm enough today to spend a few hours in the garden. It was so nice to be outdoors again sorting and tidying, gardening, if you get the bug, really is addictive. Julie had bought three Harvington Yellows hellebores at East Lambrook Manor yesterday. We'd watched insects, bees mainly, coming to these yellow flowers in preference to other colours. Why that was I'm not sure, can it just be the colour which attracted them? We'll see in our own garden as these three are now planted in a clump next to some purple hellebore. Which colour will insects prefer? I'll only know by sitting and observing, with a cup o tea of course.

Saturday 3rd February 2024

 

Somehow today I ended up at East Lambrook Manor and spent £69 on three snowdrops. We'd set off to buy cat food, for me to have a breakfast while Julie met a new client at Mark then come home and watch the rugby. Cat food bought I was just finishing my breakfast at Rich's Cider Barn when Julie returned to collect me. The suggestion then was to pop to the Hub at Shapwick as she fancied a toastie there. It was while there I happened to mention when will be able to pop down and see the snowdrops at East Lambrook. From the Hub it is just 30 minutes away. Decision made we were there in no time and having visited last year I had a 'hit list' of two snowdrops I'd like to buy. Galanthus Elwesii 'Fly Fishing', and Galanthus 'Philippe André Meyer'. Sadly the former was out of stock, but I got the last of the latter, though at £35 for one bulb!! I also succumbed to G. Elwesii 'sickle' £11, and G Plicatus 'Madeleine' £23.00 Aside from these three, I also have three other snowdrop varieties in the garden bought last year. Have I become obsessed, a Galanthophile in fact?

Friday 2nd February 2024

Not only did we inherit Gingernut a few years ago, but I think our neighbours cat Treacle wants us to adopt her too. She's a lovely cat but a bit of a pest. Lives most of the day on our kitchen windowsill but every time we open a door she's in like an Exocet. Gingernut hates her so there's always tension if she gets in as he'll go for her. At one point today in the conservatory there were three cats, Gingernut in the middle about to attack Maud, who also lives next door with Treacle, with Treacle looking startled on the windowsill. It's chaos at times. As a dog lover I never thought I'd have a house full of cats.

Thursday 1st February 2024

 

My gluten free elevenses. Thursdays have become really busy at work not least as I have a 53 minute programme translation to complete, which takes about 3 hours, and that's even after putting it through an automatic translation service on Microsoft 365. The errors from that are hilarious. In many ways I enjoy the challenge of getting this translation to the Open University before Rare Earth broadcasts on Radio 4 on Friday, but it is a lot of screen work, I needed sugar. So I popped to the cafe next door and returned with a hot chocolate and gf brownie. I was on a real high after that. To compensate this indulgence I had a super green salad from Marks & Spencer for lunch. I felt virtuous after that. And it's Imbolc too.