February 28th 2014

 

Sometimes in life we may feel like shouting "keep paddling I hear banjo's".  Seeing this bunch of reprobates was one of those moments. T spotted these chaps this morning in the engineers department of the BBC. I have no idea where they have come from, nor more importantly why they are there, but they are. And they brought a ray of sunshine to an other wise end of week feeling. I only wish there was an answer to my question. Why?

February 27th 2014

There is something heartening about nature regaining control of the man made environment. I love the notion that we think we can control nature but once we turn our back it sneaks in via many a nook and cranny. After World War Two sights of buddleia shrubs reclaiming the bomb sites of London were a common sight. My walk out of work this evening was arrested by something less dramatic, a maple spp sapling newly emerged in the pointing of a brick wall. There it flew like a chlorophyll flag waiting to grow into it's mature neighbour a few feet away. Sadly this probably will not last beyond this growing season as the building maintenance team will remove it, or when the drier weather arrives it will succumb to dessication. But for the moment it stays here battling the forces of man. Unlike it's neighbour on the same wall

Ivy leaved toadflax, (Cymbalaria muralis) is native to hot climates of the Mediterranean and so not native to Britain; but in Bristol and elsewhere it grows on just about every wall available providing a much needed softening to the hardscape. An interesting plant, in this stage in early spring the plant is positively phototrophic and so grows towards the light. After flowering as the seed is being formed it switches to negatively phototrophic and retreats away from the light back into a crevice. This allows the seed to be 'flung' into a crevice to allow germination to take place in a cool moist environment. A strategy to survive and spread in a hot climate. The natural world is fascinating. 

February 26th 2014

Very simply today is a three digestives day. I managed to get home after work while there was still around 45 minutes of daylight left. Spring is knocking at the doors and daylength is lengthening rapidly. As I walked out to the seating area in the garden to sit for a while with my cup of tea, this image came into my head. Luckily the camera was in the conservatory, so it was but an instant before the shot was taken and the beverage imbibed before it cooled down. I'm glad I sat out there as a flock of jackdaws noisily flew over in their coupling groups, a pair of raven cronked over and the countryside was alive with the dusk chorus. Sheer bliss. After loading up the image, I then thought this would make a lovely monochrome photo, so here it is.

February 25th 2014

I've got a bit behind with my postings over the last few days as not feeling great in the head region, some sort of cold or virus thing I can't shift. However tonight after work it being a fantastic evening and the night's drawing out a pace now, I raced down to Somerset Wildlife Trust's Westhay Reserve and caught the last few minutes of sunshine. It helped clear the air (and head) after a day staring at a computer screen. One of the photos I took (above) which I posted on Facebook brought a lovely comment from Rebecca Welshman who is a Richard Jefferies scholar and fellow trustee of the Richard Jefferies Museum. Rebecca wrote;

"This has elicited a Jefferies quote! "The wind works its full will over the exposed waste, and drives through the reed-grass, scattering the stalks aside, and scarce giving them time to spring together again." - From Jefferies book 'The Open Air'.

February 24th 2014

Working in the media, or at least turning up every day and having a nap, often throws up some strange going's on. I well remember the rowing over Malham Tarn at midnight trying to record a programme on an extinct caddisfly. Or that time I turned up to give a talk on the BBC Natural History Unit in Newcastle only to increase the audience by 100%. So today it made absolute sense to me to be loading some of my gardening tools into my car to be sent to London for a radio play. A colleague here is producing a comedy drama called 'Gossip from the Garden Pond' which is being recorded at the BBC's Radio Theatre on Sunday; the characters are all species found in a garden pond. Not having a garden my colleague sent out a plea for props, and so in true Bulldog Blitz spirit I have loaned some of the tools for the day. If it wasn't the fact that the show was being recorded in London I'd head over there on Sunday and check out for myself how good my tools performed on stage. Will I hear the spade sigh as he's picked up? Will the shears produce cutting comments to the cast? I'll have to wait until they return to find out.

February 23rd 2014

Today I began a task that really should have been started in 2010, that of removing the football frieze around the spare guest bedroom. I moved into this house in December 2009 and the previous occupants had a little boy who presumably liked football, hence the frieze. Not long after I moved in although the front bedroom is the master one with an en-suite the back bedroom is the same size and has a lovely view out over the fields to Sand Bay and eventually the Black Mountains in Wales. Indeed on a bright day with binoculars I can make out individual people on the mountains even though as the crow flies it's about 20 miles. But with one thing and another although I sleep in this room every night I'd never got around to decorating it, or the rest of the house for that matter (although it was quite smart when I moved in). So today after 4 years of looking at footballs, it's time for a change. I may put up a tractor frieze, or maybe one with gnomes.

February 22nd 2014

 

Day 145 of my romp through the stuff of life around my 50th year sees me for the first time in weeks and weeks having a day on my own with no external demands at all on my time. And now I'm bored. Well that's not true, I'm trying to relax and rest but that doesn't come easily to me, so I'm bored. Someone once described me as a hurricane trying to create delicate origami which I've always liked. Sums me up very well. I'm not good having nothing to do, and this morning made worse by management texting me to say she's off for a stroll around Avebury. The odd thing is I have a lot to do here, the whole reason why I'm staying at home. The trouble is it's sunny and what I have to do is indoors, and that's domestic stuff, not for me. But, But, But, I am being focused, very focused at the tasks in hand at home. Which is why I've now spent over an hour reading through some of my P G Wodehouse books in a classic distraction manoeuvre. There has never been a time in my life when Plum has not made me see life in anything other than an uplifting way, and one of the very few writers who makes me laugh out loud. Stout fellow that Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, stout fellow.