We should be grateful that the blackbird, a clear favourite in our garden apart from beloved Gordon the guinea fowl, doesn’t seem to fancy the red currants! He’s decimated the lovely soft juicy black currants (I knew he was after…
Year: 2019
Hot air predicted from the south . . .
Yet again, the weather folks are telling us that we’re to have a heat wave up here, but so far all we’ve got is endless gusts of piffle-paffle, some heavy rain, and promises of temperatures ‘soaring’ over 25ºC. Still, cool…
A small engineering solution
Now that our water challenges are sorted, we’d like to keep a handy record of what our daily monitoring shows us, so that we will know early on if something goes amiss. The best place to put the tick sheet,…
Spinning: one word, many meanings
According to Wikipedia, spiders have spun for at least 100 million years, a date defined thanks to a discovery of a web embedded in amber. So that makes these arachnids the oldest spinners on earth. Little wonder that Robert the…
A handful of spuds
Yesterday we dined like rural royalty on wonderful Scottish moules, an enchanting salad from the polytunnel, and the very first handful of potatoes from our little patch. Actually, there were only enough spuds for the one helping (I pulled the…
Rural loneliness; an easy trap to find oneself in
We were out an evening or so ago, just for a drink with friends, but Sylvia Milburn made the evening for me when she offered an opinion about how easy it is to become a virtual recluse. Because she’s absolutely…
Polling Stations, Number 3
I had to think quite hard to remember what the first elections of this year were about. I remembered the second — those were for MEPs, of course, but what were the first ones about? Oh yes, the erstwhile North…
Wildflower joys . . .
As I write, Earnest the neighbour’s pea cock is stretched out indolently between the white elder and the pink one in the sunshine, between the wild roses and the rampant honeysuckle, as if he owns the place. Maybe he does,…
Sorting out the tools . . . a mini-break in the offing?
It’s even worse than one might suppose: not only do we need a set of tools for fixing things around the house, but we also need another similar set for fixing things on the road in the ancient motorhome! Yesterday…
Allen Valley Bowls Club
Penny Little emails me a few notes to help with today’s diary entry, which I will try to supplement with what I know of the past two decades, anyway. The Allen Valley Bowls Club was formed in 1953, on its…