Female of the Species

Watcher of the skies

2012-01-14T19:25:00.001Z

Named after a song from the greatest ever band from my youth, Genesis (with Peter Gabriel I must add), any eagle-eyed persons out there may notice a new link on my sidebar called Watcher of the Skies. It has recently come to my notice that there are an awful lot of stories concerning birds out there these days, so I mentioned this to Jon and - Heavens to Betsy - I have been given a spot on the blog for writing about such things, instead of including them in my regular Daily News efforts.

So if you are interested in such things, please do hop on over there to check it out once in a while.

I may well have added a video of this song before, but due to a lot of my photos, links etc., disappearing a while back due to that old chestnut, 'technical difficulties', I find this is a really good excuse - and opportunity - to indulge in a spot of 'down memory lane' with a tear in the eye for what once was. And as one comment by someone known as Hatmap on YouTube so rightly states: "Phil Collins in his proper role and place---in the background! Gabriel and Hackett rule! " Well....der......... right on mate.

To lose one computer may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness

2011-12-31T23:59:00.001Z

I am undone. I am without. At the beginning of the week my laptop died on me which was bad enough, but the following day my desktop pc was found not to be working either. What fun. I am now having to try and get things done on the slow computer in the corner of the office, without access to my files at the moment. So I beg forgiveness and more than a little patience from those who may have emailed me for something. I am behind in most of my work, and methinks it will take a while for me to catch up.

But I guess I shall get there in the end.

But......the real reason for this posting is to wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year. I hope 2012 is good to you.

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T09:00:00.002Z

Wishing you all a very

Merry Christmas dear readers,

I hope you have a fun day.

Happy Birthday, Olivia xxx

2011-12-01T09:00:00.000Z

Enigmas by Pablo Neruda

2011-11-26T19:07:00.003Z

Poetry corner: just seemed appropriate for the day.

ENIGMAS

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with
his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent
bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on
the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean
spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?

I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its
jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
petal
hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.

I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

The Old Man of the Greenwood

2011-10-31T11:58:00.000Z

Deep within the forest he stood, his limbs stretching out around him, protecting that which he regarded as his own under the span of his long, strong boughs. As an acorn, he had fallen to the forest floor in the autumn of 1011, and he had rolled down the slight incline before coming to rest and being covered by the subsequent fall of his parent’s golden and orange leaves as protection as against the marauding antics of the creatures of the forest. Many siblings that had fallen with him that autumn had been snatched up by the jays and mice that had busily scrabbled away on the forest floor to search out the fruits of the oak, before running of with them and industriously secreting them away as stocks for their future winter consumption. Some would be forgotten, or simply lost, and would survive to grow into a sapling, but many would suffer the fate of becoming sustenance for the creature that had found it.

But not this oak. He had survived to send roots into the earth and over the years had grown tall and strong. He had battled for his space in the wood and had won against others who had tried to grow in his shadow. After two centuries his trunk was thick and his branches strong. They spread out far and wide and nothing could compete against his strength.

The centuries drifted slowly past. Battles were fought and lost; battles were fought and won; there were even those where no-one came out as real victors, but still the oak stood firm, his roots descending ever deeper and spreading ever wider in the ground beneath him forming a grip that was unshakable. He would live to witness many an event unfold beneath his branches, some dramatic some less so, but allow me to recount some below.

It was only ninety-nine years later, in 1100, that the patch of ground that was fast becoming the oak’s domain when fully grown, became sodden with the blood of an English monarch. Had the blood of this ruthless king surged through the oak’s roots, making it strong and tenacious in living in the centuries to follow? The body of William II had lain where it had fallen for a few hours after the fatal arrow had struck, which could, of course, explain the patch of red that oozes from the soil every 2^nd August, and the sudden slight growth spurt from the oak on that day every year since the fateful hunting trip, its branches shuddering and leaves rustling as it does so. William had been the Conqueror’s favourite son, his ruddy complexion earning him the nickname ‘Rufus’. But favourite or not, there he lay in August 1100, the arrow protruding from his chest, his different coloured eyes staring lifelessly at the earth, his hunting companions having fled, this way and that, leaving him out of sheer panic for their life and property now that the king was dead.

But times moves on. Tempus fugit. And apart from the occasional appearance of men hunting - whether legally or illegally - peace once more descended upon the wood and its occupants. For the next two hundred odd years the oak widened its reach around itself and had become truly and irrevocably established.

It was one October that the oak became the scene of quite a different scenario than had ever occurred before. There were still leaves upon the branches, but the majority had already succumbed to gravity and had floated to the ground where the rotting process had begun. Soon they would be mere skeletons of their former selves; a delicate lacework of veins. It was upon the piles of discarded leaves beneath the oak’s canopy that the footsteps came crunching, kicking up the leaves as they went. They were not the steps of someone who came in secret, but of one who came with purpose; they were decisive steps that flattened and destroyed the delicate frames of the fallen beneath the heavy weight of their stride.

The figure stopped and leant against the oak’s thick, gnarled trunk, his left foot raised up behind him so that the sole of his foot rested against the bark. He fiddled with the belt bag that hung from his waist and pulled forth a pouch; a pouch clearly containing something heavy. Tossing it upwards he caught it deftly in his right palm and the coins inside jingled dully as they knocked against each other. He idly scratched at his arm and bounced the bulging pouch up and down in his hand. After a short while, impatience seemed to get the better of him and he pushed off the trunk with his left foot and paced up and down. Then, hearing something, he dashed into the shadowy undergrowth. From the opposite direction came the sound of footfalls in the crisp autumn carpet and soon another figure game into view. Satisfied that it were he that he had been expecting, the waiting man revealed his existence from the cover of the wood’s shadows.

There was a slight bow of the head from each of the men in a silent civil greeting as the pouch changed hands with the promise of a further delivery once the task had been completed to the satisfaction of he who supplied the coin. A flock of raucous rooks disturbed the quietness of the secretive tryst as they took flight into the autumnal air in a mass of black feather and beak. This raised the silent question by each man to himself of whether they had been followed to their assignation. Had their accord been discovered? Had the birds been disturbed by the arrival of the noble’s men, men in the pay of the man whose demise was being paid for in the quietness of the wood?

Both men looked around nervously and eyed each other suspiciously. Either one could have welched on the delicate accord. Had one laid an elaborate trap on the other? There was no sound of approaching feet, nor clank of chain mail, nor snort of horse. It was, of course, more than likely that it was just a result of their over-active imaginations, or maybe even their feelings of guilt, that had caused their fear of the sudden ascending swirl of the birds.

But there was more than the pouch that moved from one person to another under the oak tree that day. And if either man had known this, then their fear would have definitely been very real. The flea that had caused the man to scratch his arm had momentarily landed on the money pouch just as it had been received into the other man’s hand, whilst several others had already jumped from their old host to their new victim. They worked their way up his arms, and down his legs and bit him to suck out the warm blood that raced with the adrenalin caused by the secret assignation. And whilst one man returned to take the road back to the coast, the other made his way to Winchester. The year was 1398 and the people of Winchester would soon fall under the unrelenting power of the deathly Great Pestilence. Burial pits would fill with the rotting carcasses of its victims, young and old, as the harbingers of destruction that travelled to Winchester on that last day of October spread their doom.

Time and again the oak had to endure being a silent witness of death. His size meant he was well-known throughout the nearby towns and villages, as well as the city of Winchester. His branches became the site of many a hanging of poor unfortunates such as poachers and witches throughout the ages, and in the Civil War witnessed the deaths of seven cavaliers and three of Cromwell’s men after the former had sought safety in the wood and the latter had sought them out.

And now 1,000 years later it still stands, old and haggard, its lower branches bowed and almost touching the ground as it struggles with their weight. This is the Old Man of the Greenwood with the blood of a fallen king rushing through its heart and the screams of many a victim echoing throughout its frame. And once a year a bold traveller may see the faces of those whose death it witnessed etched in the bark of its bole. Or the long parade of plague victims that gather once a year under its branches as they join hands and form circles around the two men whose criminal assignation were the cause of their deaths. That is, of course, if that traveller is brave enough to venture into the wood, in the dead of night on the 31^st day of October.

Apologies

2011-09-16T16:54:00.000+01:00

I am at present chopping and changing this blog design so please excuse the various oddities that may arise in the spacing, colouration etc. I got tired of the plain black background which I have been using since the start. I found a nifty website that does backgrounds etc for blogger so am having a try out with them.

I think I am supposed to add here that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. I am sure it will, although I am not too clear as to what 'normal' actually is.

Have an eggsellent day, dear boy

2011-09-11T18:41:00.002+01:00

Happy 21st Birthday, Max

With lots of love from 'Auntie'

xxxxxx

She was a day......tripper

2011-09-11T18:39:00.000+01:00

I fell up the stairs during Friday night. Well, to elaborate, I fell up them once , and an hour or so later I tripped up them. So, in truth, I had two altercations with the stairs in one evening. The latter occasion was a mere trifle (no, I do not mean that an example of one of those extraordinarily flamboyant desserts was sitting idly on the stair by the way….and no my lack of spatial awareness was not from over-indulging on a sherry-fuelled pudding either). However, even if I do say so myself, the first time was really quite impressive – one of those dramatic moments that can never be repeated in quite the same way. An off the cuff theatrical masterpiece if you like. A BAFTA moment even. But one that was not witnessed and/or investigated by those others residing in the house, apart from “You alright love?” from Jon who was on the ‘phone to Nick Redfern at the time of the event.

As I scuffed and bruised both elbows, both knees and my chin and lay sprawled on my stomach I had expected that my noisy ’ kerthump’ , and the loud exclamation of annoyance that burst forth from my lips would have caused the occupants of the rooms upstairs to open their doors to allow them to investigate the commotion. Mais non. The doors remained firmly closed…well it was middle to late evening …so I must remember not to fall the more conventional way (ie down) next time, especially during the evenings. And particularly if Jon has already retired for the night; my poor broken and bruised body would probably not be found until the morning or when one of the other doors creaked open to disgorge its occupant on a midnight wander to find food in the kitchen.

The whole affair did not do much for my back either, which – although much improved – has still not recovered from whatever it was that I did to it after the Weird Weekend. I suppose one could say that I am currently going through a phase of experiencing poor judgement of my surroundings. Or perhaps someone is drugging my tea…..hmmm.

Gorblimey hello Mrs. Jones, how's your Bert's lumbago?

2011-08-27T18:06:00.000+01:00

After days of nagging warnings, it finally gave out on Thursday. I am not sure what started it all off or even the exact nature of that which played the part of the last straw, but something has obviously gone awry in my poor old back. So, I am now hobbling around like some ancient and wizened old crone from a well-told fairy story. Apart, that is, from the fact that I do not have a long crooked nose, a wart, or dishevelled, dry, wispy grey hair and do not possess a gnarled and bent walking stick, and I still have most of my teeth. In fact, upon reflection, not really much like a crone from a well-told fairy story after all, so that little cameo is ruined.

But hobbling I am, and bent over I am. It took me around ten minutes this morning to go from lying in bed to sitting up, and then to get my legs to take me in some weird half-standing/half-crouching crab-like walk into the bathroom to attend to those oh- so-necessary morning ablutions. I rue the day all those years ago when, being younger and without such cares in the world, I washed my hair over the bath, much as I had done since I was but a slip of a thing but clearly, on that occasion, with misplaced enthusiasm. To find that I couldn’t stand up straight again for hours afterwards came as a surprise, albeit - I suppose - merely one of those early warnings that youth was being left behind as I climbed towards the summit of that hill that would all too quickly reveal its somewhat slippery descent on t’other side. Suddenly, something I had done for years was not possible any more without discomfort, and has now most definitely progressed to an absolute no-no.

Whatever I did to cause this episode has well and truly scuppered my plans to film 'Watcher of the Skies' for the next edition of On the Track whilst tap dancing and juggling three coconuts at the same time. Hmmm, I think we are back to long noses and well-told fairy tales again.

However, I am chuffed to note that I am providing Jon with some small entertainment as I shuffle around, followed by Pru the hop-a-long dog. We must look a right pair.

Happy birthday Jonathan!

2011-08-22T21:29:00.000+01:00

One thing about the Weird Weekend: everything else seems to get put on the back-burner to a certain degree, and having a birthday the day after the event finishes is perhaps not the best day either. So....YES .... I am late in posting birthday felicitations to my husband. But better late than never though, and he did get birthday cake so I am sure he will not mind the tardiness in the publishing of this blog.

Happy Birthday, dearest Jonathan

xxxxxxx

Modern shameless CFZ advertising

2011-08-21T01:59:00.002+01:00

Thanks to the superb photography of Olivia:

A fine display of mugs to commemorate the forthcoming expedition to search for the orang pendek:

She captured yours truly demonstrating the perfect use for said merchandise:

From two useful angles

but then it was realised:

that it is better to take more water with it:

Ah well

Saturday at Weird Weekend 2011

2011-08-21T00:37:00.002+01:00

Saturday afternoon saw the renowned Weird Weekend cake eating competition in all its gory, stomach-churning, chocolatey glory:

Jon found a very sweet, stray chicken called Bo:

The children's activities, courtesy of the wonderful Dave, Joanne and Rosie Curtis, were in full swing:

And the creepy crawlies were creepy crawling courtesy of Nick, Kara, Lilly and Harriet Wadham:

All in all a pretty busy and fun-packed day for all concerned.

Friday night at the Weird Weekend 2011

2011-08-20T00:28:00.002+01:00

Dr. Darren Naish in deep concentration.

After months of preparation the doors opened at 6 pm. Oll Lewis, Professor Bryan Sykes and Dr Darren Naish were on the opening bill, and it was at last time to relax and go with the flow.

And then there was dinner time...... I always look forward to the food at the Weird Weekend, there is always something tasty to be eaten and tonight it was delicious chilli and jacket potato. Thanks ladies!

Weird Weekend Thursday 18th August 2011

2011-08-19T13:30:00.002+01:00

A few photos of the setting-up process for the cocktail party on Thursday night.

If a face could launch a thousand ships .......

2011-07-21T13:05:00.001+01:00

upon laying eyes on these two, in which direction would they sail?

To the ends of the world or back to dry dock?

Happy Anniversary

from one tugboat to another

XXXXXXX

Lazy Sunday afternoon

2011-07-16T16:06:00.002+01:00

MSN had a 'cars that are nearly extinct' photo gallery this morning which I was perusing idly whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. I am not sure why this gallery, in particular, drew my attention, but it did introduce me to a little stunner that would be so ideal for poodling around the Devonshire lanes.

And with a name like the Daffodil - made by Daf during the albeit brief period of 1961 and 63 - it would have been a must for the dotty Mrs Jonathan Downes of the CFZ. She is so cute (the car not the peculiar lady mentioned - now that would be a trumpet blow too far). She also looks more 50s to me than 60s (again the car), but a beauty nevertheless (erm...yes the car). Awww, and the first ones off the production line only had 22bhp! Sweet. I could have become one of those Sunday afternoon drivers, every day.

However, I really don't think all that stuff is really going to fit in that boot......I reckon the children are sitting on some of it on the back seat, hence their slightly elevated appearance. And look - no seatbelts! Aah those were the days when you didn't get garotted by a badly fitting seatbelt as a child, and could make rude faces and gesticulate crudely at the occupants of the car behind you. Did children do that in the 60s? Did they know crude gesticulations back then? I don't think I did - but then I was a good girl.

Happy Birthday Thea!

2011-07-07T18:23:00.000+01:00

Happy Birthday to my youngest niece with the ever-present smile and happy glint in her eye.

I hope you have a lovely birthday, Thea.

CFZ Publishing

2011-06-17T01:46:00.002+01:00

Keep an eye on the new addition to our bloggo network - CFZ Publishing - which is being launched today. I have been given free rein with it, with the basic requirement of keeping it updated with our new titles as soon as they become available. I may also provide the reader with an occasional teaser regarding books that are on the cusp of imminent publication. You never know, if I am feeling really chipper I may even throw in the odd 'bogof' offer or even a competition here and there to win one of the titles. Jon has already volunteered to pull out the winning entry from a sack if his services are needed, but I have banned him from being filmed so doing if he insists on wearing the shorts that he was sporting when he generously offered his help (believe me, you would need a whole bottle of smelling salts to bring you around from that viewing).

As for the 'featured author' section, I hope to be able to present you with the occasional warts 'n all interview, when yours truly will probe as many Verruca vulgaris as she can, armed only with her trusty and ever-sharpened pencil and well-thumbed notebook.

See you there.

The woman in the wet dress and the throw in the washing machine

2011-06-01T23:18:00.002+01:00

Last night (Tuesday) Jon and I watched a couple of episodes of Bones, which has become quite a habit for the last six weeks or so since Helen lent us some to watch, recommending that we would like the show. We have just about finished working our way through five series and once we have finished watching the disc that is left, we will have to wait until the end of the year before being able to see any more. I am not sure how we will cope, but I am sure that the withdrawal symptoms will not be nearly as bad as when I gave up smoking or gave up chocolate. Actually, on reflection, the withdrawal symptoms for the former were not overly bad because having the flu helped me out quite a lot due to my not being able or wanting to smoke anyway. However, I do miss it – by choice I would not have given up quite yet, but it seemed the most sensible thing to do at the time.

But giving up smoking or chocolate is absolutely nothing to do with Bones or the events that occurred on Wednesday afternoon.

What is pertinent to the point, however, is that one of the episodes we watched on Tuesday evening involved a murderer disposing of his victim's body by shoving him down the laundry chute of a hotel, which culminated in said body being given a good old service wash. This meant that he ended up being spread all over the inside of the drum, something discovered once the machine had been stopped and further investigation had ensued. One big machine though; big enough to walk into – now that is impressive (as would be the water and soap powder bills I am sure).

So coming back to Wednesday afternoon …. and I have to say that I had a similar occurrence in my washing machine, the similarity not being that there was a body in it I must add, but merely a burgundy throw. Pru was sick on it the night before (after we had finished watching Bones that is) which I noticed on my way in to see Jon, who had asked me to go and look at something on the computer. Although she ate her deposit (with apparent relish), almost as soon as she had chucked it (dogs are so disgusting) it did mean that I had to wash the throw. I have washed this article many times in its life, but on this occasion something weird happened and the washing machine decided to mangle it slightly and the drum became awash with bits of soggy burgundy-coloured material. This meant the machine could not drain properly as the holes in it had become blocked up with the wet fluff. I had to enlist the help of Oll to assist me in emptying out the machine manually and we, the ‘utility area’, and the kitchen were soon awash with water. Luckily, on this first evacuation the water was warm, so having to wear rather soggy clothing and footwear for the following hour was not as bad as it could have been. However, by the third attempt at getting out the fluff and getting the drum to drain rather than swish around murky particles of thread, the warm water had been replaced with cold that was certainly not so pleasant.

Anyway, back to Bones. Upon opening the door to let the water gush out into the bucket I was holding underneath, I noticed that the inside of the drum looked remarkably like the one in the Bones episode described briefly above, only the body parts had been replaced by the material. So there was a method to my apparent madness in mentioning the episode earlier. And you all thought I had completely lost it didn't you? I may take a roundabout way of getting there, but I do get there in the end, wherever there is.

Oll went off to find a syphoning tube in order to get rid of the water that still sat in the drum below the level of the door. He came back armed with one, saying that there was a bigger one somewhere, but it seemed to have disappeared. I unintentionally voiced my suggestion aloud that maybe somebody had decided to try a bit of home-style colonic irrigation and had failed to return the tube afterwards, at which Oll assured me that it was not him. Well not me either so that leaves Graham and Jon, but we will not go any further down that road.

Since the dramatic events of Wednesday have been laid to rest until the morrow, we have at least worked out the chain of events that led to the waterlogged scenes of earlier, and have all reached the same conclusion…it is all Jon’s fault. It was he who wished to have liver and bacon casserole for dinner, meaning that Pru had a small onion-less version made for her, which involved her eating it quickly as it was such a treat, causing her to throw it up later and so on and so forth.

So BOO to Jon for causing me to get soaked, first in warm water and later twice in cold as Oll and I tried to sort it out. And BOO to Jon for causing Oll to look for a syphon tube and only find the thin one, leading to my dismaying thoughts of DIY colonic irrigation (thoughts that will no doubt take a long time to vacate my grey matter ….urgh).

But joking aside, it will be a real pain and shame if the machine is irreparable. It has given me pretty good and faithful service since October 2000, and considering we live in such a throw away society and things are not made to last these days like they used to be, it has had an amazing innings.

Last of the great surrealists

2011-05-28T12:40:00.002+01:00

Tony Shiels introduced me to the art and writing of Leonora Carrington a couple of years ago. I had to admit not having heard of her before, mainly due to the fact that I am not really a lover of surrealism. However, I had heard of Max Ernst – mainly due to Loplop, his alter-ego on canvas in the shape of a bird. The CFZ has a model of this creation, which has featured in more than one Weird Weekend and – at present – keeps guard over Bigfoot and the giant snapping turtle, Quasimodo, up in the CFZ Museum.

On Tony’s suggestion I read one of Leonora’s novels last year , and I used to read it aloud at night so both Jon and I could enjoy it at the same time. The Hearing Trumpet is a very strange novel, but one that you cannot put down once starting. The heroine is a 92 year old woman who is given a hearing trumpet by her well-meaning friend. This then means that she can hear everything that her family is saying and finds out that she is to be taken to an institution. The adventures that follow are weird, funny and poignant and Leonora’s writing had both me and Jon laughing out loud at times, so much so that on occasion I would have to re-read a paragraph over and over before being able to finish it with a straight face.

Leonora died in Mexico City on 25th May of complications following pneumonia at the grand age of 94, and is survived by her two sons, Gabriel and Pablo.

Bottoms up

2011-05-25T20:42:00.002+01:00

A visit to the podiatrist at Bideford hospital should have been a reasonably uneventful affair, apart from the fact that, in the end, Jon had to endure a minor medical procedure during which he had something drastic done to his big toe with a scalpel, and a strange looking gleaming instrument. He came out sporting that little child look of feeling slightly sorry for himself, but ever so pleased to have a bandage triumphantly wrapped around his left hallux.

That is all by the by, however. Perhaps the shock of the free show to which he and I had been treated before he had entered into the realms of the podiatrist (who sat waiting for him, grinning from ear to ear and armed with the instruments of wounding) had given him a rush of adrenaline; a weird sort of fight or flight instinct rushing through his veins. This combination had, therefore, enabled the podiatrist to cut his flesh without him flinching and to emerge from the consulting room glorious in his success.

You see, we had arrived at the hospital around ten minutes early, and had also not found it necessary to search for a parking space, so we were able to sit in the car park for a short while before Jon had to launch himself into action and attend his appointment. Jon used to reside at this hospital once upon a time, when nursing was his game, and his window overlooked the area in which we sat idly watching the world go by as we waited for the clock to tick those remaining minutes. In the flush of youth his reactions would most likely have been entirely different to the events that were to unfold as we were parked there yesterday.

The scenery was quite pleasant; the trees were all in full leaf in various, glorious shades of green, and the horse chestnut was in the last throes of blossom, teasingly offering a view of what is to come when its annual fruits ripen and fall to the ground. This will either be under their own steam or from marauding conker challengers armed with sticks or anything else that they can throw in their attempts to ensure the prize falls to the earth. However, being as it is a hospital car park, I am assuming that, in the main, it will be the former that will occur, apart from a few opportunists during visiting hours. In the corner of the eye, a male blackbird could be seen to be busily hunting for food in the shade of a beech, and the wind ruffled the leaves gently in the chilly breeze.

Then the occupants of the car next to us returned to their vehicle and in a second diabolically marred the serenity of the surroundings. Their car was on our passenger side so I could see them whilst talking to Jon. I have no idea what the slang is these days, but in my day it was builder’s bum or bum cleavage. But this was no builder. It was a young woman strapping her children into the back of the car who was revealing a little more than she probably thought. She was clearly wearing a pair of the so-called fashionable – and to my mind uncomfortable – hipster jeans. I have a pair that ease their way down to my nether regions at the merest mention of gravity and are constantly being firmly yanked back up to waist level , and secured with an ever –tightening belt in order to restrict their movement south. Why did I purchase such things? At the time, I found it nigh on impossible to find a pair of ‘normal’ jeans and had to make do with what was available.

This woman, however, seemed oblivious to the migration of her own pair and was exposing at least six inches of her lower cheeks to the air and the local wildlife, and also, to our horror and rather sarcastic amusement, us. I must remind you here that we are two ageing hippies that are growing more belligerent and unforgiving the older we get. And we were – by now – trying not to look at the free peep show whilst muffling our giggling and groans of repugnance at such an unfortunate display of bare flesh.

The car and its occupant with the offending buttocks eventually moved off, leaving us both staring out of the windscreen with looks of dismay and jaws dropped as if catching flies. The spectacle had clearly affected us. But then, it was time for Jon to make his unsuspecting way to the gleaming instruments and for me to doze off slightly, trying desperately to shake the vision that had so recently invaded my personal space.

Sorry to disappoint those who may have been hoping for a picture of the offending buttocks, but this is the hero's toe in all its bandaged glory.

Happy birthday wishes to my brother

2011-05-02T13:36:00.000+01:00

Happy Birthday, Ant!

Have a nice day

Lots of love

Me xxxxxx

A typewriter is tougher to shift than a condiment

2011-04-27T20:12:00.000+01:00

….. writes Diksha Sahni for the Wall Street Journal, which is a great start to a sentence, although I am not too sure I get the connection between them both!

However, I was saddened to read here ....

But relieved to then read here ....

I learned to touch type many years ago on an old battered black manual typewriter at my local technical college. I took evening classes after I left school – such classes were not known at grammar school, only academic lessons with a bit of PE thrown in for exercise. I cannot remember exactly how the nitty gritty stuff was taught at the tech, but I do remember bashing the keys with fingers that were hidden beneath a wooden affair that covered the keys from cheating eyes. And of course it was necessary to bash the keys with enthusiasm to ensure they descended with enough strength to get the letter to reach the ribbon, let alone print anything on to paper. And then there were those occasions when you caught two keys at once and ended up with a duel of inky metal at the ribbon, not to mention those times when you missed a key altogether and you finger plummeted painfully between two keys.

No doubt, that is why these days I tend to hit the keys from a height and with great gusto rather than glance my fingertips over them, which is – let’s be honest – all you really need to do these days on computer keyboards. It may also explain why I cannot take to laptop keyboards - they are too low down and squishy for comfort. They are only playing at being keyboards.

But the most memorable thing of all? The heavy, satisfying ‘ker-ching’ of the carriage return after the little bell had warned you of nearing the set margin. ‘Ker-ching’, ‘ker’ching’, ‘ker-ching’ - to sit there just pressing the carriage return to hear that satisfying sound was bliss in itself.

However, there is something to be said for the modern ‘delete’ button. My mum used to work in a solicitors’ office and would type out contracts etc on such a machine. There was no allowance for mistakes – make one and she had to start all over again. Eeeks! At least in my job we could use correction fluid or correction tabs. And now I have remembered good old stencils, and the wonderful red correction fluid you could paint on mistakes. I can still recall the smell and sound of the stencil machine, and I am aware now that I am once again flying down memory lane at a tangent … so I shall merely raise my cup of afternoon tea and accompanying biscuit to the good old manual typewriters of old.

75p each or........

2011-04-24T15:16:00.000+01:00

Any offers?

An arrogant bustard

2011-04-15T17:51:00.003+01:00

Whilst sitting over a cup of coffee and a toasted cheese sandwich on the way back from Berkshire yesterday evening, Jon asked whether I would be able to do a ‘Jon is an idiot’ kind of blog recounting anything silly that he had done whilst we had been away. Placing the half of sandwich that I had been tucking into back onto the plate, I placed myself in typical thinker pose and, whilst scratching my head, replied that I was sure I could think of something.

Sadly, if I am to tell the truth, I did reply along the lines of ‘Well, der!’ and - with hindsight - probably rather too quickly. I had tried so hard to leave as long a pause in between his question and my answer so as not to appear too eager, but I failed miserably. In my defence, I was hungry and wished to resume the demolition of my toasted cheese sandwich. I must also add here, that this all took place only a few seconds before Jon took a drink from his glass of Diet Coke and managed to stab himself in the eye with the straw. And as all of you will know, Jon wears glasses so to do this was not as easy a task as it might at first seem.

To be honest, I don’t think he actually did do anything too Jonathanesque on this trip, apart from nearly exposing certain parts of his body - which would mostly likely not be a good idea to reveal in public - on a couple of occasions when his braces came undone at the back, with a resounding ping. The following scramble to avert the ‘trousers around the ankles’ scenario may well have provided a highly entertaining video to put on CFZtv, but unfortunately the situation called for immediate attention, not allowing me to obtain the camera from the camera bag that sat tantalisingly on the back seat of the car.

The sat nav, however, surpassed itself in its mis-directional stupidity. So much so that both Jon and I screamed at it to shut up, before it was unceremoniously unplugged and then dropped further along in our journey (albeit by mistake) when Jon opened the car door, not realising that when he pulled the plug from the cigarette lighter socket with sour-tempered gusto, the wire had flown back and become twisted around one of his legs. You never know, the event may have knocked some sense into it. The cause of our testiness with it? I can explain if you would care to know. Usually, when approaching roundabouts, the lady inside the tiny box tells me which exit to take (in fact she makes sure I don’t forget by repeating the information several times on the approach to them). But at least three times last night, she took us back to the same roundabout and told me – with no emotion in her voice whatsoever - to turn right, then right again.

She seemed determined that she wished me to park the car on top of the grassy, daffodil encrusted mound in the centre of the roundabout for some peculiar reason only known to herself. No matter how hard we tried to navigate ourselves out of town by – we thought- making acceptable sense out of her instructions, she managed to take us back to the damn roundabout. So, in the end, we decided to go with the flow and interpret her ramblings in a sat-nav kind of way, and did as we thought we were being told by pretending we were tiny boxes also rather than using our jaded sense of direction or the stars. We thought we were onto a winner – she did not re-compute the journey and seemed perfectly satisfied with our interpretations of her instructions at last. Lo and behold she took us where she clearly wished us to go. Her sinister aim was revealed. The Vodafone headquarters was her desired destination. It was then that we lost our tempers with the small speaking box and the tiny female entity inside. We searched frantically as we drooled psychotically inside the untidy mess that is the back of the car, and eventually found the old-fashioned way of finding our way back to the correct route. Road atlas in Jon’s hand, we eventually managed to vacate the vortex and made our way serenely into Hampshire in a manner more befitting our age, rather than like two enraged escapees from Bedlam.

This is Madeleine the secretary bird by the way. She resides at the Hawk Conservancy near Andover, Hampshire where we visited on the way to Berkshire on Wednesday. Isn’t she gorgeous?

And this great bustard definitely fancies himself something chronic.

Games doggies play

2011-04-09T14:25:00.002+01:00

Pru has discovered two jolly clever new games whilst taking advantage of the spring weather outside. The rules for one seem to be: Wait until everyone is inside, creep up on bin bag, empty it as quickly as possible, disappear from view leaving a trail of rubbish, pretend you had nothing to do with it, see how many times you can do this before tempers rise among humans. And the rules for the second: shatter the peace by doing a pretty good impression of the Baskerville hound just because you can, to make all and sundry jump from their seats at the sudden loud, 'Hammer House of Horror' interruption.

It must be pretty good fun being a dog at the CFZ you know. Four people to exasperate with silly games on a sunny Saturday afternoon. And then just roll over, display your tummy and wait for the attention that you so desire. What joy, what rapture.

Would you mess with this mother?

2011-04-03T14:14:00.000+01:00

OK let us be honest here - to us this female of the species may not exactly be one of the most attractive of the fairer sex, but - who knows - she may the underwater version of Angelina Jolie to others of her kind.

However, she is doing what mothers do best and guarding her young well. Mind you, the more you look at her, the more appealing to the eye she seems to become in an odd sort of way. Those dark eyes, those completely natural full lips that have not had a collagen needle anywhere near them. Awww she is rather sweet really.

The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California announced in late March that aquarists there had been helping around 250 baby wolf eels to hatch from a mass of eggs, with another couple of hundred due to hatch over the following couple of weeks. Found in the northern Pacific Ocean, wolf eels (Anarrhichthys ocellatus) are not actually eels at all but fish (scientists refer to them as 'wolf-fish') and despite their rather aggressive look, they are quite friendly unless, of course, you happen to be a sea urchin at dinner time. They are rarely aggressive, but it may be wise to note that they are capable of giving a painful bite if they so desire.

Worse things happen at sea?

2011-03-31T00:09:00.002+01:00

So representatives of the human race have done it again. They have caused harm and death to yet more of Mother Earth’s inhabitants with which we share the planet. This time the victims include nearly half the world’s population of the northern rockhopper penguin, which also happens to be one of the world’s most threatened species of penguin. Not for the first time, and I am sure not for the last time, the incident occurred at sea. On this occasion, a cargo vessel has been wrecked on Nightingale Island, which is part of the Tristan da Cunha UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic. Not only has this incident threatened the life of the penguins, it also threatens to create another environmental disaster for the wildlife of the island; Nightingale Island is one of two large islands in the Tristan da Cunha group that is rodent-free. If the vessel carries rats and they gain a foothold on the island, their impact would be devastating, placing the island’s internationally important seabird colonies in jeopardy. However, the Tristan da Cunha Conservation Department have placed baited rodent traps on the shore in the vicinity of Spinner’s Point, which is the headland on the northwest of the island where the wreck is grounded, in the hope that they can intercept any rats that did get ashore.

Northern Rockhopper Penguins on Inaccessible Island, drawn by the naturalist aboard HMS Challenger

Nightingale Island is surrounded by oil which extends to a slick up to 8 miles offshore from the wreck of the MS Oliva, which was carrying 1,500 tonnes of fuel oil. Inevitably hundreds of oiled penguins have already been coming ashore. Not only are they affected, but also the economical important rock lobster fishery. And as the vessel was also fully laden with 60,000 tonnes of whole raw soya beans there is also the concern of how the impact of this spilt cargo will have on the fragile local marine environment.

RSPB research biologist Richard Cuthbert said: "How a modern and fully laden cargo vessel can sail straight into an island beggars belief. The consequences of this wreck could be potentially disastrous for wildlife and the fishery-based economy of these remote islands. The Tristan da Cunha islands, especially Nightingale and adjacent Middle Island, hold millions of nesting seabirds as well as 40% of the world population of the globally endangered Northern Rockhopper Penguin. Over 200,000 penguins are currently on the islands and these birds will be heavily impacted by leaking oil."

Yes, how did such a vessel manage to do that?

Tristan da Cunha is not the easiest place to get to and from. There is no airport and all 3 scheduled ships depart from Cape Town. They are scheduled to make 9 return trips each year and it would seem that two of them (which only carry 12 passengers apiece) are fully booked for 2011 sailings. The third is operated by the South African Government as part of a contract to lease Gough Island as a Meteorological Station. It has space for 30 passengers but only calls in September as the Gough Island relief service. So, it is not sure as to how long the Greek Captain and the 21 Filipino crew will be in the Tristan da Cunha settlement (Edinburgh of the Seven Seas), but they are all receiving the warm hospitality of the islanders.

Meanwhile the remarkable rescue is continuing. Oiled penguins are being collected from the islands of Nightingale, Inaccessible and Middle with the aim of transporting them all to the main Tristan island. But there are not enough supplies of specialist cleaning fluids and a vessel with all necessary supplies is scheduled to leave Cape Town in the next few days. Unfortunately, it will be too late for at least two sub-Antarctic fur seals that were found dead on Middle Island, and two Inaccessible rails that were found dead in the tussock grass near the shore of the island they are named after. The Inaccessible rail is the smallest flightless bird in the world and is endemic to that island.

Tristan da Cunha one of the remotest places in the world and more can be read about it, this incident and the efforts of the islanders to help the stricken penguins at: http://www.tristandc.com/newsmsolivatristan.php

And just to emphasise exactly how remote, here are some distances - as the crow flies - posted on the Tristan da Cunha website:

To St Helena - 2429 km - 1509 miles (nearest community)
To Cape Town - 2805 km - 1743 miles (nearest mainland city)
To Rio de Janeiro - 3353 km - 2083 miles
To Stanley, Falkland Islands - 3902 km - 2424 miles
To London UK - 9881 km - 6140 miles

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air

2011-03-23T14:00:00.002Z

An aged Laysan albatross called Wisdom - one of the survivors of the March 11 tsunami, which killed at least 2,000 of its kind along with around 110,000 chicks after the earthquake off Japan - has made it back to a remote atoll north west of the Hawaiian islands. Apart from surviving the awful decimation caused by the tsunami, it is more than remarkable that this iconic bird of the ocean is at least 60 years old. She is, in fact, the oldest known wild bird in the US. She was first banded in 1956, the year I was born, as she incubated an egg, and it was thought she was at least 5 years old then. It is awe-inspiring that Wisdom is still successfully producing chicks at such a grand old age, and has survived the rigours of Mother Nature - and the 'progress' of man - for at least six decades.

.
During the early 1900s, the Laysan albatross was hunted mercilessly by feather hunters who killed hundreds of thousands of them, succeeding in wiping them out from Wake Island and Johnston Atoll in the north Pacific. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are now protected, but the birds are still vulnerable to longline fisheries and the ingestion of floating plastics. On the newer colonised islands, they are also vulnerable to feral cats.

But for now at least, officials at the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex are greatly thrilled at the return of Wisdom and that she survived the March 11 tsunami. Let us hope that she continues to ride the thermals for many more years to come.

Happy Birthday, Shoshannah

2011-03-22T17:49:00.002Z

On 23rd March 1985, the horoscope that my mother cut out of her paper foretold that I - as a Cancerian - would be working very hard that day, but that it would all be worth it. Considering that I went into labour at around 1 am - the exact duration of which lasted until 7.26 pm - I reckon the first part of the prediction could be classed as correct. And as, at the end of it all, a certain little girl popped into the world, the second part was pretty accurate too.

Happy Birthday Shoshannah

With lots of love from Mum xxx

As sure as eggs is eggs

2011-03-10T18:48:00.002Z

Thought for the day.

Imagine how many egg sandwiches a hard-boiled ostrich egg would make. A picnic extravaganza no less, but for a hearty breakfast, also imagine the size of the egg cup required to hold such a monstrous item. And bearing in mind it would be equivalent to around 24 hen eggs in content would there be a table big enough to seat 24 people around it, each with a spoon in one hand and a bread and butter ‘soldier’ in the other?

However – and here is the rub - you would not be able to arise one sunny morning and decide, on the spur of the moment, that the family would all pile into the car for a trip to the seaside or some such outing. Oh no - well not if you were going to take advantage of the only egg in the house and the enormous amount of sandwiches as mentioned above that is. Why? Because it apparently takes 2 hours to hard boil such an egg, although it does only take a mere 50 minutes to soft boil one. But soft boiled eggs in sandwiches are not a good idea at the best of times, especially when mixed with mayonnaise. Apart from not looking very attractive, or palatable, they are little devils to handle. And that inevitable gust of wind whilst on the beach (maybe, if you are lucky, even with the odd oil-covered seagull feather being carried on it) would result in their more moist composition than that of the hard-boiled variety being coated in more sand than the latter, causing them to take on the appearance of a more insipid golden breadcrumbed look.

Hey ho what a thought.

Do I have such odd thoughts of the day on a regular basis? Well…yes actually, but on this occasion it was, in fact, brought about by looking in a magazine for a banana loaf recipe and coming across an advert for a certain supermarket who sells ostrich eggs, lain in Lincolnshire, for £18.99 each.

SWMBO

2011-02-16T18:54:00.002Z

Jon bought himself the complete DVD set of Rumpole of the Bailey a few weeks back and most evenings has watched one or two episodes, with me listening to them, rather than watching, from the other room. I can remember watching some of them on TV with my parents, and being amused that Uxbridge Magistrates Court was mentioned occasionally, as we were actually sitting in our living room in that very town at the time. Some of you will have heard of the series before, some of you will not. A character created by John Mortimer, QC, Horace Rumpole is a somewhat grumpy London barrister who, much to his formidable wife’s chagrin, refuses to better himself and become a QC like her beloved ‘daddy’. He is always talking to himself in court, and quoting from poetry and Shakespeare and privately likes to refer to his wife, Hilda, in a rather derogative manner. Hence I have become somewhat disturbed, and am not sure whether it is a compliment or an insult, as Jon has started to openly refer to me, just as Rumpole privately does of Hilda, as: ‘She who must be obeyed’. The phrase is on a par with Basil Fawlty’s various addresses to Sybil e.g. ‘My little nest of vipers’ or ‘My little piranha fish’ and although these phrases - at a stretch - could be termed as affectionately impertinent terms used between spouses, I am still in the throes of attempting to work out whether to be flattered or to take serious offence and hit Jon over the head with the rolling pin.

However, I am not really that affronted at the phrase being used towards me - I am a Cancerian and therefore have quite a hard shell to crack - but I do just have to ask one question. If this statement is true, then WHY AM I NOT OBEYED!? Now, that is the crux of the matter as far as I am concerned, and it is this point that needs to be urgently addressed. I think Jon may rue the day he quoted from one of his favourite TV series.

There may be something in the woods, but don't forget to check the cave systems too....

2011-02-16T16:18:00.002Z

Whilst pottering around in Middle Earth last night – in the hills near Brockenborings in the Shire to be precise – I came across a wooden effigy that I must have walked past many times and had previously not noticed. However, considering the subject matter, it could well be that it had gone unnoticed on previous occasions merely because it was not there before (cue suitably eerie music from the orchestra just outside camera shot). I know all roads, where some members of the CFZ are concerned at least, tend to lead to Mawnan Church and the home of the infamous Owlman, but I had not expected, in my leisure time, to see him in a cave in the hills outside the village mentioned above.

He really does get everywhere, red eyes included, and as can be seen, my courageous little hobbit stood in awe for a few second just to allow the snapshot to be taken, before she moved hastily on. And the inhabitants of the cave system in question? Why, goblins of course. So it is not really surprising to see that he is batting for the darker side I suppose.

Happy Birthday

2011-01-29T12:38:00.001Z

Many Happy Birthday wishes to Mrs Shuker who is 90-years-old today.

I hope you have a lovely day

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

2011-01-27T13:40:00.002Z

If you have an hour to spare this coming weekend how about wrapping up warmly and sitting out in your garden, or even taking a 60-minute break in your local park, and joining in on the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch event? Apart from enjoying some refreshing fresh air, you could be helping the RSPB by recording how many of each bird species you see wherever you have chosen to spend that relaxing hour.

Click on the following link to see how you can join in on this event on either Saturday 29th or Sunday 30th January: http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/takepart.aspx

Tit for tat

2010-12-11T12:18:00.002Z

Whilst kneeling on the floor busily wrapping up Christmas presents one would not expect to receive a phone call to say that ‘We bought you the boa and will send it in a day or two’. Thoughts of battling possible constriction whilst attempting to peel off one of those annoying tabs on a glittery bow may quite reasonably prove a tad disturbing, and throw one into a state of confusion and alarm. Hence when I interrupted Olivia last night in the throes of her festive activities with just such an announcement , it prompted a rather tremulous ‘You what?’ in reply. Still not realising the double meaning of my statement, I explained that I had been into Asda and found the feather boa that we had briefly discussed when she was visiting us on Tuesday to which there was a slightly relieved 'Ah' in reply. It was not until laying in bed many hours later that I realised that the poor girl – busy in her own world of Christmas wrapping - had probably wondered briefly what on earth her dear old mother was on about – had she really bought a snake?

Ah well this dear old mother has had one of those odd weeks.

I was convinced that Thursday was Wednesday and found it hard to accept the real truth, even when pointed out by several people in the know. And that was after the peculiar visit to the village shop on the real Wednesday of the week.

I do have to add here that I was wandering around in a pair of rather odd leggings all that day due to the fact that, although I was in dire need of clean clothing I dare not switch on the washing machine for fear of repercussions of the burst pipe variety. To elaborate on the latter part of that sentence, the washing machine is situated in a part of the house which is left to its own devices in the cold weather, and the lack of heating - and slightly open window to allow the drainage pipe to expel its necessary load into the drain outside - does not do it any favours at this time of year.

To explain the leggings in more detail, these originated from the 1990s and are adorned with Native American hieroglyphs and probably look a bit like pyjama bottoms to those not in the know of past fashions. The fleecy top that went with them disappeared long ago (thank goodness as it was a rather shapeless over-large affair that looked rather more like a tepee than a piece of clothing).

However, let us return to the visit to the village shop. And this does involve Olivia again in a small way even though she was nowhere to be seen. And, come to think of it, it involves the washing machine again too. It was a grey, cold day and my mood somewhat matched the climate, but up I toddled to the shop in several layers of clothes plus my coat, boots, gloves and hat – a small expanse of snazzy leggings cheekily showing between boots and coat. Posting done, purchases made and it was time to return to the relative warmth of the kitchen where it was then time to remove the cold-weather protection. It was when I placed the hat on the table that I burst out laughing. There, nestled in the upturned crown of my titfer, was a pair of Olivia’s unmentionables. I had actually gone out with underwear on top of my head.

I then remembered that I had found this item of laundered underwear the night before where it had fallen from the washing basket a week or so ago when Olivia and Ivan had visited and dear old mum had done some washing for them. It had somehow tangled itself in the wiring at the back of the dog crate where it had lain unseen under a box. When I found it, it had seemed a good idea at the time to put it in my hat for safe-keeping. (The mind of a slightly crazy 54-year-old does make you do strange things sometimes). Anyway, because the kitchen had been gloomy when I went out, I had not noticed the offending article when I donned my hat. I can only hope that it was not dangling behind me like some weird sort of Davy Crockett hat! Oh well, even if it did, it must have brightened someone else’s day up as well as mine.

And then, to add insult to injury and top off the peculiar week, I had a nose bleed whilst driving to the chemist to pick up Jon’s medicine. Just as well I was wearing jeans then instead of the leggings – spots of red would have clashed terribly with the hieroglyphs.

Happy Birthday Olivia!

2010-11-30T17:49:00.002Z

December 1st 1987 and along came Olivia.

The poor girl is suffering at the moment and has had to cancel her birthday party, but I hope she can enjoy her day as best she can. She is at present staying with her sister up in Staffordshire, along with Ivan, and all three of them are laid low with flu-like symptoms. I hope you all feel better soon, poor things.

And although you are feeling rotten, it is still the 1st December - So...

Happy Birthday Olivia, with lots of love - Mum xx

Invasion of the cane toads

2010-11-27T21:02:00.002Z

Apparently there are four collective nouns for toads: a knot, a nest, a knob or a lump. Looking at the above photo I think I shall plump for a lump.

And why I have I posted a photo of a flower pot containing a lump of toads? The answer is really quite simple. Thanks to Ross Braund-Phillips, who had seen them advertised in the paper, today (Saturday) I received an early Christmas present from Jon in the form of a pair of cane toads that were residing in Barnstaple, but were looking for a new home. Upon arrival here they immediately squeezed themselves into the flowerpot where they and Mog seemed to happily introduce themselves to each other, albeit in a rather non-genteel lumpy kind of way. I think toads must have been on the wrong side of the door when basic manners and the ideas of personal space were given out.

The new inhabitants have no names yet, but I am sure that will soon be rectified. One point though. Methinks a bigger lounge pool is in order - with all three of them in there at once it will become as cramped as Brighton beach on the first sunny Sunday afternoon of summer.

Once again - thanks to Ross for his eagle-eyes and for telephoning the chap selling them. You are a dear.

Dear Santa

2010-11-09T21:28:00.002Z

There is something special about being awoken from a night’s slumber by the twittering and callings of the dawn chorus. You can either yawn, turn over, and wrap yourself in the soft warm quilt knowing that you have a few hours yet before having to get up, or you can have a good stretch and stick one leg out tentatively in preparation for encouraging the rest of your body to follow suit - until you find yourself in a rather shocked standing position.

Neither of those applied to me when I woke up yesterday morning. I was greeted by the very contented sounds of the duo next to me, and there I lay - somewhat dazed - as my very own dawn chorus built to a crescendo with one of those involuntary whistles from the bearded one (I can only liken the sound to a whistling kettle when it alerts you that it has reached boiling point). Then slowly – and quietly at first - the puffings, snortings and snores of the man and his dog increased in volume until they snortled in a plethora of harmonies that put even The Beach Boys to shame.

We all know that Pru cannot really help it due to her harshly bred facial features. And the bearded one’s quick excuse? “Not my fault – the dog had me pinned down in the wrong position.”

Item one on my Christmas wish list: one pair of heavy-duty ear plugs.

Dear Prudence

2010-11-05T03:58:00.002Z

Pru had apparently been found in a ‘puppy farm’, and after much negotiation the woman who had taken pity on her managed to extract her from the awful predicament Pru was in, but not before having to part with £300. Unfortunately, though (and after around eight months of trying) it became painfully clear to her new carers that Pru could not stay with her new family due to a combination of there being lack of space, an elderly collie and two small children sharing the house with her. The collie found her too boisterous and Pru (being a rather stocky individual) had a tendency to flatten the children with her lovable greetings. The woman who had rescued her could not find anyone else to take Pru on and eventually came to the decision that she would have to ask the vet to administer the final injection. However, the vet felt that she was just too lovely a dog to be destroyed, and contacted the North Devon Animal Ambulance to see if they could take her. And, of course, they did.

However, the organisation also found that it was difficult to re-home her due to her mixed breed. Perhaps prospective adoptees were confusing one half of the mix with the more infamous English bull terrier or just thought her appearance was intimidating. Who knows? But no-one was interested.

Anyway, Jon, Graham and I were all immediately taken with her when we went to see her on Tuesday and all at CFZ HQ were really pleased when Myrtle Cottage was given the all clear after the necessary NDAA inspection. So we are now fostering her for a couple of weeks to see how we all get along.

Our main concern was how she would get on with the cats as there was no way of knowing how she would react in their company. It became perfectly clear from the start, however, that she was completely uninterested in Helios, Spider and Poppy, although they were all suitably wary of her appearance. Since Wednesday evening’s sudden disruption to their relaxed routines, Helios and Poppy ignore her by giving her a wide berth. But Spider has been rather more forthcoming. Over the last few weeks he has adopted a rather alarming chauvinistic attitude towards the female of his kind and gives the impression that he thinks Pru is a rather large female cat. He has stalked her twice and deliberately tried to pick a fight on each occasion, but much to his mortification, she has completely ignored his show of misplaced machismo.

Pru is extremely loving, is as soft as butter, and adores human company. She has taken to following me everywhere and bumbles along peacefully on her walks. She enjoys nothing more than to go for a walk and then sprawl herself on the chair to snore contentedly and very loudly. And today she even smells a little better than when she arrived on Wednesday evening - she had the suspicious aroma of old, dirty socks or, to put it another way, was rather ripe. Oll volunteered to give her a shower and although she didn't seem particularly thrilled at the prospect, she made no fuss at all. I had visions of poor Oll being left prostrate on the wet, slippery bathroom floor while she made a dash for freedom at the first opportunity trailing a cloud of bubbles behind her.

She does not seem to have been taught the basics like sit, down and stay and does not even seem to know what a toy is, bless her, but hopefully all of these can be taught. All of us here hope that we can adopt her and give her a happy and peaceful life.

A cautionary tale for Hallowe'en

2010-10-30T12:50:00.002+01:00

Young Katherine – or Kat as her parents affectionately called her - crept bare-foot down the dark corridor, her candle held aloft in front of her. As she delicately made her way on tiptoes down the carpeted passageway, the darkness ahead opened up in the flickering light that cast eerie shadows over the portraits that hung on the wood panelled walls. The faces of her paternal ancestors stared down at her as she made her way; the men with expressions of a past arrogance with some holding books displaying a scholarly air, and others with one hand proudly wrapped around the decorative hilt of a rapier, and some with faithful hounds at their feet. The women beheld expressions of gentle self-assuredness with tiny smiles upon their lips, as they sat with their graceful long-fingers resting upon the heads of their lap dogs, or standing with one hand gently resting upon a desk or other such portrait painter’s prop.

Kat stopped briefly to look at her favourite of these portraits that had dwelt in this corridor for as long as she had a memory of such things. Lady Margarite had been the first wife of the second owner of the house, Lord Perceval, since their marriage in 1658. There remained no exact details on her death, but it was said that she disappeared one night in early 1660 leaving no trace of her whereabouts, nor reasons for her leaving. The story was told that she had wandered off into the night and had fallen prey to some wild animal or even, perhaps, had fallen foul of a group of marauding Parliamentarians.

It was not so much the delicate oil-painted figure that attracted Kat, but the large carved wooden box that sat upon the delicately worked lace cloth that covered the surface of the beautifully inlaid mahogany chest of drawers on which the richly dressed Margarite rested her left hand. In the background stood the grandfather clock that now resided in the hall downstairs – its clunking mechanism still bravely beating out the hours, albeit slightly slower than it should facilitating a once weekly alteration of the minute hand to bring it back into correct time. In the picture, the time was forever immortalised as twenty minutes to twelve and Kat marvelled that, together with the faded date of 1659 painted in the bottom right hand corner that was scribbled under the undecipherable name of the artist, this particular portrait gave up the exact timing of at least some stage of its origin.

Kat shone the candle upwards to reveal the face of her distant ancestor. Margarite stared out with a thin smile in her delicately formed face. Her hair hung in auburn ringlets over each of her temples with longer curls cascading to her shoulders as was the fashion of the day. A large pearl teardrop earring dangled from each ear and her long, graceful neck was adorned with a delicate pearl necklace. Kat had often wondered whether the smile on Margarite’s face was one of satisfaction in knowing the secret of the box; her hand seemed to rest upon it protectively as if indicating that no-one should open it but her.

Margarite was dressed in a rich, dark burgundy corset, which clung to her bosom and tapered to reveal a tiny waist. Around the neckline, the artist had managed to display the black lace to perfection, its delicate contours shadowed with great skill against the paleness of her flesh. The burgundy skirt that fell to the floor was worked to reveal the softness of the fabric and the one tiny shoe that peaked out from beneath the hem was delicately detailed to show off its embroidery to perfection. While her left hand rested on the box, her right hand hung by her skirt, delicately holding a rosebud – its deep red perfectly complementing the colour of her clothing.

Kat continued her way down the corridor until she reached her desired destination. A large oak door blocked her way into the library, and her hand wrapped itself around the brass doorknob and gave it a tentative turn. She heard the click of the fixings and slowly and gently pushed open the door. Holding her candlestick higher she peered into the room. There it was, the mahogany chest of drawers with its sumptuous inlays and delicate lace runner. And there IT sat just as in the portrait. This is what she had come for.

Katherine had arrived the day before to stay with her Uncle Bartholomew and Aunt Cecily at Barsworthy Manor while her parents sailed off to darkest Africa in search of the unknown. Uncle Bart was the eccentric brother of her father’s father and Aunt Cecily was his lovable, dotty wife, who liked nothing more than to wander around her large garden talking to her cats as they followed her everywhere. There had always been a Manor on the site; the original had burned down in the mid-16th Century before a new, more opulent building was constructed. This rose from the ashes in the early 1600s overseen by the first Lord Perceval, shortly before his death in a hunting accident in 1632.

Kat was ten and had inherited her father’s desire to search for and discover the unknown. Alas she was far too young to accompany her parents on their explorations and had, since she was a small child, come to stay with her uncle and aunt in Kent while her parents went off to foreign lands.

With her childish curiosity and determination, during every stay since she had attained the dexterity in her fingers and the sharpness in her mind, she had tried to open the mysterious box that sat on the chest of drawers. And every year she had managed one step further, but the final puzzle had always eluded her. She had made a secret pact with herself that it was to be on this visit that she would achieve her wish. Her desire could well have been something to do with her Uncle’s insistence that the box should not be tampered with.

No-one knew exactly how old the box really was, nor from where it had originated. Yes, the portrait dated it to 1659, but her Uncle had told her that it had been handed down with each generation – there were even slight burn marks on one corner which suggested that it had survived the fire in 1585. And the box was covered with intricate designs and symbols, some of which seemed to be of Elizabethan, and even earlier origin. It was covered in sliding slivers of wood, and buttons that all had to be pulled, clicked or pushed in a different order to achieve the final prize. She had tried to open it since she was six, and although she had managed to proceed a little further on each visit, she had never achieved the final desired result.

Placing the candlestick on the starched white runner, Kat gently stroked the wood of the box and began to go through the order of puzzles slowly and methodically until she reached the point where she had been beaten on the last visit by its hidden and complicated trickery. With nimble fingers she tried out some of the solutions that her childish mind had thought out in the past year. Several tries proved fruitless and in a typically childish manner she poked her tongue out between her teeth in deep concentration. Her auburn hair that had been ragged for the night to produce soft ringlets the next day, hung over her face as she worked away at the complicated puzzles. Suddenly she was aware of the ornate clock ticking methodically and hypnotically from where it stood on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, where the cooling embers lay waiting to be swept away the next morning by the maid. She held her candle aloft again and noticed that it was twenty minutes to midnight. She shivered in the dampness of the room and watched the pendulum swing from side to side as it ticked the night away.

She returned her attention to the box and stood looking at it as if willing it to reveal its secrets. She began to slide the wooden slats again, backward and forward, before pushing a few jewelled buttons at the front. Kat felt sure that she was nearly there and that just a slightly different combination would do it. She pushed her hair away from her face and bent closer to the box. And then success. Sheheard a click, and her eyes sparkled in the candlelight with the feeling of victory. She had done it. The box was open and it was now time to find out what secret Lady Margarite seemed to be hiding in her smile and what her Uncle was so reticent about being discovered.

Gingerly she opened it and peeked into the dark crack as it widened before her. The lid completely open she stared with disappointment into the emptiness within. Perhaps her Uncle Bart had never been able to work out the puzzle and had made up the story of the unknown within? She stood back and sighed. All that build up over the years, with the sadness of bidding her parents farewell made less so by the excitement of perhaps being able, at last, to open the mysterious box on each visit.

Her disappointment was overwhelming but she decided that she would quiz her uncle the next day. She placed a hand on the lid and began to inch it down slowly when she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, a peculiar movement from deep within the cavernous space. She blinked her eye and looked more closely but could see nothing. She tutted. It was like looking at the night sky on a clear night when all the stars are twinkling down and a cluster of smaller stars can be seen from the corner of one’s eye, but when you turn your gaze to them directly they seem to disappear.

But there it was again. And it was gone.

Kat was concentrating so closely that when the clock began to chime the midnight hour it made her jump with fright. She reverted her gaze to the timepiece and watched the little brass cherub emerge from its panel on the left side of the clock face. As the mechanism jerked unsteadily, the little figure’s arm descended upon the small brass drum that sat dully from years of disregard. With a tiny movement, the cherub beat the drum with a small brass stick. Kat watched as it beat out the hour. On the tenth stroke, out of the corner of her eye she noticed the activity in the box heightening and she looked down again, half expecting to see nothing once more. But this time a thick grey mist was swirling in the base of the box, gradually increasing in volume as it rose towards the lip. And then – just as the cherub hit the drum on the twelfth stroke - a fearsome head emerged from within the mist. It had two small dark eyes, no visible nose, and a large, gaping, toothless mouth. Kat was transfixed by the abominable worm-like creature, and watched as it rose from the mist towards her. Suddenly it opened its jaws wider than could ever be imagined and she screamed when she realised that it was growing in size as it rose. It was nearly the same size as her by the time its gaping, dribbling maw towered over her. This was impossible. How could something so big fit into such a small space that the box provided? For a fleeting second she remembered the character in the book that she had found neatly tied up with a bow on her bed when she had arrived the year before. Her Uncle and Aunt had always given her a book when she came to stay and this had been the best they had ever given. That was it, she felt like Alice, but she had a feeling that this was no wonderland from whence this creature had come forth .

She raised her arms above her head as if in some meagre protection against the beast as it began to descend towards her. No-one heard the last scream as it swallowed her in one move and slowly shrunk back into the mist of the box again. The lid slammed shut and all the viewable and hidden mechanisms clicked, clunked or slid back into place. The cherub withdrew into its panel and the candle by the box flickered out, sending thin wisps of smoke across the room. Save for the ticking of the clock, the library fell into an uneasy silence.

The dawn’s light was beginning to shine through the stained glass window at the top of the stairs. It cast its light down the corridor and slowly and gradually it revealed the portraits one by one. Little Bess, the maid, made her way up the stairs with her brush and bucket to sweep out and lay the fire in the library. She yawned as she went, and shivered in the early morning chill. She did not like the long corridor that led to the library, there was something about the atmosphere down that dim passage that chilled her to the bone, even on the most sunniest of July days. There was always an unexplainable faint scent of perfume that wafted down it, this always stronger near the portrait of Margarite. As usual, there was a noticeable rise of speed in her step as she passed the picture, but this time she stopped suddenly when she noticed something laying on the floor directly under it. Putting down her bucket she bent down to take a closer look. A shrivelling and faded dark red rosebud, its petals crisp and browning, lay on the edge of the fraying carpet. No longer immortalised in oil paint, it lay decaying in front of her eyes. The smell of perfume became stronger than she had ever known and she slowly and nervously looked up at the picture. Her eyes wide with terror she screamed.

Margarite was no longer holding her rosebud in her right hand, but had her arms wrapped around a crying child; a child with rags in her auburn tresses, who had her head buried in her hands as she sobbed. Bess ran down the corridor, kicking over the bucket as she went. Still screaming, she ran down the stairs to alert her master and mistress.

The aged couple stood in front of the portrait, with horrified looks upon their faces, and gazed at the young girl. The painting had changed from how Bess had described it only minutes before, but there was still no rosebud in Margarite’s gentle clasp. Her right arm was still around the shoulders of a young girl, as the maid had told them, but now this girl was dressed in an exquisitely painted white satin corset and skirt. The light that filtered across the oils caught her flowing auburn tresses and revealed her angelic face with its sad dark eyes. There was no gentle smile across her delicate lips, however, but one of melancholy.

They each stroked the image of their niece; the canvas was dry, its surface wrinkled and cracked with time.

It would seem, then, that curiosity does indeed kill the Kat.

Bon voyage

2010-10-30T10:39:00.003+01:00

Jon always refers to me as the 'mother of the CFZ'. Apart from making me feel quite ancient and akin to some kind of matriach - a word which I would never in a million years use to describe myself - I am, just this once, donning the mantle and writing this to wish the lads (Adam Davies, Chris Clark, Richard Freeman, Jon McGowan and Dave Archer) all the best on their expedition to India.

I hope you all have a wonderful, interesting, productive and, above all, safe, trip.

I cannot resist just one overtly motherly comment though: I hope you have all packed your clean underwear.

Goodbye Biggles

2010-10-06T12:18:00.000+01:00

Thank you everyone for your kind words on the sudden passing of our beloved Biggles. It is not often in your life that someone or something comes along and touches your heart with such power that it rends it apart when they leave. He was such an enigma; he could be a right little sod when he wanted to be, but was also the most loving and faithful dog I have ever known. He was always there shadowing me wherever I went – from one room to the other. It was amusing really that he would walk to heel so well indoors but when on the lead that was usually completely forgotten and he would infuriatingly rush ahead.

My Dearest Biggles,

It is now day two without you and there was no silky head with big chestnut-coloured eyes resting on my chest this morning to wish me a good day and that same head will never rest on my leg again, as it did when you asked to go outside. I miss those times as I do everything else about you.

It was almost a century ago in the pages of fiction that your namesake achieved his flying wings. Yesterday, you gained your own, and are free to run where you wish with no fences to hold you in and no lead to hold you back ever again.

I am sorry I could not be there to comfort you as your last breath came, as you had comforted me so many times while you were here. I hope that you will forgive me and know that that part of me that was yours will forever be yours. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’; sweet in the anticipation of meeting again one day in some far off place, wherever that may be.

Goodbye for now, sweet little boy.

Shosh and Gav's wedding

2010-09-19T02:12:00.000+01:00

Friday, 17th September 2010

A beautiful day

A beautiful bride

A happy couple

Congratulations to Shosh and Gavin

May you have a wonderful and long life together

Kitchen alchemy

2010-09-14T16:18:00.002+01:00

OK so everyone who reads the daily CFZ blog will know by now that my eldest daughter, Shoshannah, is getting married this coming Friday to Gavin - the 17th September being the anniversary of the day they first met, which I think is really sweet.

I offered to make the wedding cake – a task that I have thrown myself into with great gusto as I like baking, and it is always nice to satisfy my love for these escapades into flour, egg, sugar and butter alchemy, without having to eat everything I produce. It is the production of, rather than the eating thereof, that I like most about cake. However, the fact that the bottom tier was going to be the biggest cake I have ever tackled was a bit daunting, with the fairly important question coming to mind - will it fit in the oven?

Shosh and Gav decided that they would like a three tier cake made up of three different varieties – fruit, lemon and chocolate. Plus two ‘satellite cakes’. Satellite cakes you make ask? For those of you who don’t know what they are (and I must admit I had not heard the expression before): if it is doubtful that the cake you are making may not serve everyone at the reception - plus the little boxes for those who couldn’t make it - you can get round it by making:

A) a large slab cake which is kept in the kitchen of the venue to be cut into slices behind the scenes, or

B) a satellite cake which sits on the table alongside the wedding cake and is similarly decorated.

So we plumped for two ‘top tier’ tiny fruit cakes as our orbital additions.

Fruit cake – easy peasy – years of making Christmas cakes and I can almost make those with my eyes shut. Lemon cake and chocolate cake however not so easy – the trials I made were fairly successful; taste-wise they were OK, but the lemon was a bit soggy and the chocolate cake exploded when I tried to slice it into layers. The task of cutting a large cake into three different layers in order to fill with buttercream is a tad tricky. Apart from trying to keep the knife as straight as possible as you are cutting, there is the added problem of lifting the layers off without them destroying themselves.

Anyway, as I write this on Monday, the second tier is cooking and the whole lower floor of the house is filled with the aromatic scent of lemon. Later it will be the turn of the bottom tier and the accompanying - somewhat sickly - sight of a large saucepan full of melted chocolate and butter (Homer Simpson would be licking his lips at the thought I would imagine)!

Tomorrow it will be the turn of the lemon buttercream and the chocolate ganache (posh word for buttercream but it sounds very sophisticated!). Then it will be the delicate job of packing them very carefully in cake boxes to transport up and across to Lincolnshire on Wednesday with the aid of a cool bag and ice blocks! Let us hope it is not a really hot day for travelling or all could be lost.

I have warned my mother that I will be taking over her kitchen once Jon and I arrive at her abode on Wednesday. I hope she doesn’t mind too much – I know from experience that a kitchen is the most sacred room in the house for some females – me included.

Well.... that is it from Fanny Cradock (which means Jon must be Johnnie!) for now. I will let you know how my mum, Shosh, Olivia and I get on with our attempts at being florists for the day - we are making a bride bouquet, three bridesmaid bouquets, one flower girl posy and quite a few buttonholes on Thursday!

It all looks so easy on YouTube!

Now I know who ate Nessie!

2010-09-02T11:49:00.002+01:00

A catchy headline but not the infamous Nessie of course, merely our very own potato head Nessie, found by me in our vegetable rack and displayed – quite dashingly - by Max as written about earlier on Jon’s blog. Her demise came at the hands – or teeth – of a family of capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) at Paignton Zoo and we have photos to prove it!

David (born Twycross Zoo in March 2008) and Davina (born Chessington Zoo in October 2008) both arrived at Paignton Zoo in 2009. Born on 18th August this year, this youngster is their first offspring and is so far un-sexed. Sometimes known as the giant guinea pig, capybaras are the world’s largest rodent and are found in densely forested areas or grassland near bodies of water in much of South America. They can grow up to 1.3 metres in length and like nothing more than to lounge around in swamps and rivers with only their eyes and nostrils breaking the surface. They have slightly webbed toes which help them to swim – they are excellent swimmers and use their ability to survive underwater for up to five minutes as an escape from predators. They can also sleep underwater, keeping their nostrils just above the waterline.

In the wild one of the main parts of their diet is the water hyacinth and to accommodate their growing family, Paignton Zoo’s Garden Department has been growing plants especially for them to eat this year.

Caught in the act!

An adult capybara can eat 6-8 pounds of grasses per day and chews food by grinding back and forth rather than side to side. Similar to a cud-chewing by a cow, they may also regurgitate their food to masticate it again. They also like to eat their own faeces as a source of bacterial gut flora which helps to digest the cellulose in the grass in order to take out the maximum amount of protein from their food.

In the wild they have a lifespan of 4 – 8 years but on average this is less than four years due to them being the favourite food of various predators such as the jaguar, puma, ocelot, eagle and caiman, as well as being the anaconda’s preferred meal.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the kitchen

2010-08-27T13:03:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, a combination of Jon feeling a lot better and a telephone call in the morning telling me that Olivia’s bridesmaid dress was ready for collection spurred Jon and I into adding a trip to Barnstaple to our already planned food shopping trip to Bideford.

The error of my ways in having a last cup of coffee before we left home dawned on me once we had parked in Barnstaple. I had noticed as we drove in to the car park that there were signs for ladies, disabled etc so once I had picked up the dress I headed towards these signs of personal comfort. Much to my embarrassment, and my bladder’s frustration, I realised that the signs were in fact the usual designated areas for disabled, and mother and child car parking! Somehow, in my mind’s eye, I had substituted the child for a stick man and had assumed the completely wrong thing. What a klutz - my need had completely clouded my vision and whilst excited at the prospect of alleviating my urgency, I had to disappoint my bladder into having to wait longer.

Its selfish demands were complied with at the next stop however, and here I shall finish the tale about my body’s lack of timing.

A few hours later, we returned home and unpacked the car. The first thing I removed from the back seat was the most valuable of all – the dress. It had been packed for transport in a large zip-up bag but I wanted to get it hanging properly as soon as possible so headed for the washing line that hangs over the Raeburn. Old fashioned we are here – the kitchen is reminiscent of a scene from Upstairs Downstairs in some ways.

What occurred next could have been a scene from any slapstick comedy. Jon was just taking off his jacket as I approached from behind – well not so much from behind as I was about level with him. As he swung his left arm to remove it from the sleeve I was just on the point of passing him and I got a slap round the kisser for my trouble. If the sketch had followed as it should have done, I suppose I should have fallen over backwards, lost the grip on the dress and dropped that in the dog’s water bowl whilst flailing around with my other arm and pulling everything off the dresser in a bid to stop my descent, whereupon the vicar would have entered and Jon would have exclaimed “Oo er, it’s the vicar”. However, I was gallant and ignored the ‘assault’ and continued my way to the washing line to hang up the prize.

Poor Jon was distraught at the thought of attacking his wife. I just laughed and poked him with the walking stick in retaliation.

Later on I splattered the kitchen with beetroot juice and made beetroot and coconut soup (a combination that may sound odd, but it is very tasty). And it was after serving that that the kitchen was the scene for another strange occurrence. I had served everything up and had taken Jon his dish of soup, before eating mine. When I returned to the kitchen with the dirty crocks Biggles was staring at the dresser with ears up and head cocked first to one side and then the other. Hmmm I thought. Then there was a rattling from the bottom cupboard and he looked even more alarmed. Had the house poltergeist decided to throw my plates and dishes around now? Biggles seemed convinced that something odd was occurring in the dresser but then I had an idea (up popped that lightbulb). And I opened the right hand cupboard door – nothing. Then I opened the left hand door and eureka. There was the cause of the rattling. None other than....Spider the orange cat. I have no idea how and when he had gone in there to investigate a cosy place to park his bones, but he was ousted pretty darn quick and scolded for his audacity in no uncertain terms.

Trumpets abound, parades are rife....it's..............

2010-08-21T19:38:00.002+01:00

Jon’s birthday!

Huzzah!

Happy Birthday!

And here is a picture of birthday boy himself, doing an impression of a gnome on a toadstool, complete with rather dubious looking stain on the wall. I hadn't realised Biggles had sneaked into the village hall last Saturday! What a clever boy to act out the first two lines of the last verse of Lindisfarne's Fog on the Tyne (to spell it out for those who have no idea what I am talking about, if my subtlety was a wee bit too subtle!)

And off we go again.....

2010-08-21T19:31:00.003+01:00

Oh my......it seems that our little pussy is spitting fur balls again. It appears that the little puss is not only elusive but arrogant as well. It seems that any time anyone writes anything that does not necessarily support its spluttering, it assumes that they are automatically ‘CFZ supporters’. Has it not the humility to contemplate that a comment made against its fur ball coughing may actually be from a member of the human race who - just simply - does not adhere to its outbursts? They do not have to be ‘CFZ supporters’, you know puss...there is rather a large population out there that does not support the CFZ just like there are those that do not support Bigfoot organisations, the Tory party, banning the hunt, BCIB, and so on and so forth. Believe it or not, pussies are not high on many people’s agendas and likewise neither is cryptozoology.

And by the way – when does sharing discoveries amongst those other researchers that are involved in such matters turn into a ploy for getting them to pay for something? How do the mechanics of that work exactly? These days scientists across the world share information – it does not mean they are being asked to pay for something – and, what is more, it also does not mean that they have to join in on the research either. They have the choice to politely decline for whatever reasons they may have, but they shouldn’t really bad-mouth the people who politely offer to share. But then, I presume that those who were not invited would have puss speaking on their behalf with accusations of exclusion from the research.

“Many independant [sic] groups over the years have worked with the CFZ . Very few, if any, continue to do so today.” That is an interesting statement – perhaps puss could name those to whom it refers, along with the reasons for them no longer wishing so to do – I would be very interested to hear these details. And please let us hope that puss does not decline so to do, for that would be a very predictable action to not back up such broad accusations.

I was only aware, by the way, of one person mentioning legal action, but your phrasing tends to imply that more than one has warned of such. But you do seem to enjoy fluffing up your accusations by adding an extra ‘s’ here and there. Does it go towards making your chest puff out perhaps with more of that self-gratifying hot air? Does it bolster your over-inflated ego so you think you are more like the big stripey puss in your name than the little Highland puss?

Pussycat of the Highlands, whilst you sit back with a face that looks as if you have stolen the cream thinking that you are so clever and untouchable, remember that the bigger those fur balls become the more you are in danger of choking yourself.

Now to the rest of this rant.

To Mr Shaun Stevens: “The guy is sadly an eccentric self publicist, who wouldn't have a had single thing published if it wasn't for the wonderful world of vanity presses.” Firstly, you are incorrect in the first part of your statement due to the fact that Jon has had many things published which have not been under the CFZ Press heading. And secondly you really should look up the meaning of ‘vanity press’ before you start accusing people of using such a method of publishing. Or are you trying to be clever with the English language? Ah, times have changed since you, Jon and I sat in the pub at Watchet after the BCIB conference that was hosted at Tropiquaria. A conference that was hosted by Jon (to help BCIB out) when Mr Fraser became ill with a bad back. Which then led on to the fact that Mr Moiser was keen to hold an annual big cat conference there in the future too. Hey presto, that then, of course, was twisted around too wasn’t it, to infer that Jon was trying to take over the BCIB? Why was that? Because it was a relative success where others have not been? Who really cares.
To Mr Mark Fraser: “And the fact of the matter is I cut ties with the CFZ because you allowed the nonsensical attacks on British Big cat researchers, and that’s the truth as you know it. But you cannot admit it.” Erm do you actually confirm that we do not censor our blogs now? Wow! Admit it, you do not like Neil Arnold so anything written by him is subject to hostility by you. You silly little man.

“Why we want to get involved in your research is beyond me, you need to pay for this yourself not get others to pay for it.” As mentioned above, since when did Jon ask you to pay for anything? I cannot find any record of that occurring. Please direct me to this request. Or is it a case of: “Truth of the matter is you are twisting things again” as you so ineptly put it in accusing Jon?

BIG CATS IN BRITAIN? OK we could have said it another way I suppose: LARGE FELINES IN THE UK or ENORMOUS FELIDS IN THE SOUTH OF THE UK or ..... well the list goes on undoubtedly, but quite simply BIG CATS IN BRITAIN is really the most obvious thing to write and it is purely a coincidence that your organisation’s name has used the most obvious words. But, there you go. You are a bit paranoid Mr. Fraser aren’t you? Now why is that?

“Instead of getting annoyed, I am seriously wondering about his health, and beginning to feel sorry for the man.” Gosh that is nice of you Mr Fraser. Jon is actually quite seriously ill but refuses to give up and lie around in bed like some with his illnesses would. Thanks for the show of concern. I am sure it warms the cockles of his heart to hear such sentiments.

Well it is Sunday. So here endeth the first lesson. And it is by no means the last.

If you go down to the woods today......

2010-08-17T03:33:00.002+01:00

After all that preparation and angst, the Weird Weekend is now done and dusted for another year. And, what is more, with the help of that special brand of washing up liquid that is manufactured for those ‘hands that do dishes’, I have a pair that are as soft as my face due to the mammoth washing up operation after the cocktail party on Thursday night so it can’t all be bad.

Old friends were welcomed back and new friendships were made. And, of course, the weekend was fuelled with the excitement of the discovery of leopard hairs in the local woods. Lars Thomas and the Danish TV crew (Margit, Linus and Michael) are still here finishing off their project with Lars and it has been lovely to have them.here doing this.

The ladies who prepared all the meals at the Community Centre did a marvellous job feeding us all again and we thank them all very much for their hard work. Sunday turned out to be a hot day and the kitchens must have been extremely uncomfortable to work in and we much appreciate their efforts.

Anyway, to take the subject away from the last weekend, so much was going on that I never introduced you to the new addition to the ‘family’ that Max brought down with him on Monday – a late birthday present from Jon and him. So here is a picture of Mog the cane toad who loves nothing more than to sit in her flower pot or her own private swimming pool. Not the usual run of the mill creature to share your dining room table with I am sure you will agree. What is more, the ever-present look of wisdom upon her face does seem to infer that a conversation on the writings of Pliny may well be more up her street than a run-down of the shenanigans that took place in the recent episode of Coronation Street.

So... life will soon return to normal here at CFZ HQ - whatever normal is - but preparations are, as usual, already under way for next year's event. And we haven't even put everything away in its proper place yet.

Ah well.......

Biggles joins the 'Terrible Twos' Club today

2010-08-08T11:57:00.006+01:00

Happy Birthday to Biggles!

Today is the day that you can have your cake and eat it

(well it is made for dogs and looks a bit unpalatable to us humans so he has no fear of anyone trying to purloin a slice - apart from the cats maybe)

Here at the CFZ we are certain that he will join the Club with great gusto, and will gain many achievement badges congratulating him for behaviour befitting of such an esteemed Club.

14th Century Improprieties

2010-07-25T12:09:00.002+01:00

I have been following Richard's blogs on the subject of Lincolnshire legends and was wondering whether the infamous Lincoln Imp would feature. I was not to be disappointed and on Friday there he was. I can proudly announce that such a fellow sits upon the kitchen wall here at Myrtle Cottage.

In April last year, I wrote about him and several other interesting features of Lincolnshire:

A Tale of Two Imps

Although I was born and raised in Middlesex, I spent the years from 1985 to 2007 in Lincolnshire. I used to live in Stamford, an old picturesque town that boasts the location of the magnificent Burghley House which has been used in many a TV serial or film. I remember sitting in my car at a set of traffic lights, on my return to work one lunchtime, and - looking in my rearview mirror - was taken aback to see a coach and four pull up behind me as it did it's round-the-block route for a take while Middlemarch was being filmed in the town. Very surreal.

Just down the road from where I used to work lay the remains of Joan, Princess of Wales - also known as the Fair Maid of Kent due to her great beauty - wife of the Black Prince and mother of Richard II. She was laid to rest in January 1386 in the grounds of Friars Minors, according to her wishes that she be buried in her chapel, but has found herself now located in a garden, due to the building of houses on the land!

I love early English history and I know that the following may not stir the ancestral blood of a lot of those who may read this, but I do have a strong fascination about our country's past and thought I would write one of those little slices of history blogs that I do every so often. To think I used to work a two minute - if that - walk away from where the mother of one of our Kings is buried in a leafy garden in a small town in Lincolnshire is kind of odd to say the least. Then there are the Eleanor Crosses. King Edward I had these crosses erected in memory of his wife, Eleanor of Castile, to mark the nightly resting-places along the route taken by her body as it was transported to London. It took twelve stops and at each of these a cross was built, of which three amazingly survive today (Geddington, Hardington and Waltham). The twelve places were Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Hardingstone, Stoney Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham, Westcheap (now Cheapside) and Charing (Charing Cross).

In those harsh days there is something so touching about the fact that he thought so much of his wife that he marked her last journey in such a way. And that three of the crosses still stand today in her memory (with pieces of some of the others in museums near the towns they were erected) is nothing short of a miracle.

I am also a sucker for folklore, and Lincolnshire, as every other county, has its fair share. According to legend, way back in the 14th Century, Satan sent two imps to earth with the prime objective of doing mischief. In some versions of the story, they first went to Chesterfield where they set upon the spire of the Cathedral and twisted it – their handiwork still in evidence today. They were then sent to Lincoln Cathedral to cause mayhem there. As the story goes, they set about their work with obvious glee, smashing up tables and chairs and even tripping up the poor Bishop. However, when they started to interfere with the Angel Choir, one of the angels decided that enough was enough and told them to stop. One of the imps was brave and started throwing rocks at the angel, but the other imp cowered under the broken tables and chairs. The angel turned the first imp to stone and this gave the second imp a chance to escape.

There are a few different variations of the story, one telling that the second imp that escaped did so with the help of a witch, by jumping on to her broomstick. However, she became so fond of the imp that she turned him into a black cat. Not so good for him really then. However, in another version, this escapee was said to have travelled to Grimsby where it entered St James' Church and began repeating its destructive behaviour. The angel then reappeared and gave the imp's backside a good thrashing before turning it to stone like its friend. The Grimsby Imp can still be seen in St James' Church, clinging to its sore bottom. Another legend has the escaped imp turned to stone just outside the cathedral, and sharp-eyed visitors can spot it on a South outside wall.

Other stories tell how only one imp was blown around the country by the wind looking for places to cause mischief, and following his efforts in Lincoln Cathedral the angel turned him to stone after he had gone to the top of the nearest pillar to admire his handywork. Hence he is found there today with his legs crossed sporting an evil grin upon his face.

A more detailed version goes into how he was sent to plague the clergy in the cathedral and how he was blown through the great west door by the west wind and blew out the candles, scattered the hymn sheets and attacked the choristers. He then flew into the angel choir and it was when he threatened to pluck out the angels’ feathers, that the smallest angel turned him to stone.

Whether you believe there were two, or just the one, or - indeed - if you do not believe it at all, measuring 12” in height, he is definitely still sitting there now, grinning down, cross-legged at all who pass below. He has become the symbol of the City of Lincoln, has the local football team named after him and is used on many a company logo. He has become the symbol for good over evil. My late ex-mother-in-law had a tiny model of one in her kitchen – as, indeed, do I.

It is a shame that there are no records kept of who carved such gargoyles and effigies in our massive Cathedrals. It would make an interesting read indeed as to the background of their existence.

Anyway, if any of you find yourself in Lincolnshire at any time, a visit to the Cathedral in the county’s capital is a must – not just for the beauty of the architecture - but to see, also, if you can spot the miscreant for yourself. Apart from that, old Lincoln is a beautiful place to visit, perched on top of a hill, with cobbled stones up the narrow streets and still some old buildings in existence down the lane that leads to the less picturesque modern part of the city. Jousting events are held in the castle grounds each year and it is a marvel to see, and hear, the knights riding through the cobbled old part of Lincoln on their way to the tournament, kitted out in full armour and colours, with a lady’s favour fluttering in the breeze as it hangs from their lance.

As the Visit Lincolnshire website states “As you approach the City of Lincoln, from any direction, you are drawn to the magnificent silhouette of the Cathedral stretching to the skies, brooding over 2000 years of history”.

He may only be two and a quarter inches tall, and certainly not what you would call an attractive chap, but I have grown very fond of his impish features as he poses cross-legged and casts his wickedly gleeful stare over the kitchen.

Representations of two very different imps that reside in Myrtle Cottage:

My absence excuses

2010-07-19T18:04:00.002+01:00

I admit that I have been missing from the blogosphere for a bit lately, for no reason other than I have been otherwise engaged with this and that, and that and this.

There was my birthday weekend during which both my darling daughters came to visit. This was a three-pronged event – celebrate mama’s birthday, chief bridesmaid and bride to practice bride’s hair and make-up for the big event in September, and mother to practice the cake-making for the centre piece. To say the kitchen was inundated with cake was an understatement of gross proportions. And that was without the required 30cm chocolate cake (due to the tin not arriving in time) so a 23cm and 7cm duo were prepared instead. And there was birthday cake! Ah a sponge addict’s dream.

Then there was the ill-fated rainy day trip to the supermarket. This was to be no Asda amble, but a stick-to-the-list dash in order to facilitate the exit of the premises as quickly as possible. Although this was accomplished with a certain amount of panache, the whole exercise was somewhat spoilt by the fact that the oaf behind me had reversed into his/her spot and parked almost bumper to bumper with the CFZ vehicle that the opening of the boot was somewhat of a squeeze. I did think of stamping a foot, blowing fire from my nostrils and moving our car with great theatrics in order to enable the boot to swing open to its fullest extent, but came to the conclusion that, as the offending driver was nowhere to be seen, such a potential Oscar-winning performance would be wasted on an otherwise uninterested car park. So I loaded the boot from a strange angle, and just as I was lifting the large package of cat food I felt a ping in my left side and realised that the next few days would be spent in a half-crone position. I would, in other words, be doing a pretty good dramatic impression of the wicked old hag in Hansel and Gretel.

Then came Hopalong Cassidy in the shape of my not-so-often-mentioned tortoiseshell cat Poppy McGregor. She is not mentioned much in the daily goings on around CFZ HQ because she is, and always has been, a wanderer. She goes missing on her jaunts for days on end throughout the year and does not get up to so many antics (at least not for our entertainment – who knows what she gets up to on her travels) as her errant brother Spider McGraw (aka the ginger cat). However, she came in with her left front leg dangling in a most peculiar fashion and was spotted first by Helen, our housekeeper. It became apparent, upon closer investigation, that she (Poppy that is, not Helen) had somehow got her collar caught under her leg and was obviously under much discomfort; a state gleaned from the sounds of her hissing and growling as we tried to remove it. In the end, it was a job for the scissors, but we could not get the collar to move from underneath her leg – it seemed to be stuck, and there was no way we could just pull it off at that particular moment as she was getting extremely agitated with all the attention (she is not one for attention at the best of times – unless on her own terms). I was fearing the worse that she had perhaps got a nasty oozy infection from a cut made by the collar, but it came off shortly afterwards and she was, thank goodness, none the worse for wear, and she is now back to her usual self.

Then came Biggles and his odd turn that Jon wrote about on the blog. That was most peculiar. He had been fine all day and had been curled up asleep until it was time for his night-time visit to the garden before going to bed. It was when he went outside that he became obviously out of sorts – likened to someone who had over-imbibed at the pub, and had suffered that horrid effect of the air hitting them when they left the bar’s cosiness to go home. It was a night of no sleep for me whilst I lay on the floor with Biggles until he went to sleep and then kept a careful eye on him throughout the night to make sure he was OK. By the end of the next day, he was basically back to his normal self. I am assuming that he must have eaten something that he shouldn’t – as Jon wrote, he did have an unhealthy eye on a toad the other night so perhaps whilst under cover of darkness, and while we were not watching, he managed to grab one after all.

Added to all these ‘events’ there have been several peculiar and tiresome episodes such as the leak in the bedroom ceiling dripping annoyingly into a bucket all night and the occasion when Helios 7 came in squeaking and mewling with excited anticipation for instant attention on account of her returning home with a dead mole. I am not too sure why she should feel so proud of herself under such circumstances, but then she is a cat, and they are such odd individuals at the best of times. Looking at the departed creature, I could not help but think of Moley in The Wind in the Willows and became rather melancholic at the thought of the poor little beast’s demise at the jaws and paws of Helios.

And there you have it – a short précis of the events that have occurred during the past weeks. It looks to be a busy couple of weeks coming up too, but I shall endeavour to try my best to update my blog a little more regularly than of late.

Biggles is re-surfacing with gusto

2010-07-07T12:28:00.002+01:00

Biggles' fans are wondering where he has got to. To let you into a secret, he had been sulking for ages after his operation and has been hesitant to show himself in fear of the girls out there scoffing at his predicament. However, he has now gotten used to the idea and has probably realised this now means that he can mix with members of the opposite sex at will, without fear of them fraternising or getting himself into any awkward paternity suits.

He has been busy in the garden these last weeks, mainly chasing anybody with a watering can and then making a bit of a fool of himself trying to catch the water from it. We must not forget – of course – the frequent infamous rake chases. He has managed to basically destroy four – yes four – Frisbees over these halcyon days of summer, despite the fact that at least two of them were supposed to be indestructible. Perhaps Frisbee makers should hire him to test out their theories. He is actually quite adept at leaping in the air and catching them on the trot - he really should have been in the England goal perhaps. However, the ball would probably not have fared quite so well, methinks. I have to say though that the lawn looks a bit like a disused ufo landing site, with half broken plastic discs dotted reminiscent of those old World War air fields full of the skeletons of disused and rusting aeroplanes that once flew so smoothly. Ah well, it keeps him happy.

He is still attempting a major takeover bid of the bed each night. I am sure his eventual aim is to claim it all for himself and over the past few nights both Jon and I have ended up dangling our posteriors over the edge of the bed, without the comfort of a duvet covering them, as Biggles has somehow managed to gather it around him in the middle of the bed.

Thea has the key of the door

2010-07-06T17:14:00.003+01:00

My youngest niece has a special day today

so.....

Happy 21st Birthday

Thea

Hope you have a great day and tea party at the weekend

(and don't forget that sticky bun lark either 'smirk' - I await photos!)

Up the ladder to the roof

2010-06-18T11:17:00.000+01:00

Jon has gone – and before that incomplete piece of information gets bandied about and embellished on the crypto bush telegraph – I had better add swiftly that he is, of course, up in Staffordshire with Dave B-P and staying the evening chez Shosh and Gav - so tis only for one night.

Things are oddly quiet here. There is no music bellowing forth from Jon’s inner sanctum and no garbled messages on the intercom which take some translating at the best of times due to the background interference of whistling, crackling and humming. Even Biggles cannot quite make out where he has gone – I think he thought that Jon was hiding in bed, because when Biggles followed me, and the large pile of dry laundry upstairs, he headed straight for Jon’s side of the bed with an expectant look on his face. Or perhaps he was just eyeing up the available space for bedtime tonight – I am sure he will take full advantage of the room to stretch out in.

However, Biggles did have a visit today - Gerald Smith brought his dog Ben to visit and they had a romp in the garden (Ben and Biggles that is). Well, not really a romp as Ben tends to ignore Biggles in favour of his ball and Biggles looks on in a manner of “what am I supposed to do now?” After the obligatory doggy welcomes of sniffing and tail-wagging it was off to play with their respective toys. Ben brought him a present today too – a Frisbee - which seems to be made of a more tooth-resistant plastic than the others Biggles has in his possession, which are now more than a little worse for wear.

It does actually remind me of when I used to take my girls to mother/toddler afternoons – the look on Biggles’ face is remarkably similar and so are his actions. There is that smidgeon of shyness and awkwardness as he plays with his favourite toys, with the occasional look in the direction of Ben and then me as if to question whether that is what he is supposed to do.

Occasionally there is the quiet, slow and almost surreptitious pinching of Ben’s ball which then gets carried to another part of the garden but not played with. Biggles just lies down with it between his front legs and watches as Ben comes up and reclaims it, just like a child takes a toy away from another and goes to sit with mother with it clutched under their arm, only to place it on the mother’s lap and go off and do something else. It is almost a case of eyeing up the opposition before deciding upon the definitive action.

Yesterday I was busy putting together the ‘New and Rediscovered’ and ‘Watcher of the Skies’ pieces for the next issue of Animals & Men, whilst Graham was ‘up the ladder to the roof’ and Oll was working on the ‘Aquatic Monsters Logbook’ for the aforementioned journal. All in all a busy time has been had by us three whilst Jon and Dave have ambled their way up northwards.

As for today, well at least I don't have to be up as early as they will be - the poor souls have to be up at 7 am!

Happy Birthday Mum

2010-06-13T12:22:00.000+01:00

Many Happy Returns of the Day

to my dear mother

Love you lots and I hope you have a lovely day

There's nothing like a mama-hug. ~Terri Guillemets

Max meets his match

2010-06-08T11:53:00.002+01:00

To a student reading zoology, it is assumed that a certain attraction to all things of the natural world is an obvious attribute. To an orange cat not reading anything, it is assumed that a nice warm lap is an undeniable attraction. Put them both together at the witching hour and one might expect this combination to come together in some kind of mysterious and magickal trip of delight.

But the student is Max and the orange cat in question is our very own Spider McGraw so that dismisses the latter part of the previous paragraph - it was past Max’s bedtime and Spider is just too old to even think about such things. However, Spider did help Max in some work on the laptop, much to Max’s obvious dismay and chagrin.

It had started out so well:

But then Max realised something odd about his laptop, although Spider denied all knowledge of walking over the keyboard to effect such a splendid affect:

It seemed that Spider had somehow managed to rotate the display on Max's screen by 90 degrees - what a clever cat. He settled down pleased with the result of his assistance.

However, Max was enraged:

And Spider was so disgruntled at this youthful display of temper that he showed Max exactly how much by displaying what he thought of the tantrum in a very cat-like way:

Max was completely speechless at such a show of audacity from Spider:

And to avoid such an anatomical display again - that, after all, would only be appreciated by another cat or a vet - Max decided to let the matter drop and they both formed a tentative truce:

Ah the ups and downs, territorial rights and testosterone levels of the males at the CFZ are always a wonder to behold.

Cheers! A votre sante! Slainte! or even Bottom's Up!

Bats in the belfry

2010-06-06T23:22:00.002+01:00

For many years I have had bats in my belfry....the older I get I swear the bigger they become as they flit erratically inside my head.

On Saturday night (or rather during the early hours of Sunday morning) I was sitting writing some of my book, when something caught my eye at the bottom of the stairs. It seemed to come and go rapidly and was dark in colouration, or so it seemed when seen from the light shining from the dining room on to the bottom of the stairs. My immediate thought was that my imagination was getting the better of me – Biggles had been acting a might peculiar earlier on as if he could hear something going on outside (don’t you just hate it when cats and dogs suddenly raise their head and stare into nothing with ears twitching and eyes intent on something you cannot see, accompanied with a low guttural growl?) . Were my belfry bats crossing up the wires in my head as I looked up from my twilight world of fiction and into the bright light of reality? Nope, I could definitely see – and hear – wings, although not the usual delicate sound of feathers, but something more solid. However, my next thought was that maybe one of the cats had caught a roosting bird and, getting up to investigate, I began to mull over whether I would have to awaken the household to help catch it and put it in one of the specially made holding cages that are always prepared to receive a patient if the call is needed.

I had no idea where any of the cats were at that moment nor where Biggles was, as he had been up and down the stairs continuously for a few hours and I had lost track as to whether he was recumbent on the bed or in the sitting room. However, when I turned on the landing light I realised that the unintentional visitor was in fact not a bird at all, but a bat. And quite a largish size bat at that, not one of the usual smaller ones that we see at dusk flittering around the garden after insects. It must have come in through the landing or bathroom window and was clearly having trouble regaining its freedom. The landing window does not open very far and I did not want to risk making an almighty row at that time in the morning trying to force it to go any further. However, this in turn made it a hopeless task for the bat to negotiate and it kept flying back and forth down the corridor that leads to our bedroom, which – as Jon was asleep – was enveloped in complete darkness and then out passed me on to the stairwell and up into the rafters.

Eventually it veered off into the bathroom and I quickly slipped in behind it, turned on the light to see what I was doing and closed the door. I flung the bathroom window as far as open as it would go – which luckily was a darn sight more than the landing window – and stood stock still while the poor bat zoomed in and out of the shower cubicle, around my ankles and around my head. Then it was gone and hopefully is none the worse for wear after its unfortunate predicament.

I have no idea what species it was; the landing was gloomy and the bat moved with incredible speed and to be perfectly honest I would not have known even if it had sat on my hand and struck a pose. But for my part, bats are - quite simply - gorgeous and fascinating creatures and although having one inside the house is supposed to be a bad omen, I look upon it as a very interesting – and completely unexpected – interlude to the solitude and quietness of the wee small hours.

Bedsheets and maggots

2010-05-27T13:04:00.000+01:00

Get up in the morning, all the sheets have gone sir

They are all on your side

Ohhhhhh my ears are alight

This morning I awoke to find I was sleeping, not on a crisp white sheet but upon a bare mattress. Somehow Jon had managed to steal the sheets from my side of the bed, as well as the duvet, whilst in the land of nod. I did actually feel some of the sheet thievery happen at one point. I was half-awake when Jon turned over and I felt the material slip unceremoniously from beneath me. Oh charming I thought to myself; that’s nice of him. He of course denied all knowledge of the event in the morning, although the evidence was there for all to see. Today I shall seek out the staple gun and fix the sheets on my side firmly down in case a repetition of such diabolical pilfering occurs.

On a completely different subject, it was Olivia that introduced me to the music of Slipknot quite a few years ago now – the rather loud, screeching, often unmelodic compositions oozing from the firmly closed door of her teenage sanctum, filling the house with the angst of youth. Well rather that than a lovesick teenager mooning over Take That or Boyzone to my mind, but that’s just me. I think I would most likely have screamed “Turn that nauseous racket down!” if it had been. So, as Olivia became a ‘maggot’ (the ‘affectionate’ name given to their followers) I became accustomed to their shouting, and actually rather liked a lot of it.

They are renowned for some odd and grotesque antics on stage and never appear without their trademark masks in public, hence fans know them by which instrument they play or which number they are. (Er.... for those of you who don’t know each one of the band has a number from 1-9). No.2 Paul Gray – bassist and one of the original members of the band – was found dead a couple of days ago and although, looking at the Youtube comments, it seems that seeing the band members sans masks at the press conference has thrown some confusion about whom exactly is whom, it is nevertheless, touching that they left them behind to pay tribute to their former band mate.

The guys are not hard, foul-mouthed creatures but are just normal human beings deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of their friend. My sympathies to his family and friends, and especially his wife who is apparently expecting their first child.

Double, double, toil and trouble

2010-05-23T16:03:00.002+01:00

As you may or may not know, I have been absent from the world of emails, blogs et al for a week whilst visiting Shosh and Gav in Staffordshire and I had a lovely time and it was a great break.

Courtesy of National Express I was transported from Bideford to Hanley bus station in relative comfort, apart from the second leg of the journey home on Saturday when the coach did not appear to have air conditioning fitted. Thankfully, though, the coach was not packed to the gills.

On the outward journey Barnstaple station provided an amusing and somewhat intriguing sight – one shoe dangling from a street lamp seemingly tied by its laces and dangling in the slight breeze. I am presuming someone had either a very lucky lob or a very good eye.

Then there was the lady in the seat behind me who was having great fun ringing up her friends on her mobile. “Hello?! Hello?! You up?! I boiled four eggs this morning, ate two of them for breakfast and was going to bring the other two for you but left them behind. “

“Hello?! Helloooooo?! You up?! I will probably ring you again as I get bored on the coach”. Oh lucky me I thought.

One of the prime objectives of my trip was to go out with Shosh on her mission to find a wedding dress - so many fluffy, slinky, puffy concoctions to choose from and so many price labels that burnt your fingers when checking them out. We were both completely amazed and chuffed with the final result on Tuesday though – the fourth dress tried on was ‘the one’. All those horror stories of trying on hundreds and hundreds and tramping from emporium to emporium were allayed on the second establishment visited. And even the shoes were sorted out on Friday! To say that we were pleased with our extreme cleverness is an understatement.

We went t’pictures on Wednesday and saw the new Robin Hood film. After seeing it I can understand the comparisons with Gladiator/Saving Private Ryan but it was a pretty good romp nevertheless. Going back to the subject of having a very good eye – our hero’s shot at the bad guy in the closing stages of the film was pretty efficient I must say and excellently carried out. Letting arrows fly skywards is great fun – I just wish my aim was that good at such a distance. However, with a clever bit of filming, editing and cinemagraphic licence perhaps there is hope yet....

We went to see my mum on Thursday which was lovely - I have not been able to get up to Rutland for ages to see her. Three generations of us females together could conjure a daunting picture but we didn’t sit around our cauldron – it was too hot for one thing and Tesco were fresh out of eye of newt anyway.

And so it is back home, with Biggles complaining that as soon as I had left everyone was rotten to him and took away his boydoggyhood. Hmm perhaps somewhere a different cauldron’s recipe was bubbling?

Nuts, whole hazlenuts....

2010-05-16T13:10:00.002+01:00

Whilst waiting for filming to get underway on Saturday, I roamed through the shrubbery with my camera. As any good shrubber knows, there are delightful things to be found lurking just out of sight. However, I am not a very good shrubber and only managed to find a couple of interesting things.

There was the little snail nestling in the moss on a tree trunk:

There was what was once a gateway into either a long destroyed building or pen of some sort (with the hinges still on one of vertical stone slabs), complete with stone path:

And then there was the stone complete with a sprinkling of broken hazelnut shells:

So, had this stone been used as an anvil in much the same way as a thrush does with a snail? Considering how difficult it is to crack a nut even with nut-crackers, I assume not. Was it the remains of a squirrel's lunch? Or even a dormouse's breakfast? Or was it even the remains of a passing back-packer's pack-up who had stopped for a protein-rich snack using up the leftovers of their Christmas nut basket?

Any ideas anyone?

And never a bleat was heard

2010-05-15T23:38:00.002+01:00

Jon had been approached a while back to do an interview for an American film company regarding the ‘Beast of Dartmoor’. It was supposed to have taken place a couple of weeks back, but the 'Iceland Incident' had quashed those plans, and after many alterations in arrangements it had finally been decided - during this week - that the filming would take place on Dartmoor. If nothing else, it presented a nice excuse for sandwiches, cake and a giant flask of tea, and a day out with - hopefully - nice weather to accompany us on our jaunt over the stunning scenery of the moor.

Biggles decided to show his appreciation for the trip by throwing up his breakfast over the back seat of the car – nice one Biggles! Ah the joys of clearing up vomit from the back of the car whilst parked in the entrance of a field, with rear end dangerously crossing the thin line between off and on road. All the while being watched by the benefactor of such delight, pathos etched upon his face. Chunks of ….. well I won’t go any further. It was like taking the children out on a sunny day’s trip to the country all over again!

The scenery changed somewhat when we came upon the journey through Princetown, famous - of course -for its foreboding structure, Dartmoor Prison, which sat staring at us with austerity. Then it was out again over the cattle grid and on to the moorland where the ‘pedestrians’ have no respect for the Highway Code whatsoever, and why should they? Several stops later, in order to accommodate various sheep, cattle and the odd foal crossing the road, we eventually met up with the film crew in a lay-by. And there were a lot of them – and all were being transported around in black vehicles that dwarfed our little Daihatsu. Passers-by may well have got the impression that it was a Saturday afternoon meeting of the local ‘Men in Black Club’.

Biggles, however, was unimpressed and was more interested in sniffing here, there and everywhere and leaving his scent wherever possible on the landscape. And then I was back in the car, and the sinister looking entourage moved off slowly, with us nestled in second place, to a beautiful little spot they had found that was ideal for the filming they needed - just down the road from Burrator Reservoir.

A few hours later it was the trip in reverse, this time encountering the ‘teasing’ sheep. These are the ones who threaten to cross the road but loiter at the verge instead. They taunt you into playing a game of ‘kangaroo’ down the road whilst they put one foot out, then back again, and then look disdainfully at you, all the while chewing as if pounding a stick of gum between maxilla and mandible. Perhaps they were just poking a proverbial tongue out at the sheepdog that was asleep on the back seat of the car - blissfully unaware of their audacity.

And to round off a very nice Saturday sojourn, Jon and I heard our first cuckoo in years. This may seem a pretty unremarkable event to some, but it was only the other day that I mentioned to Jon that I had not heard a cuckoo in ages, to which he replied that he hadn’t either.

DARTMOOR
by
Noel Thomas Carrington (1777-1830)

Dartmoor! thou wert to me, in childhood's hour,
A wild and wondrous region. Day by day
Arose upon my youthful eye they belt
Of hills mysterious, shadowy, clasping all
The green and cheerful landscape sweetly spread
Around my home; and with a stern delight
I gazed upon thee. How often on the speech
Of the half-savage peasant have I hung,
To hear of rock-crowned heights on which the cloud
For ever rests; and wilds stupendous swept
By mightiest storms; of glen, and gorge, and cliff,
Terrific, beetling o'er the stone-strewed vale;
And giant masses, by the midnight flash
Struck from the mountain's hissing brow, and hurled
Into the foaming torrent; and of forms
That rose amid the desert, rudely shaped
By Superstition's hands when time was young;
And of the dead, the warrior dead, who sleep
Beneath the hollowed cairn! My native fields,
Though peerless, ceased to please. The flowery vale,
The breezy hill, the river and the wood,
Island, reef, headland, and the circling sea,
Associated by the sportful hand
Of Nature, in a thousand views diverse,
Or grand, or lovely, - to my roving eye
Displayed in vain their infinite of charms;
I thought on thy wild world, - to me a world, -
Mysterious Dartmoor, dimly seen, and prized
For being distant and untrod; and still
Where'er I wander'd, - still my wayward eye
Rested on thee!

You must have been a beautiful baby

2010-05-14T12:23:00.005+01:00

During the torrential rain and flooding experienced in Nashville over the first weekend of the month, Nashville Zoo welcomed the arrival of two 'storm' babies. One was a Eurasian lynx cub, born on the Saturday, and on the other was a Baird's tapir which was born on the Sunday.

These tapirs are the national animal of Belize and commonly referred to as 'mountain cows' in Central and South America.When he grows into adulthood Noah (as he has been christened) will lose his reddish-brown coat brightly marked with white streaks and spots and acquire the distinctive cream-coloured marking on his face and throat, and a dark spot on each cheek, behind and below the eye. The rest of his hair will be dark brown or greyish-brown and like other tapirs he will have a small stubby tail of around 3 - 5 inches and a long, flexible prehensile nose. He should reach around 2 metres (6.6 ft) in length and 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) in height, and weigh in the region of 240–400 kilograms (530–880 lb) - Baird's tapirs are the largest and heaviest of the New World tapir species.

In its natural habitat the Baird's tapir is found in the dense jungles of Central America including southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador.and can be found at altitudes as high as 3,350 metres (10,990 ft). They can be either diurnal or nocturnal, eat plant matter and communicate with shrill whistles.

This tapir has been classed as endangered by the ICUN and in 1996 it was classed as vulnerable; hunting and loss of habitat being two of the main reasons for this status.

And talking of beautiful babies, how about little Einstein the griffon vulture born at Hamburg Zoo recently? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I am sure his parents must love him:

Happy Birthday wishes

2010-05-02T12:34:00.004+01:00

Happy Birthday Ant!

And a little birthday song for you - a complete non-sequitur but pretty jolly

2 May 1933 : Loch Ness monster is sighted

Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland's Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on 2 May 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.

BEES MAKE HONEY

2010-04-30T12:52:00.002+01:00

Being a domestic engineer (a profession suggested to me by the man at immigration in Texas to replace the age-old expression "housewife") seems to infer that several everyday tasks may require the need of a hard hat or overalls.

In the case of the poor woman in Victoria, Australia who went out to collect her washing from the line, one or both of these may well have been ideal apparel. She discovered, to her horror, that a swarm of around 20,000 bees had attached themselves to some of her more colourful garments and presumably clung on to the fabric - and themselves - in a cacophony of buzzing and humming in defiance of her laundry day antics.

She telephoned a local bee keeper to come along and clear the offending creatures and her garden became a hive of activity whilst he dealt with the little darlings. He explained that “bees swarm in the spring when their hives become overcrowded, forcing the queen bee to head out with some of her workers. The bees then cluster nearby while scouts head out to find suitable locations for a new hive.”

Bees on their own are sweet little things, but get a group of them together and they instantly become akin to a crowd of football hooligans who cling together in the terraces and threaten all those around purely with the sight of their numbers and noisy chanting. There may be safety in numbers for those concerned, but to the outsider those numbers are terrifying.

An update from Major James Bigglesworth - aka Biggles - about life at the CFZ and his training programme

2010-04-28T11:49:00.002+01:00

I woke up this morning a bit earlier than usual and had a good stretch and yawn to get my body ready for the day ahead. I nuzzled the old dear awake by thrusting my cold nose in her face – I don’t see why anyone else should be asleep if I am awake – and then proceeded to scratch and wash myself in order to annoy the grumpy old git as he tried in vain to return to sleep. It is great fun doing these ablutions on the bed as I can make it bounce up and down when cleaning my privates, which causes utterances of extreme annoyance from the two-leggeds lying under the bedclothes. That is if they have managed to reclaim any of them because I usually try and get as much of them as possible to lay on myself.

A good game is to sniff loudly at the air that comes through the gap at the bottom of the closed door and then try to force open the door with a hefty kick of my front legs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it does then I break out and head for Graham’s door to make sure that he is awake. I never bother with Oll’s door – he doesn’t get up till 11 in the morning and I know it would be wasted energy trying to rouse him.

Then it is off downstairs at a rate of knots, either with Graham or the grumpy old git – no use wasting time walking sedately when there are two cats downstairs to annoy and garden borders to check out. Sometimes the old dear gets up first and lets me outside – she is nice – she is the one who gives me food and I follow her around all day like a shadow making sure that she is not doing anything that I am going to miss. These humans don’t use the garden bushes for emptying their bladders, which is something that I don’t quite understand, but they are peculiar creatures in lots of ways. So when the old dear goes upstairs I sit on her chair to keep it warm for her. I am not sure that she appreciates my warm bottom on her chair from the way she sighs when she returns downstairs, but I am a creature of habit and I accidentally did it once so have to carry on doing so.

From about 8 pm in the evening I incessantly try to round her up to send her to bed so that I can go with her and root around in the bin and reveal the grumpy old git’s disgusting habit of eating pork pies in bed. I like telling tales on him – I pretend that I am a mummy’s boy and that is what it is all about – telling tales. I get told off for dragging wrappers around the bedroom floor and on to the bed, but he gets told off too for eating such things upstairs in the first place.

They tell me I have some disgusting habits too, but I really do not know what they are on about. Drinking out of the lavatory is fun – it is just the right height for me to get my head in and there is a never ending supply of water to lap up. I do not understand why they make weird noises of disgruntlement when I try to kiss them goodnight after having one of these night time drinks.

Ahhh it is a great life being the alpha male in the CFZ household – the training is going quite well and I nearly have my pack exactly where I want them. They keep trying to usurp me but I foil them at every turn because I am a dog and I am cleverer than they are.

When the cat's away

2010-04-23T00:38:00.002+01:00

Jon and Graham went off to Berkshire yesterday (Thursday) for Jon to give his talk at Reading Library – they were picking up Richard on the way – and left the house at midday. Oll was busy doing scanning upstairs so it meant that I had downstairs all to myself. This was paradise. Then Oll went out to record an interview and I was left completely without human company for four hours! What bliss. The sun was shining and whilst it was very tempting to down tools and go and sit in the garden with a good book and a pot of tea, I was a good girl and pottered around the house doing chores uninterrupted. I tidied my ‘desk’, cleaned up the kitchen and even managed to tidy up in the bedroom and actually put the laundry away. What delights I can get up to when left on my tod. And at midnight it was still tidy - usually spaces that suddenly become empty on tables etc., almost immediately disappear again behind my back if there are others in the house when I am cleaning up. Point in case - Jon comes home and immediately plonks a Morrisons supermarket receipt on a spare area of my 'desk'. Not for long though, for I returned it to him forthwith and scolded him for daring to do so.

Spider, the cat, joined in the chores by knocking the telephone off the dresser in the kitchen - I think he was trying to point out that it was in his way as his favourite loitering place is right on the corner, presumably so that he can take a casual swipe at the dog's head as he wanders passed.

'ere mum - what's that up there?

PS: I am sure there is joke opportunity somewhere about Spider being a mere cat but I am darned if I can think of one right now.

All change!

2010-04-19T18:24:00.002+01:00

A cockerel called Gianni has swapped his sex after a fox raid that killed all his hens. His owners say that Gianni was definitely a red-blooded rooster until the raid on the farm in Tuscany, when he started to lay eggs and tried to hatch them.

UN scientists are going to study Gianni’s DNA to see if they can establish why he has changed sex. “ It may be a primitive species survival gene. With all the females gone he could only ensure the future of his line by becoming female,” said one expert.

I had heard of chickens changing from female to male before and back in April 2006 the Mail Online reported on an egg-laying hen turning into a cockerel. She had spent 8 months laying dozens of eggs and then crowed like a rooster one morning. She developed a scarlet comb, grew wattles under her chin and tufty tail feathers over the next few weeks.

Her owner had kept chickens for 10 years, but had never heard of this happening before, but animal experts said that the sex change was a 1-in-a-10,000 rarity and happens when a damaged ovary causes the hen’s testosterone levels to soar, turning the remaining ovary into a testicle.

There are other tales of hens turning into cockerels, but it would seem that a rooster changing into a hen is even rarer than 1-in-a-10,000. It will be interesting to see what results the scientists come up with.

Poor Gianni looking confused

A night on Bodmin Moor

2010-04-16T16:56:00.002+01:00

Some stories tell that it was on April 14th 1844 that Charlotte Dymond and her boyfriend Matthew Weeks went out for a walk across Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. Some stories tell that that was the day her body was found. I am not too sure which is the correct version, but what is clear, however, is that the walk was the last time anyone saw her alive, for a few days later her body was found in a stream near Roughtor Ford, her throat having been cut from ear to ear. Matthew had returned to the farm alone and had said that he had left Charlotte at Higher Down Gate and had not gone further with her out on to the moor. When her body was found Matthew became prime suspect and fled to Plymouth. When he was located, he was arrested for her murder, found guilty and hanged in Bodmin Gaol at noon on 12th August 1844 for the crime. The story goes that Charlotte and he had an argument and that he had lost his temper and killed her, before returning to the farm alone. Since then, though, it has been suggested that he may well have been innocent of her murder and that another jealous lover was guilty of the crime. We will never know.

Charlotte was an 18 year old maidservant who was employed at Penhale Farm on the edge of the moor and Matthew, who was 22 and crippled, was a farmhand on the same farm. Charlotte is buried in nearby St David’s Churchyard, Davidstow and Matthew’s body was laid to rest in the gaol’s coal yard.

There is a monument to Charlotte standing near where she was murdered – it has been relocated slightly due to erosion of the banks, but there have been reports of Charlotte’s ghost - clad in a gown, a red shawl and a silk bonnet - being sighted on the anniversary of her death. So on Wednesday this week, the 14th April, I went to Bodmin Moor with our friends Jools, Dougie and Kai from PPI (Parkin’s Paranormal Investigations) to pay our respects and see if anything occurred.

I was to meet them near the Dairy Crest factory at Davidstow and after a wrong turn and a subsequent ten mile trip round in a circle down one of the narrowest roads I have come across, I eventually caught up with them; in the end down to the wonders of the trusty mobile phone. However, during my lost ten miles I did get to have a small conversation with a herd of cows and their calves who eyed me with great consternation and suspicion, and which seemed glad when I drove off and left them to their ruminating.

Armed with backpack, cameras, coffee flask and sandwiches we reached the monument at about 7.30 pm after traversing some rather dodgy boggy ground and streams. It had been a rather amusing trip from the car park with slips, trips and splashes, but the scenery around us was absolutely stunning – that is when we could look at it, in between navigating the rather uneven ground. Moorland is my favourite landscape and it was the first time I had seen the wild side of Bodmin in all its natural glory. It was Jools’ 8th, Dougie’s 7th and Kai’s third annual visit I think, if I remember correctly, but of course it was my first and I was excited and slightly apprehensive as well. I don’t make the habit of sitting out on the moors in the middle of a cold night when most are snuggled between warm duvets. However, after this first foray I am now bitten by the bug and hope to join the others on some more similar investigations.

As darkness fell the sky revealed an unbroken scene of constellations – there were no street lights to mar the brightness and no clouds to cover the spectacle. The breeze picked up and blew its way freely across the moorland and I was glad that I had donned polo neck sweater and a few other outer garments as well as my hat, scarf and gloves. From the sheer wildness you can understand why Charlotte’s body had lain undiscovered for a couple of days – there is nothing there even now, other than a few sheep and ponies. The bleakness is astounding and beautiful.

Apart from reported sightings of a ghostly apparition dressed as Charlotte had been on the day she was last seen, there have also been reports of the scent of perfume around the monument, but unfortunately on Wednesday there was nothing for us.

Eventually a decision had to be reached and we decided to leave the monument and make our way back to the car park in the darkness, save for a couple of torches. The return trip was even more hilarious than the arrival as the light from the torches only broke up the complete blackness for a few feet. It is surprising how disoriented you become when there is no light and if anyone was watching they would have spent a happy quarter of an hour watching us make our way gingerly over the tufts of grass and desperately attempting to avoid a late night dip in what was probably rather cold water. I freely admit that my sense of direction is nigh on zero and on a couple of occasions I found myself veering off in completely the wrong direction.

The only thing then was for me to find my way back to the A39 – a task which was aided by the others with grateful thanks– and with a toot and a wave we headed off in opposite directions towards our relative homes.

To some, it may have been a rather odd way to spend an evening, but to me and the others, it was a great night spent with friends and we had a lovely time even if that does sound rather a weird way of putting it considering we spent a large amount of it in the darkness near the spot of a murder that was so gruesome that it even reached the pages of The Times.

The true story of Charlotte Dymond and her murder will never be known, but if you would like to read some more about it then the following is a good place to start:

http://www.lindastratmann.com/CharlotteDymond.html

Some stripes for Shosh

2010-04-14T13:09:00.004+01:00

Shosh loves zebras and every birthday and Christmas usually consists of something 'zebra' for her collection (I even managed a packet of zebra cakes (which we brought all the way back from a Walmart in Texas) for her birthday this year, which I was pretty chuffed about) so when I saw this photo of a Grevy's zebra foal born around a week ago at Amersoort Zoo in The Netherlands, I couldn't resist posting it on my blog.

Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi) is not only the largest zebra but also the largest wild equine and was named after Jules Grevy, a French president, who was given one in the 1880s by the government of Abysinnia. It is also the only living species of the subgenus Dolichohippus - other zebras belonging to Hippotigris. It is taller, has narrower stripes and larger ears than other zebras and is considered endangered.

If you would like to learn a bit more about Grevy's, here is a link for you:

http://www.grevyszebratrust.org/index.html

Pink to make the boys wink

2010-04-14T13:00:00.004+01:00

I saw something yesterday that made me wince. I am not sure whether it was a wince of disgust, a wince of anger or merely a wince of embarrassment for the young lass concerned. It had been a lovely balmy spring day and many people were going about their business being able to do so without the need for warm outer wear so it was not surprising to spot naked arms and legs for one of the first times this year. However, whilst in the car at the garage as Graham was filling up with petrol a young girl walked on to the forecourt to purchase something from the garage shop. Her outfit was – at first – non-descript, albeit being a baby pink tracksuit that didn’t quite meet in the middle, revealing a bare midriff (which again is nothing new these days). However, it was upon her exit from the shop that I do admit to sighing with despair. The expression ‘muffin top’ is self-explanatory (I possess more in the line of too small a cake tin in which a large Victoria sponge has oozed over the sides) but it was the slogan splashed across her rear that was the icing on that muffin that made me cringe.

I am not sure how old she was – these days it is very difficult to pigeon hole youngsters into age groups – but if I was pressed I would say somewhere in the 14/15 year bracket. I am not convinced that the word JUICY emblazoned in large letters across her bum was really apt though. Although in saying that, whilst my eldest daughter would probably agree with me, my youngest would probably say I was behind the times and over-reacting.

But to me there is something quite revolting and disturbing about a young girl of that approximate age wandering around in a baby pink tracksuit with such a word placed in such a position. Or am I really just getting old and believing too much in the age of innocence? Does that not exist anymore in the 21st Century?

Oh what a tangled web we weave…

2010-04-09T19:45:00.002+01:00

Ever been caught out on that one? I have – once - many years ago when working for the Managing Director of the company where I was employed, whilst his secretary was on holiday. He was a funny guy – he used to come in to work at around 11.00 am and poodle about a bit, checking his mail and walking around the offices and factory chatting to folks. Then he would go off for lunch, returning at around 2.30. He would usually start dictating letters an hour or so later, just in time for the post, and more often than not he would then continue to dictate letters for the next day. It was not uncommon for me to be leaving work at around 8 pm at night, and on some occasions he would give me a £10 note for staying behind with the words “Go buy yourself a new hat”. I am not sure what he meant by that, but I always assumed it was one of those old expressions that are said as a thank-you.

My web was woven when he happened to be away out of the country for a week and I was in charge of his mail, i.e. sending the usual “Thank you for your letter. I am writing to inform you that Mr X is out of the country on business, but I will place your letter before him on his return.” One particular letter, however, arrived that caused me a certain amount of ‘do I do this, or do I do that?’ I cannot remember the finer points, but there was some doubt as to whether I should admit my boss was out of the country or not. Anyway, after much cogitation I decided that my plan of action would be to write the letter as above, but to not actually send it! That sounds a wee bit odd now, but there was a perfectly valid reason at the time.

The week passed uneventfully, and I got home on time each evening. Eventually the day came for the boss to return and for me to sit in the chair in front of his desk and present my secretarial skills for the week in absentia. And here is where my person became tangled in my web – I had to sit through half an hour of being told why I should not have sent the letter and was powerless to plead by innocence for fear of admitting my deceit. Oh to be in my 20s again – so young, naïve and eager to please. However, it taught me a lesson – do not spin a web unless you are sure you can keep up the deception. And in my case, that was the only time I ventured into such weaving. Too intricate the web and it becomes easy to drop a stitch or for the threads to become taut and easily break. Then the truth seizes its opportunity and begins to weave itself within the web until it searches out the deceit and all is revealed.

But back to the 21st Century and here I am on a quiet Friday evening in the company of gurgling filters in the fish tanks and whirring computers in the office. We are all concerned about poor David B-P and his hospitalisation is taking its toll on our moods. Jon is lying down with a migraine in a darkened room and I am about to try to write a short story about shoes when I have finished this blog. Why you may ask? A competition I can answer by way of a succinct reply. A competition in which first prize is a fancy pair of shoes which would probably end up in youngest daughter’s collection if by some million to one chance I won them. Sorry Olivia, don’t hold your breath.
Before Jon retired to his darkened sanctum upstairs, he confessed very loudly, and very determinedly, that he was suffering from great pangs of hunger. Could I fix him something to eat he asked with one of those looks on his face that children sport when they are out shopping with you and decide that they want you to buy them something.

“Get thee to the kitchen, woman and knock me up some vittles,” his eyes and smile seemed to say before I threatened him with a gentle swipe round the cranium with my oven gloves.

And so the facile princeps looked abashed and denied all intimation of such a singularly sexist thought. “Yeah right,” I retorted as I opened a can of beans and plopped them into a saucepan, before coaxing two slices of slightly out of shape bread into the toaster.

A bird in the tin

2010-04-08T13:13:00.002+01:00

I didn’t realise you could still buy Kiwi shoe polish. It is one of those items that were ever present in our cupboard at home when I was little. And when my mum and dad were in charge of such things, my school shoes always received a regular brushing with the gorgeous smelling paste. Perhaps it is telling that as I got older, and was in charge of such things myself, my shoes didn’t get quite so much attention as they used to and the tin was less used, so no wonder then that the little round tin had escaped my memory until I read something today that urged me to look it up.

It is not surprising perhaps that back in those hazy days of childhood that I would not have questioned its trade name – primary school children are rarely bothered with such things other than maybe asking such questions as what is that picture on the tin? However,being interested in the world of nature from a fairly young age the plump little bird after which it is named may well have been fairly familiar to me - I still have my ‘leaving’ book signed by my headmistress in 1967, which we all received upon moving from primary to secondary education , in my possession. We could choose what book we would like and I chose The Wonder Book of Animals, on page 95 of which is a drawing of a kiwi. But with no internet in those days I would not have been able to find out exactly why a shoe polish so common in our shops would have been named after a native bird of New Zealand unless I trawled through a lot of books in the local library. Today, though, all was revealed when I discovered that it was first made in Australia in 1906 and was, in fact, named Kiwi as the wife of the chap who developed it was from New Zealand. The reason it became popular overseas was due, apparently, to the British and American armies adopting it in the First World War.

I like to learn something new every day and the missing link between shoe polish and a plump bird from New Zealand is a welcome addition to the list.

However, what has this to do with anything? Basically, I was looking at a selection of new additions to zoos around the world and came across the plump little character below:

There are five species of kiwi in New Zealand and the brown kiwi is not only named as their national bird, but is also the only one to be seen outside of its native country. The Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington DC is one of only four zoos outside of New Zealand to successfully breed them. The egg, belonging to the Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, was laid in January, and at the end of last month the chick hatched at the National which is only the fourth time in the zoo’s 121 year-old history that this has been achieved. The sex of the chick is not normally known until it is two years old, but it is hoped that DNA samples swabbed from the inside of the shell and from the chick’s beak will allow geneticists to decipher its sex in the coming weeks.

The bird is classified as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the Maori consider it as sacred and it plays a large part in their mythology. The kiwi mates for life and the egg is looked after by the male until it hatches, when it receives no further parental care. Fully feathered when born, they have all necessary skills to survive. They are ground-dwelling, nocturnal, flightless birds that have a keen sense of smell.

You can check out more about the care and hatching of the latest chick at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo at: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Birds/Kiwi/

Jerry and the blackbird

2010-04-03T21:42:00.002+01:00

Poor Jon is not very well at the moment. A lot of people have misconceptions of bipolar – they think that it is more or less just a matter of highs and lows, but the truth is that there are several different types of the disease and whilst medication in the main helps, there are times when it doesn’t much. My father was a manic depressive so I knew vaguely what to expect with Jon, but I was taken aback with the severity that can manifest itself upon occasion. He can get so bad that he cannot speak properly and has trouble with the basics like walking and can become clumsy beyond belief. Coupled with diabetes and heart problems it all adds up to a pretty horrendous time for him sometimes.

However, the animals still need to be tended to and yesterday was a special day for Jerry the jackdaw as it was the day he was to be transferred from his winter accommodation in the conservatory back into his large aviary. As you may know, Jerry is the rescue who preferred our company to the big wide world despite our efforts not to imprint ourselves upon him, whereby when we let him free he opted to return to his aviary a day or so later. Ever since yesterday morning though his aviary has been bombarded by a territorial blackbird who seems to think poor Jerry is an interloper and has invaded its territory. I suppose it is plucky of the blackbird and I know they can be quite aggressive towards other creatures when nesting time comes around. I have often watched blackbird attack cats at this time of year – they simply do not have any fear and have to be applauded for such. However, as Jerry has been a stakeholder in the desirable plot in the garden for over a year, this blackbird is just going to have to put up with it.

I was also slightly amused this morning to see that a lady in California has built her three dogs a substantial 11 foot high ‘house’ outside in her yard, which is supposedly a copy of her own - complete with all the extras, including a TV, vaulted ceilings and air conditioning. It has cost her something like £13,000 to build, and boasts a picket fence around a tiny garden. If the building has been constructed out of wood, let us hope that the three dogs in question have outgrown the gnawing stage or the structure could well topple over due to enthusiastic teeth attacking the foundations.

I hope you all have a pleasant Easter Sunday.

You cannot be serious

2010-03-31T23:35:00.002+01:00

No! It seems I have been duped. Can this be? Does this mean I have been an unwitting participant in some weird case of bigamy? Jonathan Downes does not exist?! I am really married unlawfully to someone called Mimsy Barrowclough who already has a wife and children?! I am a pawn in some crazy underworld organisation and plead my innocence of any crimes against the state.

Please, please oh powers that be - let his esteemed replacement NOT be any of those mentioned - I can suggest a few more sensible ones if I may be so bold: Viggo Mortensen, Karl Urban, Hugh Jackman, Warlord Nygard ........ any of these would make up for the most indefensible trick that has been played upon me.

Eeeee I feel like a right April Fool.

Shaken but not stirred

2010-03-29T18:01:00.002+01:00

Absolutely nothing to do with cryptozoology, but it appears that it has all been happening in the town where I used to live. I was intrigued to read that a chap (a 30-year-old plumber) from Stamford in Lincolnshire had fitted a flamethrower on to the back of his moped. Although this is obviously not the best thing ever to be installed on to such a vehicle, I have to admit that his reasoning behind the 'extras' does touch a nerve. He was fed up of being cut up by other motorists, something we have all probably experienced and perhaps have even done ourselves on the odd occasion.

"Lincolnshire Police spokesman said: "A man was arrested on suspicion of possessing an object converted to a firearm. He was released on unconditional bail."

This was the James Bond fan's third attempt at his moped modification - it would seem that the first didn't ignite and the second burst into flames. However, this last - successful - attempt has landed the chap into hot water.

Stamford is quite a sleepy town apart from the various annual events that are held there, so to hear of someone pottering along the roads on a moped armed with such a dangerous weapon conjures up quite a picture.

Personally I would rather stick to the Aston Martin DB5 and its hidden weaponry - now that was classy.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

2010-03-28T18:10:00.002+01:00

After suffering two clock changes within a matter of a couple of weeks, the spring bunny seems to have hopped forward a bit too much for my liking. Even the world outside seems to have come to a standstill – there is no breeze and the hedgerow outside the dining room window seems to be standing to attention as if waiting for something; the only movement within the branches and foliage being a tiny wren as she goes about her business hunting insects. Oll is outside administering to the fish tanks and Biggles is annoyed that he thinks he is missing something. Jon is in the office, and upstairs is quiet as Graham has gone away for a week on family business.

All in all a very quiet Sunday afternoon, with no post and no telephone ringing. Time to gather one’s thoughts for the week ahead and map out a plan of action. There is a doctor’s appointment on the calendar for yours truly, plus a visit from Max Blake. Olivia (and Ivan hopefully) are popping down as well, plus there is paperwork still to complete. Oh and the purchase of those chocolate items of confectionary mentioned before of course.

There will also, no doubt, be the need for donning a helm when popping one’s head over the parapet to avoid the pugnacious bullets from pusillanimous protagonists who have nothing better to do. No matter, it all adds to the entertainment value of my warts and all record of events since I became involved in the CFZ where names will be named and truths will be told that up till now, out of moral propriety, have remained locked away in their allotted alphabetical files from A for Argyll to Z for zoo. Thumbs up for the wonders of shorthand, and a daily journal where conversations are logged word for word.

On the up side I am really pleased to learn that Ruby Lang and Mike Williams from CFZ Australia will be coming down to Devon to see us in June before they go up to Scotland to the BCIB conference. It will be great to see them both and I am looking forward to meeting them and giving them a warm Devonian welcome – there may even be some traditional cream teas involved.

Snap, grackle and pop

2010-03-25T23:16:00.002Z

Yesterday morning I was up bright and early (mainly due to Biggles needing to be let out) and was actually downstairs before anyone else so I had the run of the bottom of the house all to my lonesome. It was refreshing to be able to open my eyes without having to rub them furiously before I could do so – it would seem that what I thought was an allergic reaction to something in foreign climes may just be a case of conjunctivitis so it will mean a visit to the doctor to procure some eye drops I suppose.

After my second cup of coffee, I was still staring at the pile of paperwork that was to be sorted through, but once started I achieved a fair bit. Everything is now back to normal, in more ways than one, after two weeks away and I cannot believe that it is nearly Easter already! It is that time of year when you walk down the allotted aisle in the supermarket and drool at all the chocolate on display – let us hope they have a bit more in stock this year as it became a race against time to obtain what was required last year. It does not seem that long ago that Woolworths was buckling at the seams with the volume of the cornucopia of shapes and sizes, price tags and fillings of assorted confectionary to mark the annual occasion. But at least we were not let down and the tiny (I am sure they have shrunk) crème eggs were on sale by Boxing Day! In fact, were they ever not on sale? Ah well. I can honestly say that I have not had one yet this year.

I miss the grackle. “I beg your pardon?” I hear you mutter. Although it does sound a bit like some sort of boiled sweet or even a mixture of cold vegetables fried up like bubble and squeak, it is in fact a bird. Grackles are all over the place in Texas and are the most wonderful birds to watch. They were busy at their courting displays whilst we were there and there were grand displays of feather fluttering and chest puffing-out on branches here, there and everywhere.

It is one of the best things with going abroad - seeing and hearing the different wildlife, and apart from the grackle - and amongst others - it was great to see the weird looking pelican again.

Back in the UK

2010-03-24T01:10:00.002Z

Hi there.

I am back to writing on my own blog after a two week visit to Texas, and methinks it is going to take a while to adjust to being back in the UK timeline. And there are hundreds of photos to sift through and log as well as diaries to update. I have been accused indirectly of being banal by blogging about something as mundane – although necessary – as packing whilst away so I had better not mention the piles of laundry I have to sort through either for risk of more recrimination. Or maybe I should write about it in detail and of the wonders of unintentional tie-dying between dark clothing and a stray item of light underwear for example.

The two weeks away from this country to stay with our friends Richie and Naomi were for a joint reason – one to look into some interesting reports of the mysterious blue dogs, and the other to have a holiday (in fact a kind of belated honeymoon for Jon and I as we have never really had the chance to partake in such a traditional thing since we were married in 2007). So mixed in with travelling from one part of Texas to the other to meet folks regarding the first reason, it was also a time to make new friends, meet old friends, and dine out and enjoy a few relaxed evenings catching up. It was great seeing Nick and Dana Redfern again and to actually meet Ken Gerhard in the flesh so to speak, after a few years of communicating only by email.

It is lovely seeing Biggles again; I can but hope that he stops following me quite so closely as if to make sure I don't disappear on him again. The cats, on the other hand, just greeted me with a 'meow' and hovered over their food bowl as if I had only been gone for one day.

Birthday greetings

2010-03-23T15:47:00.000Z

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday dear Shoshannah

Happy Birthday to you

Here is some cake for you:

CFZ Expedition

2010-03-04T10:04:00.000Z

Just to let you know that, in the main, I shall be writing my news over on the CFZ Expedition blog for the next couple of weeks: CFZ Expedition: Texas 2010

A funny thing happened to me on the way back from the village shop

2010-03-01T11:32:00.000Z

Perhaps it was my unintended stab at slapstick comedy that started the ball rolling, but after Friday night’s incident with a gas trolley I spent the rest of that evening and most of Saturday giggling. I lost count how many times I had to retake the most simple sentences whilst recording for On the Track, the one giving me the most trouble involving the words Scandinavia, Asia and the Urals in one mouthful, which ended up several times as Scandinasia (shorthand syndrome via the brain rather than the hand). As for the Urals – well that always makes me giggle. Not to mention the crabs that became grabs and the wildlife friendly farming that insisted on becoming the farming friendly farming, no matter how hard I tried to resist it.

It didn’t help, of course, that by the end of my many attempts - and the fact that a small covered microphone more commonly known as a 'dead chincilla on a stick' was waving precariously by my left eye - David was turning his head away obviously giggling and Jon was staring at me holding a can of Newcastle Brown Ale in one hand, whilst donning a pair of rather large headphones over his lug holes trying his best to impersonate Steven Speilberg. The fact that all three of us were jammed into the small office space made it even worse, as it felt like we were trying to film The Big Country in a small understairs cupboard.

And the gas trolley?

For those of you who cannot visualise to what I am making reference:

Now imagine one of these species painted dark red rather than a fetching bright yellow. Then picture it lurking surreptitiously in the shadows as it lounged against a wall outside the village shop. Imagine then a slightly befuddled woman rushing out of the shop door and turning rather too sharply into the darkness on her hurried return to the safety of her home, whilst clutching two cartons of fruit juice (one orange and one apple if you would care to know – two for £2 in fact). As said woman plonked her ungainly plates of meat on the ground one came into contact with the canister resting plate of said lurking beast which then, as if auditioning for some old Ealing comedy (or even, heaven forbid, some dreadful Chuckle Brothers advert) flung itself forward as if to hit her on the head in true slapstick style.

Well nearly, because although getting on a bit and perhaps not possessing the razor sharp reactions she used to, she did have enough left to save her head from being thwacked with the metal by raising a fist (still clutching on to one of the cartons) and saving herself. However, she did manage the obligatory “Oh goodness, dear me,” as she checked for passers-by, hidden cameras etc., before she collapsed into a fit of giggles which lasted all the way from the shop to the corner, then all the way down Back Street, through the garden gate, and into the office.

A case of an apple a day keeping the doctor away perhaps?

Action! Biggles .... don't do that

2010-02-19T22:32:00.002Z

I have just been extremely sinful. In a harmless way that is. So I am settling down to write this blog whilst digesting a large dish of golden syrup sponge pudding. I know – bad eh? I had quite forgotten, until the other week, that a quick mix of ingredients can produce a flashback to school puddings in no time at all thanks to the trusty microwave. To sit guiltily spooning the soft, gooey sponge smothered in custard into your mouth is a real trip down memory lane. Such delectation for your taste buds is just what is called for after a long day consisting of filming, followed by some finger exercise on the computer keyboard.

Much of today was spent doing a spot of filming for Jon’s Emily and the Big Cats so it was time for me to morph into a Joyce Grenfell/Margaret Rutherford/dotty ageing hippy chick character but all in the name of art and it is great fun. Poor Biggles got a bit confused I think, as he was a prop of sorts but never quite actually went anywhere poor soul. Sitting in the back seat of a stationary car, salivating at the thought of chewing the sponge windshield on the microphone (I hate to think what reaction will come forth when he sees the big furry one) is not much fun for a go-getter like him and there wasn’t even an on-set burger van to satisfy his never ceasing desire for something to eat. In fact, it is something that Emily and I are demanding before we carry on with any more celluloid shenanigans!

Poppy, my elusive tortoiseshell cat, even got in on the act. She hovered outside the gate as filming was going on but eventually got herself forever immortalised by lurking at the top of the stairs in one scene. Spider, however, slept through the whole affair – he is completely bored with the whole filming business.

The afternoon was definitely slightly different from that of Thursday though. I had spent some of the time after lunch listening to Peter Gabriel’s new album Scratch My Back and his voice, as usual, had left me in a tranquil state of mind. Until that is… BOOM, BANG, CRASH from the office as Jon decided he would listen to a rather odd concoction of musical arrangements – very loudly. As the flowers in the vase on my ‘desk’ began to sway back and forth with the vibration, I began to wonder whether they would lose their petals sooner than nature intended. I could add here that the picture behind me fell off the wall in protest, but that would be exaggerating – just a tad.

I am used to strange sounds escaping the confines of the office, from Country & Western to German opera, but Thursday’s were rather peculiar to say the least. Must have been the Director’s brain getting in gear for the other sort of directing he was to do today.

Bless – I wonder if Mrs. Hitchcock had the same problem?

For whom the bell tolls

2010-02-17T13:23:00.002Z

According to several sources the traditional pancake day race originated after a woman in Olney, Buckinghamshire forgot the time and upon hearing the shriving bell dashed out of her house, still wearing her apron and carrying her frying pan. This was back in 1445 and ever since then this particular village hosts one of the most famous pancake races in this country.

Pancake races are held annually throughout the UK, and there are celebrations of various different degrees throughout the world, for this particular notable date in the religious calendar.

It seems though that 2010 could be ringing the funereal toll of the church bells as well as the shriving bell. It appears that yesterday St. Albans City Council Health & Safety deemed it too dangerous to run the annual race and contestants would have to walk it instead. If anyone ran, their team would be disqualified – as indeed some were as they had missed the announcement of the ‘new rule’. Why? Because it had rained. So you cannot run after it has rained now. Does this mean for Health & Safety reasons you can no longer run for the bus if it has been raining? Does this mean you can no longer train for the 400 metres if it has been raining? What a load of bureaucratic poppycock.

One of the contestants in St. Albans summed it up perfectly: Hertfordshire NHS Community Partnership team captain David Emery, 34, whose team was disqualified in the final, said: "This is health and safety gone mad. I have been disqualified from a running race for running."

Are all this country’s traditions that have spanned for centuries going to be gradually faded out due to Health & Safety? Are the fun traditions of our past going to fade into history and be replaced by virtual games of them to be played in the safety of our own homes instead? Are children of the future going to think that the pancake race, for example, was first run by Mario and a few furry weird squeaky creatures?

One does wonder also, whether the annual Parliamentary pancake race contested by parliamentarians and journalists at Westminster – which was held last week - would have been under the same rules if it had rained. But then I suppose they would have cancelled it on their own volition – they wouldn’t want to get their expensive suits grubby now would they?

One year old today!

2010-02-15T20:58:00.002Z

Happy Birthday CFZ Newsblog

Well done and thanks, Gavin, for all your dedicated hard work

Family achievement

2010-02-15T19:14:00.002Z

My big (ok well not big as in BIG, but big as in older) brother, Ant, and his family live over in Norfolk (Norwich is still my favourite city, but that is beside the point). His youngest daughter, Thea, is in her final year at university studying for a degree in Design. As part of her course she has been doing a placement with a design house in Leeds, and excitingly had a couple of designs accepted by a couple of well-known High Street names, one of which was Monsoon.

Ant sent me the following link to one of her designs:

Nightie by Thea

Pretty excellent achievement if you ask me, so congratulations Thea from your weird aunt, even weirder uncle, and not so weird cousins.

PS: By the way, my sweet little neice, my favourite colour is black, my most desired material is velvet and I am rather partial to a spot of finely woven lace. Size? …. well ask me in private.

Corvus Corax

2010-02-14T21:25:00.002Z

I was doing some research today about the raven and was quite surprised, when typing in Corvus Corax into the search engine, to come across what can only be described as pretty amazing. I completely forgot my delving and became lost somewhere between the art of medieval musicians and the head banging of heavy metal. I didn't know quite where to put myself, but my feet immediately knew what to do and started a jig all of their own underneath the dining room table.

Blimey, now these are someone to see live at some point.

Valentine kisses

2010-02-14T12:28:00.001Z

Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day quite like the cards from the Victorian era with their sweet plump Cupids, delicate colours and profusions of flowers. So with my own Valentine in mind here is a small collection of Victoriana.

Happy Valentine's Day sweet plump cherub of mine

Returning to the subject of climbing hedgehogs

2010-02-12T02:14:00.003Z

You may remember some time ago that I recounted my strange dream of a family of hedgehogs sitting in a tree. Well yesterday I discovered that this may not have been quite such a peculiar dream after all. According to the Medieval Bestiary, which I have been reading online, the hedgehog was supposed to have been able to climb vines to gather fruit. According to this fascinating collection of writings, the little creatures were able to knock down grapes and would then roll over and collect the fruit on their quills to take back to their young. They were also supposed to be able to detect from which direction the wind was blowing and if a north wind did blow, they would close up the north hole of their lair.

Interesting little creatures and apparently when cooked they were pretty good for medicine too.

Jon just muttered ”Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.” (Song of Solomon 2:15) and wandered off to the office.

Ants on the menu - mmmm delicious

2010-02-07T13:04:00.002Z

Congratulations are in order to Discovery Cove in Orlando, Florida, and Cypress the lesser anteater on the birth of her little boy. Also known as the tamandua, these anteaters are native to the forests in Mexico to South America, and when adults can consume up to 9,000 ants a day with their 16 inch long (41 cm) tongues.

The new addition will hold on tight to his mother’s back until he is old enough to walk around and find food for himself.

If nothing else, it just goes to show that there must be a heck of a lot of ants out there to sustain such creatures – it makes you itch just to think of it.

Photo credits: David Collier / Discovery Cove

Jonathan and Graham go shopping

2010-02-02T16:42:00.002Z

Whilst I was doing my thing in Bideford today, Jon and Graham went to do some banking and some supermarket shopping. There were a couple of things on the list that I had added, namely a shorthand notebook, a jar of marmalade and a packet of crispbreads. The shoppers met me at the allotted time and during the journey home Jon excitedly told me that he had managed to buy a nice selection of biscuits (Graham had too apparently, but he was being a bit silent about his purchases and furtively dispatched them to his room on our arrival home).

Jon demanded that I watched him unpack his provender and here follows a picture trail of the delight he expressed at his extreme cleverness:

A few seconds later, and I was not amused:

And when I thought it was nearly over:

There was more to come:

All in all 23 packets of the critters whilst Biggles sat hopefully:

Then Richard joined in on the festivities as they frolicked around the kitchen celebrating the cornucopia of E-numbers, with dancing to their very own song entitled The Biscuit Cavalcade:

The moral of this story is:

Never let a man looking like this loose in a supermarket when his latest fad is biscuits:

I know I have a telephone number for Bedlam somewhere.

I could inform Jon that I was always told that eating too many biscuits causes constipation. No doubt his response would be to mention that several of the packets are fig biscuits which will not only solve that problem but will also count towards his 5-a-day.

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air

2010-01-28T18:01:00.003Z

You may have read Jon’s blog yesterday where he informed you that – at last – both Animals & Men and the CFZ Yearbook 2010 are now available in the flesh so to speak. He also added a little teaser in the posting mentioning the ‘tea-towel’ hanging over the door in the background, but omitted to actually explain what it was doing there.

Some of you may have thought that this was an enigmatic message from the Director. Some of you may have assumed that it was just one of those senior moments that caused the oversight. However, quite obviously it is NOT an ordinary tea-towel! In fact, it is not a tea-towel at all – I mean how many of you have actually seen a such a thing that size just to dry your tea-cups and plates? Perhaps this is what may have confused you into a puzzled silence? However, Theo has been brave enough to question the existence of said piece of cloth and the unresolved mention of it in the posting.

So for Theo and any others of you who may have been quietly musing on the subject of why it is hanging so ... erm ... elegantly (?) in the inner sanctum that is Jon’s office, I shall spill the beans. The bath towel (or even maybe a beach towel by the shells printed upon its rather tatty surface) is not suspended there for Jon to gaze at in the depths of winter and muse upon holidays in the sun. Neither is it there to hide the faces of those long past residents who may visit us, as they are prone to do on occasion.

I wish there was some scientific explanation for its existence, but I am afraid to say that it is there for pure comfort. It is pinned to the door – albeit in a very Heath Robinson manner - to stop the draught whistling through the letter-box - and the coldness that panes of glass magically emanate during cold weather - from encroaching into Jon’s work space and causing icicles to hang from his proboscis! Perish the thought – he would look like Jack Frost, Ebenezer Scrooge and Hagrid-on-ice all rolled into one.

To solve the problem, we will be trawling around some charity shops in the next few months to obtain long curtains for all glass doors in the cottage in order that next year we can try and make the inside a bit less draughty. We also hope that such decorative additions will not give such a blaring impression of some hippy student accommodation of the kind that used to be found in Camden Town!

Ah yes; those tall Victorian windows, draped with makeshift curtain arrangements, with the notes of Steve Hillage’s soporific Om Nama Shivaya, the hypnotic sound of Pink Floyd’s Echoes, or the tribal beat of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir oozing through every crook and cranny, accompanied by the scent of patchouli and a certain aromatic herb wafting lazily on the air. Long ago halcyon days for many of you I am sure. Sadly not me though; I had the LPs, I had the patchouli but it was in my bedroom from whence their sounds and scent came – and I had very nicely hung curtains too; dark purple if I remember that matched my Biba lampshade.

Cute baby time again

2010-01-28T10:24:00.000Z

Yes it is cutie time again. Little Oliver the koala was born last April at the Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina to Lottie and Jimmy, but spent his first few months in his mother's pouch. He has now become too big to stay there, but still makes sure he stays close by tucking himself under her stomach or clinging to her back.

Koalas look like the cuddliest teddy bears of all time, but are in fact marsupials. When born the youngster, or joey as it is called, is about the size of a jelly bean and travels through the birth canal to its mother's pouch where it is nursed for several months. As it grows it may stick out an arm or a leg, or even its head, for short periods of time before it is confident enough to emerge into the outside world completely. It was not until Oliver was around 7 months old that keepers caught their first glimpse of him.

When he reaches 12 months he will be considered mature and will be weaned from his mother, and, in due course, will be sent to another zoo under the breeding recommendations from the SSP (Species Survival Programme).

Intuition, Inanity or just plain Insanity

2010-01-27T10:44:00.001Z

A strong intuition can be a very useful sense to possess, but it can also be a sod if it proves correct in its assumptions when you would rather it didn’t. Saturday was one of those occasions when it punched me between the eyes and said ‘See I told you so’.

It put me out of sorts for the rest of the day, but no doubt I shall be able to file it away in a dusty compartment along with the others collected over the years. I am assuming that this sense matures as your body does – well in my case it certainly seems to at any rate. Over the last five years or so it has become more active and has been proved to be a reliable forewarning on every occasion so far. However, not all confirmations of this weird feeling that something is amiss manifest themselves straightaway – it can take months to do so, but a confirmation does reveal itself eventually.

The question is, should you actually rely on it to lead you through your daily life, or should you try to suppress it and rely on your other instincts, for example good old fashioned common sense? Or is this such a strong instinct in its own right that it should be listened to and not ignored? When that feeling in your very bones screams out that something is not quite right with X, Y or Z should you accept that you are being given a pertinent suspicion and go with it?Many people say they have a strong intuition, but does each person who says they possess it actually experience it in the same intensity as others? Or is it just a basic sense that kicks in for self-preservation akin to flight or fight, but with more warning?

Can you have an intuition about more than one thing at the same time? Does it have its own agenda and cross items off as and when they are proven? Why does it kick in and from where? Does intuition continue to sniff out a result or does it have a cut off point? And when does intuition cross over into premonition?

Quite frankly, I am intrigued by the whole subject. Or am I just slowly sliding off my trolley?

Colin's crowing causes consternation

2010-01-26T10:14:00.001Z

It would appear that a certain cockerel called Colin has been doing what comes naturally and upsetting the neighbours. This blatant audacity on his part could well mean that he will have to be destroyed. The fact that a wild peacock also does what comes naturally and doesn’t seem to attract the same response from the neighbours does seem slightly peculiar, considering that the weird mewing call of a peacock can be somewhat more penetrating than a mere cockerel.

However, a family in Hampshire have been served with a noise abatement order by the East Hampshire District Council after neighbours complained about Colin. Well one set of neighbours it would seem; ones that moved in three years ago. More to the point, neighbours who voluntarily moved into their £1 million 8-bedroomed house in the countryside where such sounds as cockerels crowing is to be somewhat expected just as the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows and the odd whinny and nicker of a horse or pony.

Nevertheless, the neighbours called in the council who, after utilising their recording and noise measuring devices, found Colin guilty of regularly crowing before 6 am .

Let us just hope that if Colin does have to leave (he only arrived there last September) it will be to a new home rather than having to be destroyed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245359/Colin-ASBO-cockerel-faces-chop-early-morning-crowing.html

Prose and Podiatry

2010-01-24T11:39:00.000Z

I have recently been proofing a book by Andy Roberts, the publication of which is on the nearing horizon (and it is a very good book by the way, so keep your eyes peeled for its appearance on our ‘available’ list). Apart from it being an excellent read I found myself compelled to:

a) listen to the Incredible String Band and

b) read Thursbitch by Alan Garner

I am not going into detail as to why (you will have to read Andy’s book to find out) but I can say that the Incredible String Band are, indeed, very much worth listening to and I am not sure why I had never tuned into them before. As for Thursbitch - excellent is all I can say. The book arrived in the post on Tuesday morning and I eagerly started to read it that night. In the short time it took to reach the bottom of page one I was hooked. It was only the fact that it was 2 in the morning and I needed to be up early the next day that I had to reluctantly place it on my bedside table to await the next evening. Yes, the dialect is so strong in some places that you find yourself having to read some of it again, slowly and pronouncing each word silently to yourself, but I managed to understand the gist of it. I am now waiting to see what Jon thinks of it, as he was as fascinated as I was in reading it.

The peaceful serenity of the wee small hours of Friday morning was shattered on several occasions by exclamations emanating from the body next to me of “Get off my bloody feet!” Before you raise one eyebrow and ponder upon the possibility that I was having such a restless night’s sleep that I was thrashing about and migrating to the bottom of the bed to lay prone across Jon’s size 12s, I can honestly plead my innocence of such a thing. I was not playing a game of football or practising the can-can whilst in the arms of Morpheus either.

The culprit was black and white, four-legged and weighs much more than you would imagine when looking at him, and when every muscle in his body is relaxed, you can lose all feeling in your lower limbs, if that is where he has chosen to rest himself. If you are also suffering severe discomfort from those lower limbs, I can imagine that the situation must become unbearable.

The voicing of the wish that the dog should leave the vicinity was echoed throughout that morning – Biggles does not exactly possess the finer points of elegance when trotting around the household and, after deciding that playing slalom between Jon’s legs whilst he sat at the computer was great fun, it became a major dilemma.

The main problem that had prompted the above exclamations of distress was the fact that although Jon had received some of his ordered medication on Thursday, one particular packet of tablets was missing. This predicament was not discovered until that night, and as these were the ones that help control the pains he has recently started to suffer in his feet, the lack of them caused him to have a greatly disturbed night , and an uncomfortable start to the day. Luckily, the need for these tablets was sorted out with the pharmacy later in the morning so there was relief in the end.

However, the whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that Thursday night was also the first time Jon had to take a different set up of drugs, which consequently resulted in him waking up feeling abominable. So, although his feet may not be quite so sore, his system is still taking a while to get back to normal.

And to top it all – I finished Thursbitch Thursday night too and have yet to find a suitable replacement book to read. Damn and blast.

It don't grow on trees you know

2010-01-23T22:10:00.002Z

Is it true that more than a quarter of teenagers think that bacon comes from sheep? Not only that, do a third really think that oats grow on trees and just under a fifth believe that eggs are a basic ingredient of bread (is the breakfast delicacy 'eggy bread' to blame for this I wonder)? According to an article that I read today, this would appear to be the case. We all know that you cannot always believe what you read in the papers, but in the light of today’s education, somehow the above information does tend to urge me towards believing it.

Therefore, the understatement of the week has to be:

‘It shows how important it is to teach the adults of tomorrow about the food they eat,’ said Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers’ Union.

‘Everyone should know where primary foods like cereals are grown and the role they play as part of a healthy balanced diet.’

Apart from the fact that they would look pretty foolish arriving at a ‘pick your own’ establishment and asking “Where are the oat trees?” or asking a sheep farmer whether he sells home-farmed “ham joints” for Christmas.

Just to confuse the issue even more, though, remember this classic April Fool that had hundreds of callers ringing in wanting to buy spaghetti bushes?

Stealthy sea mist, helpful glow worms and beehive bombs

2010-01-19T19:05:00.002Z

Monday evening was one of those nights when the mist from the sea spreads from its watery origin, creeps across the land silently, and envelops everything in its damp grasp. Sometimes you can witness the noiseless conquest, as it weaves its way through the trees at the bottom of the garden and oozes its way across the whole area; within minutes everything is wrapped in its eerie grip.

Letting Biggles out last thing at night is usually not too much of a problem, as the white tip on his tail never fails to signal where he is. However, this little beacon is obscured from view in the murky embrace of sea mist, and you are forced to shadow his every move to ensure that his whereabouts are known. After all, it is no use just standing at the back door repetitively calling the poor soul if he has ‘gone to see a dog about a man’ as that could have disastrous results if the meeting were only half convened.

You know me enough by now to know that I have the tendency to ramble on about different things in blogs. Sometimes one thing leads to another and sometimes there is absolutely no connection whatsoever. This offering is one of the latter breed, so I offer no apologies and proudly proclaim, ‘And now for something completely different’. However, in writing that, the last paragraph below is somewhat reminiscent of Pythonesque humour.

The trenches in World War 1 are to where I sidetrack. Not shrouded in mist but under cover of darkness; a darkness that could not be penetrated by the light of a lamp for fear of deathly consequences. I discovered last night that soldiers used the soft light from glow worms by which to read messages and maps. I had never heard of this before, and after a long time searching the internet I could, unfortunately, only come up with recasts of the above sentence, but no further information. I did glean though that soldiers also used to attach pieces of rotten wood to their helmets to avoid colliding with each other in the night; not to act as some weird sensory form of whiskers, but by utilising the luminescence that the rotting wood afforded. I then discovered that during the Second World War fire watchers used to cover the wood in timber yards with tarpaulins in order to keep any glow hidden from enemy aircraft. They just don’t teach such fascinating little gems of information in history lessons, more’s the pity. It would make the learning so much more interesting to hear such fascinating little snippets.

During my investigative efforts delving for more information on the glow worms, I came across something else that I had never heard or read before - the Romans used to catapult beehives into besieged fortresses. Yes, rather distasteful but you have to admit that it was a very innovative idea to use such things as weapons. Also, during the Middle Ages beehives used to be occasionally dropped on to the heads of an attacking army. It certainly gives new meaning to the 50s/60s favourite - ‘beehive hairdo’.

As Jon points out, is this one of the earliest form of biological warfare, or do any of you know of anything that predates the Romans?