Lost Cause

There are some events in life that remind you why you like the people you like as much as you like them. Just back from a fantastic lazy, hazy, sunny, funny weekend on the Welsh borders, part of the starring role of which was a reunion with my best girl from university, Neek and her…

Once Bittern, Twice Shy

Sunday Jan 13. Trip to Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Barnes Birds we saw: Bittern (definitely), Waxwings (flock), Bar Tailed Godwit (pair) Osprey (could have been), Blue Footed Booby (possibly, if you’re not dissuaded by the fact that it lives in the Galapagos) Birds we actually saw: Cormorant, Sparrows (lots), Wigeon/Pochard (not sure which; they were…

Landy in the Family

The new car could have been a Seat. Or a VW. Or even a BMW – though we’d have baulked at doing the compulsory ‘how to drive like a muppet’ module that new BMW drivers appear to have to take before their keys are handed over. But in the end, we didn’t go for a…

An In Tents Weekend

I’m writing this in the middle of a woodland glade in the twilight toasting my toes on the campfire. I’m really only writing it to give my laptop something meaningful to do while it charges my mobile. My camp mates keep accusing me of ‘doing emails’ (who, me?) but this honestly is the very last…

Broadband beasties

The first factor that blog-vanished me a few weeks ago was the loss of our home broadband.That’s lost as in flaky rather than cut off because we didn’t pay the bill. Now, our broadband wasn’t like most people’s broadband which I imagine as a kind of big reliable laser piping strong beams of lovely bandwidth…

Anatomy of a Walking Holiday

You may remember me writing about my much beloved walking group a few days ago when we set out for a couple of days in the snowy mountains of the Lake district. It was a fantastic weekend as 25 of us gathered at Elterwater Youth Hostel with three Land Rovers, an array of kit that…

The Hills are Alive

I’ve never been much of a group activity holiday person. I really like my own company, go psychotic without an hour or two to myself each day and even though I adore seeing my friends, I can be an antisocial sod so the thought of spending lots of time in a big group is generally something…

Don’t Do It!

Lots of people are still taking things up in a ‘January is nearly over’ kind of way. Zumba, Mandarin, complicated new diets. Seems to me though, that there’s something we forget. As we pack our lives with aspirations and obligations shouldn’t we try to find things we can do less of? Or do fewer things? And maybe…

Brain Clippings

Yesterday I was running back home and I saw some cows. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think, and you’d be right. Except it was about 3 pm on one of the most perfect winter days ever. The air was pin-sharp, the sky was a pale icy blue and the low sun had painted golden…