tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37216996313051752722024-03-19T07:54:06.452+00:00GeraniumCat in the GardenJodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-26105960171638927142015-06-04T15:43:00.001+01:002015-06-04T15:43:24.832+01:00Day 4, #30dayswildOn 1 June I was in Yorkshire, and not able to write a post for this blog, but now I'm back there's a chance to catch up. Yorkshire was lovely, especially <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/nunnington-hall/">Nunnington Hall</a>, a National Trust building with a delightful organic garden which nestles in a beautiful riverside setting. An added treat on the visit was the exhibition of 2014 <a href="http://www.bwpawards.org/static/winner-2014.html?/galleries/Comp-2014">British Wildlife Photography Awards </a>winners (the link will take you to a gallery of the finalists, which is well worth a look, especially the Animal Portrait winner, which went to a photograph from the Farne Islands, and was my own favourite - having found the website I'm going to be looking at them all again!) Serendipity, or what?<br />
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Next day we went to Whitby - not much observable wildlife apart from the herring gulls, but a nice example at the Abbey of the effects of nature on sedimentary stone over the years:<br />
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We were in no doubt about the efficacy of weathering, the wind was an icy blast on Monday. On my last day, somewhat beset by the weather again, we drove past Rievaulx Abbey but didn't go in - somewhere warm, with coffee, beckoned. There were plant stalls too - pity I was travelling home by train.<br />
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Back home and there weren't too many dramatic developments in the garden, again the result of the cold weather, but the may blossom is now fully out, and will shortly be followed by the elder. One of the first things I did was head out to the greenhouse to see what had been happening there. To my horror I found that the nasty sticky yellow whitefly trap, which I put up because my precious scented pelargoniums were suffering, and which I thought was preferable to spraying, had caught two small bumble bees. I am now racked with guilt, and the trap is in the dustbin! The pels will just have to take their chances in future. I've sent off a donation to the <a href="https://www.foe.co.uk/page/get-your-bee-saver-kit">Friends of the Earth Bee Cause</a> to assuage my conscience, and will be assiduously assisting any bees I find from now on to make up for it. I was very impressed, visiting my brother and his family at the weekend, to see his <a href="http://www.arkwildlife.co.uk/Item/Wildlife_Habitats~Pollinating_Bees/BBBL-00/Beepol_Lodge_With_Live_Colony.html">bumble bee hive</a> - sadly, my budget won't quite run to such a gesture, but I have got a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/bee_home/">house</a> for solitary bees to put up this week. I've also sown some catmint for them which will need planting out soon. I think I might manage to make a woodpile too - well, more exactly, I'll collect up the random bits of ash tree which have come down, and put them somewhere in a <i>better</i>, and undisturbed<i> </i>pile. I don't expect the existing inhabitants will mind a minor change of location!<br />
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Tomorrow I think I'll take the camera for a walk...<br />
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<br />GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-23455491266136802522015-05-27T18:20:00.000+01:002015-05-27T18:20:12.851+01:0030 days wild<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This June the Wildlife Trusts are running a campaign called <a href="http://action.wildlifetrusts.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1823&ea.campaign.id=37961">30 Days Wild</a>. I decided to join in so that I could spend the month thinking about how to encourage wildlife in the garden. I'm starting by revitalising this blog (four years on!), which had anyway turned into something mostly garden- and nature-focused. It's got a bit of a new look, and a new name, GeraniumCat in the Garden (inspired, huh?).<br />
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It won't only be about wildlife - gardening, food and related books are sure to get a look in, local history too, but for June I will try to post at least a picture most days for 30 Days Wild. I may be in Devon for part of the month, too, but that means dogwalking so I'll be out and about.<br />
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It seemed a good omen that last night while I was shutting up the chickens and thinking about what I'm going to talk about for 30 days, a tawny owl flew past and there were several brown long-eared bats flitting about. I want to increase the number of plants that are attractive to insects in the garden to encourage both bats and bees. So far, my greatest success is probably in attracting slugs, so I am embracing horticultural fleece with some enthusiasm.<br />
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Most importantly, I want to spend some time getting to grips with my new wildflower key. This will be a real challenge, and might be easier if I'm in Devon, because there are so many more wildflowers there than there are in North Northumberland!<br />
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NB: <a href="http://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.co.uk/">GeraniumCat's Bookshelf</a> has also been on hiatus for some time, but I hope to be back there soon.GeraniumCathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03010199887691558717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-24492286772797710152011-10-21T12:28:00.000+01:002011-10-21T12:28:02.598+01:00Herb Gardening by Claire Loewenfeld<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I didn't think I could possibly need another general book on herbs but I bought <i>Herb Gardening</i> (at the very wonderful <a href="http://www.foxedbooks.com/">Slightly Foxed Bookshop</a> on Gloucester Road) because it's one of the more comprehensive I've found.<br />
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The book starts with some brief chapters on herbs in general, then each individual herb is described under several headings: Virtues, Description (or Appearance), Growing, Harvesting and Uses. Several headings are self-explanatory; Virtues covers folklore, medicinal properties and other interesting facts, while Uses gives directions on the preparation of simples (medicinal and cosmetic) and, in the case of the kitchen herbs, a recipe, or other comments on its culinary uses. <br /><br />There are two useful charts at the back, on growing and usage. There are a couple of inclusions which might be slightly unexpected - for instance, rose hips, which were much used as a source of Vitamin C during WW2* - and the range considered is wider than the usual kitchen-garden list: there are some plants here which we'd normally consider to be wildflowers or weeds. If you wanted to create a herb-garden like those of earlier centuries this, in conjunction with one of the early Herbals, like <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/MODERN-HERBAL-MRS-GRIEVE-LEYEL/dp/1904779018">Mrs Grieve</a>'s, would be an excellent and practical reference work.<br />
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* As a child in the early 1960s, our school took part in a national scheme to collect rosehips - we would go out every evening with bags and, at the end of the week, the total would be weighed. There were lots of wild roses growing around the small Scottish torn where I grew up and we collected huge quantities which were sent off to be made into delicious rosehip syrup. I think the practice had stopped by the time I left primary school.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-44716327399052939402011-09-18T16:03:00.001+01:002011-09-18T16:04:13.462+01:00Out of season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This cowslip should be flowering in spring, but here it is in my garden in September, trying to clash with the (admittedly rather limp) violas - this pot was prettier earlier in the year when, under the clematis which is its main occupant, there were violets and crocuses. The bowl below is more the kind of thing I'm aiming for when it's at its best - but the pot above is meant to be resting at this time of year (although you can see I made an attempt for summer interest with some lobelia which totally failed to grow in our cold summer).<br />
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I like doing this kind of gardening in miniature. That alchemilla seedling will have to go, it'll take over completely any minute!<br />
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<br />Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-10506693013570444372011-08-19T17:28:00.000+01:002011-08-19T17:28:35.928+01:00Bugged by inconsistency<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">It's official, I'm thoroughly inconsistent. Yesterday I was delighted to
find that the hens view earwigs with voracious enthusiasm. Then I came in
and spent ten minutes rescuing and trying to photograph a grasshopper. You can see it if you peer closely at the middle of the picture. It's a field grasshopper, <i>chorthippus brunneus</i>, I think.</span></td></tr>
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Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-50170926961227891682011-08-06T15:32:00.000+01:002011-08-06T15:32:09.950+01:00Time marches onTwo months since I've been here! Obviously, life is so uneventful that there is simply nothing to say, I'm just swimming serenely along with my feathers only slightly ruffled by a passing breeze - or else, it has been so frantic that I haven't had time to sit and write. And it's the latter, I'm afraid, there's just too much to try to fit into the day - it doesn't matter how hard you try to organise work, noting schedules and deadlines and calculating to be sure that one job will be finishing as another arrives: authors don't work like that, and it all manages to come along at once. Add in a funding emergency, and that's it - the garden is utterly neglected, apart from four courgette plants limping along anaemically. <i>What </i>is wrong with them I can't imagine, except that it was cold and wet when they were planted. True, the strawberries have been tremendous, and the one cucumber was delicious. I don't mind that only two of the hens have been laying properly, because we still have more than enough eggs (who's got time to cook?).<br />
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I've been pleased, too, with the dozen pelargoniums I bought as plug plants, which are all growing healthily, and the sweet peas are a pleasure. If I haven't seen many butterflies, I've enjoyed the moths at dusk, and we've had an influx of scarily large beetles (as yet unidentified: I think some kind of ground beetle, and yes, I do know what they are <i>not </i>- not stag beetles or chafers; this is a beetle I haven't met before, and no, I didn't take its photograph...). Earlier in the month we heard quail calling, which was exciting, and the grey partridges creak away in the evenings. For a week or so, a red-legged partridge took to yelling its head off on a fencepost in the paddock. Was it trying to intimidate the hens? Or just out-shriek the competition? One morning I woke about 5 because there was so much noise outside my window - it was five blackbirds on the lawn, all scolding a partridge which was looking singularly unimpressed.<br />
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The most pleasure has come from a family of garden warblers who are
constantly a-flutter around the house, tiny delicate birds with heavy
eye-makeup and personalities out of all proportion to their scale, and
the swallows - all day the sky is alive with them and the count of the
phone lines is up to at least 50. OH says that when he is mowing they
play chicken with the tractor, actually flying underneath it as it makes
its steady progress round the paddock. There is certainly plenty for
them to eat.<br />
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<br /> And the rain it raineth every day (but at least these streptocarpuses are doing quite well...)<br />
<br />Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-10373324938054635762011-05-26T17:50:00.003+01:002011-05-26T17:55:07.143+01:00Firebird!Last week I was visiting the APs in Devon and took the opportunity to do a little pottering in the garden - the weather was mostly mild and sunny, and the terrace was busy with deep blue damsel flies, orange tip butterflies, even the occasional small blue. My mother and I amused ourselves by counting bird species actually nesting in the garden - we got to well over 30, a count that includes ravens, jays, sparrowhawks, nuthatches...I've just done a similar count for home, and achieved similar numbers of very different birds (and because our northern garden doesn't include many large trees, the way the Devon one does, I expanded our area to include the fields immediately surrounding us, so the buzzards count here, but not in Devon). As I'm writing this at my desk in the window, a pair of bullfinches - regular visitors attracted by my rather laissez-faire atttitude to dandelions - landed in the ash tree opposite.<br />
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The high point of the Devon visit, though, was a sighting unlike any I've experienced before: as I walked across the terrace there was a tremendous kerfuffle as two birds hurtled into a pittosporum bush, shrieking their heads off. A high piercing note, an unmistakable screech of fury, and the minute bird emitting the racket was positively bouncing up and down on his branch. Yet despite his tiny size he was highly visible, because he was raising and flashing his crest, a violent streak of fiery orange that flashed in the sunlight. I watched spellbound for several minutes while he bounced and flashed, until the object of his wrath burst from the depths of the bush and fled across the wooded slope below the terrace. The owner of the spectacular headgear was a goldcrest, one of the enchantingly named kinglet family, and our smallest songbird:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Regulus_regulus_-Vendee,_France-8.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span></div>
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How such a tiny bundle of fluff could make such a noise I can't imagine, but the picture above does give some idea of the brilliance of his crest. In the past I've struggled to see these elusive creatures, which are more generally "sighted" by tracking their creaky tseeping cry (what Wikipedia calls "a subdued rambling sub-song" - love it!) to a bush and then peering into the murky interior to see the odd flick of a wing - they like dense bushes like yew, and nest in conifers, which makes them especially hard to see. I believe we may have them around us here in Northumberland, I think I heard them in the woodland a couple of fields away, but the tree cover around our garden is not heavy enough for them to visit us here.<br />
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I'm back home enjoying the sparrows - my mother is delighted that they now have a regular pair, and envies us our rambunctious flock of more than thirty. Who would ever have thought that sparrows could be rare?Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-2007163767876545862011-04-25T17:55:00.002+01:002011-04-25T18:15:36.674+01:00Easter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A very young Scotch Dumpling, a cooking apple with glorious flowers. The fruit are less appealing to look at, being pale green and knobbly, but I like the pleasant apple froth it creates when cooked.<br />
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Easter weekend was uneventful, which was nice, and we had some welcome rain on Saturday evening. Oh yes, and the swallows are back, they arrived on the 20th. Lovely to see them.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-69571433013501477672011-02-06T16:02:00.000+00:002011-02-06T16:02:25.639+00:00Thoughts of warmer daysIt has rained steadily all day and feels dreich and horrible. Yesterday wasn't quite so drear, and I went outside for a while to see how the various bulbs I'd planted in the autumn were doing, and for a bit of tidying up. A slightly unwelcome discovery (but not a surprise) was that my acidanthera (gladiolus callianthus) corms had all rotted. They should have been brought in for the winter, in fact, but they flowered incredibly late, standing well into the mild days of last November, so I was caught completely by surprise when the snow arrived towards the end of the month. I got back from London to find them under a foot of white stuff and, at that point, I'm afraid they were doomed. If I want more this year, I'll have to buy more.<br />
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I despaired, in fact, of them ever flowering, they are really too exotic for our northern summers. But they're so pretty (you can just about tell from the not-very-good photos) and were such a pleasure during the short autumn days, that I may decide to try again. Actually, they only cost about the same as a bunch of supermarket flowers, and we could see them from the house, so I have nothing to complain about really.<br />
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The bottom picture shows how gracefully they grow, but you do spend a lot of time looking at those leaves getting longer and thicker. Next time I will grow them in tall pots, with the corms packed quite tightly together, I think. I have a tendency to space bulbs too widely in pots, as though I was planting them in the ground. I'm only slowly learning to wedge them all in as tightly as possible (like they do when selling them in pots). Habits of frugality die hard.<br />
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<br />Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-61800529180354465332011-01-22T17:00:00.000+00:002011-01-22T17:00:03.222+00:00Home to roost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdG08Mm97P4QdJqyW4wa8VjDIx9uDK557G8qSkHKJyLnj5_dgVrZBo8pjKX1gbNWPir7Opfkc6J5MzhbM8GvOB_b68DXpQ7ttGrmw8UI3T08N1kLnaM417qQ8f7LS9oLjVhh4Ng5-bDIY/s1600/IMG_6730.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdG08Mm97P4QdJqyW4wa8VjDIx9uDK557G8qSkHKJyLnj5_dgVrZBo8pjKX1gbNWPir7Opfkc6J5MzhbM8GvOB_b68DXpQ7ttGrmw8UI3T08N1kLnaM417qQ8f7LS9oLjVhh4Ng5-bDIY/s400/IMG_6730.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I know not everyone takes pleasure in having a rookery next to their home, but I enjoy our neighbours most of the time, and often stop to watch them when I'm shutting up the chickens for the night. This is only a very small part of the flock that musters in waves in the pine trees before they all finally set off to spend the night in the woods below us. I <i>do </i>dissuade them from eating at the bird table, though, as they frighten away the smaller birds.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-59210056808915739302011-01-19T17:03:00.000+00:002011-01-19T17:03:33.694+00:00Moonrise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Softly, silently, now the moon <br /> Walks the night in her silver shoon"</div>
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The rest of Walter de la Mare's poem is not very appropriate, since it talks about a harvest moon, I think, and this one wasn't very silver-y. Actually, the way it was cradled in the branches of the tree made me think of Sir Patrick Spens: </div>
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"I saw the auld moon late yestreen</div>
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Wi' the new moon in her arms"</div>
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I hope in this case it doesn't betoken a "deidly storm"! We've had enough weather for now.<br /> </div>Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-35394956841225668312010-12-08T17:31:00.000+00:002010-12-08T17:31:37.973+00:00Even crosser!I wish I could have shared with you the spectacular sight today of two cock pheasants fighting in the snow! They met on the garden wall, and immediately took offence at each other, fluttering down to the ground where they leapt and struck out. This went on for several minutes while I alternately watched in delight as the sun shone on pristine snow and the rich russet of their feathers as they jumped and curvetted, and cursed while I tried unsuccessfully to make the phone camera work. Wretched thing, it refused to load, and the pheasants disappeared into the hedgerow.<br />
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Now that I really want to photograph the pheasants before the snow disappears, the sun probably won't shine tomorrow. But for now, at any rate, I like this picture. <br />
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<br />Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-24226998506777142872010-12-02T16:16:00.001+00:002010-12-02T19:57:26.857+00:00Cold and cross<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, not quite as bad as that really, but the kitchen blackboard on which we note things for the next shopping trip looks as though someone just threw letters at it, so many things are needed. When we buy next year's calendar I'm going to make a note on the October pages that we must stock up on chicken corn, dogfood and prescription needs...that's snow shovels, down the bottom because Younger Son and I could have done with one as we lurched along the track last Friday (with me pushing the car). Lemsip is there, too, because I got home from London that night with a cold which I'm still recovering from, and which is responsible for the lack of blogging here in the last few days. I've been saving my energies for the daily trip outside to clear the gutter where the broadband connection comes into the house, to feed the wild birds and to take the hens their bowl of warm porridge. Instead of demerara sugar on top (which is how <i>I</i> like it), they have a generous sprinkle of dried mealworms.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuzTsVfcdF9U_FJn7kN7xsTxJuwrKzV2s4-H33NUrDBGy4dFsbocyDEBkUQk0jaDJfdgTVz5XzmKsbdwT4dKoEO-P7XyZzQ5xwoVrxnV6QPpx4Hh3tna6Kor3H00sawZpBGSPH_vW2eQ/s1600/2010-12-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZuzTsVfcdF9U_FJn7kN7xsTxJuwrKzV2s4-H33NUrDBGy4dFsbocyDEBkUQk0jaDJfdgTVz5XzmKsbdwT4dKoEO-P7XyZzQ5xwoVrxnV6QPpx4Hh3tna6Kor3H00sawZpBGSPH_vW2eQ/s320/2010-12-02.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjidBbJaGFSg5qgR_so8W6RJPX26wcz_b4DBYS2NQZjHjjAgFjF-O8rfMBlMQu0X5znOzIbCLGHoWOzDq_amO2hmzZgZHkzRfXbJRDHen13aZy6d3QLv7KNKZ9cdWWMtkQneRfDqccqGM/s1600/2010-12-02+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjidBbJaGFSg5qgR_so8W6RJPX26wcz_b4DBYS2NQZjHjjAgFjF-O8rfMBlMQu0X5znOzIbCLGHoWOzDq_amO2hmzZgZHkzRfXbJRDHen13aZy6d3QLv7KNKZ9cdWWMtkQneRfDqccqGM/s320/2010-12-02+cake.jpg" width="320" /></a>There's no immediate prospect of getting out. We're not completely cut off, as the neighbours have just managed to get their 4-wheel-drive out this week, but our cars won't manage the mile up to the road until the snow clears a bit, and more is still coming down every day. This is the view from our French windows - that black thing on the left-hand-side is the gutter, which came down last winter as well. There should be some hills in the distance, but I haven't seen the Cheviot for a week. We won't be desperate for supplies until the milk goes off or the bread flour runs out, but today I came in from the outdoor jobs and made a honey and ginger cake for comfort eating (and to use up the older eggs). As you can see from the rather blurry picture, it wasn't long out of the oven before YS and I succumbed to the lure of hot cake. While I was making it I spotted half a jar of marmalade in the fridge - I know what I'll make next! If the milk goes before we can get out to replace it, having cake should help to offset the horror of drinking my tea black (though there will be much gnashing of teeth if this becomes necessary, since I am a tea addict, incapable of working without a regular supply).<br />
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Oh, our post has just found its way here by tractor! YS is happy as he was expecting something - we rely very heavily on shopping by post here - me, less so, as the parcel posted from Devon last Tuesday still hasn't arrived. Ho hum. I'll keep hoping for a thaw, but meantime a huge load of snow has just slid off the roof outside my window!Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-81323206626575787412010-11-07T17:45:00.000+00:002010-11-07T17:45:17.727+00:00Winter visitors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3oUGi36RuGHNo6G90lMwTbtsMbwGKs5oVtviLB8oDomXde4ZMjyTaDAORI3i2AVaYLLqqos5pJEjGZyYlWDilt7WpRTo9kFETS2skkSnzMT-hbFe4YrOF6x9dWbjglzyq9VCdLwtUgM/s1600/250px-Turdus_pilaris2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3oUGi36RuGHNo6G90lMwTbtsMbwGKs5oVtviLB8oDomXde4ZMjyTaDAORI3i2AVaYLLqqos5pJEjGZyYlWDilt7WpRTo9kFETS2skkSnzMT-hbFe4YrOF6x9dWbjglzyq9VCdLwtUgM/s1600/250px-Turdus_pilaris2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Fieldfare</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo taken in Rumia, Poland by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Akumiszcza" title="User:Akumiszcza">Adam Kumiszcza</a></span></div>
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They're back, the fieldfares, and my heart gave a real leap when I saw them in the ash trees at the top of the garden this morning. They are much later than in some areas of the country, but I've found that to be the case every year. There will be no shortage of berries for them this year.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-81874386328383797822010-09-15T17:43:00.000+01:002010-09-15T17:43:00.571+01:00Mellow fruitfulness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
We went recently to <a href="http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/50/">Priorwood Garden</a>, in the Borders town of Melrose, on one of our occasional "old peoples" trips. Next to the graceful ruins of Melrose Abbey is a small orchard containing apples dating from medieval times to the present. We'd waited to visit until the apples were ripening, so that we could be tantalised by the prospect of one day picking our own apples. We'll have to be patient for a couple more years, but I'm persuaded that we might add a Victoria plum to our tiny orchard, along with a couple of unfussy cherries. Our old crab apple, though, is covered in fruit, and younger son has plans for making jelly.</div>
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Priorwood, a tiny garden, has a dried flower shop where you can see the drying process taking place (and buy dried flowers, of course), and holds an apple day in October (I think possibly on 2 October - for anyone interested there is a phone number on the website). It's a lovely place to visit at this time of year.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Melrose Abbey</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Crab apple, John Downie</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This damson has rooted partway along its stem</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Cooking apple, Dr Harvey</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Eating apple, Miller's seedling</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-2917656991831327742010-09-10T16:40:00.001+01:002010-09-10T16:41:43.841+01:00The old ladies sunning<br />
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The Bluebells do like to take advantage of good weather - it was very wet most of the week, so they didn't get out much. Today is warmer, if a bit windy, so they can enjoy it. Here they are - scraggy old dears!<br />
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For most of the past two months my dressing table has been home to various bottles which might make you wonder about my toilette regime. Alongside the delicately packaged Calvin Klein 1, Paloma, something with such a pretty box that I can't bring myself to start it, and the usual prophylactics against ageing that we over-50s allow ourselves to be conned into buying (though mine are distinctly closer to the cold cream end of the market than the designer labelled kind - indeed, they would be cold cream if it weren't that I don't much like the smell!)...I digress, alongside these fancy bottles are white containers stating "Total Mite Kill!", "Poultri-Drops", and "Just for Scaly Legs!". It comes of living in a small cottage - when you unwrap a parcel there is nowhere to put anything down, and the last line of resort is always my dressing table - things there are out of the way but easy to find. They should, of course, be on their way to the bin where all such items are kept, but the scaly leg treatment needs to be applied regularly, so it's good to keep it where I notice it from time to time.<br />
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I'm happy to report that the Bluebells and I are recovering nicely from our scale problems, but this has been the worst year I've known for pests and unpleasantnesses. We made the mistake, too, of moving the girls into a wooden house - we had to move them from their wheeled Eglu, a wonderful beast known here as the Vardo, because Steerage is rather feeble, and stopped being able to flutter up the ladder. We tried customising the ladder, to no avail, and for several weeks younger son and I took turns at crawling into the run to pick her up and put her into the house each night, but that was less than ideal on several counts: first, she also tended to take a nose dive (beak dive?) or her way out in the morning; second, it was frequently a horrible, muddy task and very difficult in the dark, taking both of us, one to hold the chicken and one to hold the torch; and third, it meant at least one of us had to be here, since OH is, like Pooh Bear, a trifle stout, to put it kindly. The wooden house was a cheap option, but by mid-summer we were fighting mite infestations (and more earwigs than you've ever seen, yeuch!). The roof blew off in a summer gale, too, leaving three rather ruffled and indignant ladies, so a necessary accessory ever since has been a large bag of potting compost on top. I expect you know that if you heave a bag of compost off a chicken house roof and onto the ground, it tends to split?<br />
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We got tired of the wooden retirement home (not as tired as itchy hens, I'm sure) and the new retirement home is a handsome latest-style Eglu Go. I think with two Eglus we are probably producing the most expensive eggs in the history of humanity (best not to mention this to OH!), but they taste wonderful (the eggs, that is), and we do love our girls. We do manage to be pragmatic up to a point - one was despatched when she became ill: the vet might have been able to prolong her life at the expense of her comfort, but it seemed much kinder to get her misery over and done with. As long as the girls take pleasure in strolling round the paddock, and stretching their wings out in a dust bath, though, we are happy to clean them out, chat to them and provide quantities of dried mealworms for their delectation. Boy, do chickens love mealworms! How do they know they're so good? Betty runs across the paddock shrieking with excitement when she sees the tub. Yesterday, she flew half its length (possible slight exaggeration, but it was an impressive feat for an old lady).<br />
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Off now to check that the buzzard isn't anywhere to be seen - regular readers may remember Betty's nasty experience? Her confidence is entirely restored, but when they are out frequent checks are necessary, and if it's about, the girls have to go in. If we're in the garden, of course, it's a different matter, and then they really enjoy the company.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-72082788956413522722010-09-08T18:28:00.000+01:002010-09-08T18:28:08.071+01:00Millefleurs barbus d'Uccles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since I am in chicken mode - still besotted with the new girls, who are so keen on mealworms that taming them is going well - I thought I would post a picture of the prettiest breed of chickens we ever kept. I was going to use the picture from Wikipedia, but it really doesn't do them justice, so I thought that perhaps the <a href="http://www.jatman.co.uk/belgians/">British Belgian Bantam Club</a> might be glad of a bit of extra publicity, and so wouldn't mind if I used one off their site.<br />
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When we lived in Scotland, we had a trio of these chickens, who were extremely tame, and liked to sit on people's shoulders (my mother-in-law was <i>not </i>keen). Unfortunately, they were really a bit too tame, and also liked to go for walks. In those days we lived opposite my sons' primary school, and it was a regular occurrence for the Barbus to turn up in the playground, at which point elder son was usually deputed to bring them home. Sometimes, they would set off straight down the hill through the village, and I am afraid that one day someone seized both opportunity and chickens; the someone is question, of course, might have been the fox, but we searched high and low and there was no sign of anyone, not so much as a feather, so perhaps they went to a new home. I was very sorry to lose them, they were tiny bundles of personality.<br />
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I don't think I would want to keep them on our clay soil here, they would get very weighed down in the mud. And I don't think that one of our neighbours would be frightfully keen on having a cockerel next door! It is exceedingly quiet here, and we're always rather embarrassed when the dogs choose to demonstrate their guarding qualities: a chicken shrieking his head off at 3.30am might <i>not </i>be popular!Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-59979365075672469682010-09-04T18:20:00.000+01:002010-09-04T18:20:55.253+01:00New girls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Bluebell girls are getting quite elderly, and we only have three left, so we decided it was time to add to the flock. We're delighted with the four new girls - 1 black rock and three speckeldys. As with the Bluebells, where the original leader of the flock was one of the two white hens (succeeded when she died suddenly by the other one), the black rock has immediately appointed herself Chicken-in-Charge, and is living up to her name, Pocahontas. (Well, it suited her.) The others are just a little younger, I think.<br />
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My mother and I each have one of these, a pelargonium called Angel Eyes, which seems to be a very prolific flowerer, My plant is only a baby, and survived a hot airless journey home from Devon last month.<br />
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Next week is going to be purgatory, with four windows being replaced on Thursday. This means that half the contents of my tiny office space will have to be packed up and moved, including of course my computer. So three days disruption for one day of actual work. Meanwhile, the ongoing broadband nightmare means that the router which is sitting beside my desk absolutely must not be switched off, and the track is being dug up to try to address some of the also ongoing water supply problems. Oh, and someone should turn up to replace the oven element for the third time. The last two weeks have seen BT out goodness knows how many times, a surveyor for the windows, the lawnmower repair man, the oven man, someone to cut the hedge - considering that I can go for whole weeks seeing no-one but the family and maybe the postie, it all feels a bit overwhelming. <br />
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All I want is a hermitage with good broadband - too much to ask?<br />
<br />Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-84260484218096206702010-07-25T17:56:00.001+01:002010-07-25T17:57:59.638+01:00Sleeping dogsAs a rule it's almost impossible to take a picture of Senior Dog upside down and relaxing. Point a camera at her and, quicker than a flash, she's the right way up and four-square in front of you with an expression of eager anticipation. On occasion, you would swear she had managed to conjure a ball out of nowhere, too (what this really means is that she's gone to sleep with one tucked away beside her, just in case...).<br />
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So, this afternoon, it took real artfulness - I noticed her upside down while I was putting away the things from the dishwasher. I crept off to collect and switch on the camera. On my return, I picked up the pile of plates and clattered across to the dresser with them, then slid my hand oh so quietly out from behind the dresser door and click! she was caught. Silly old thing! That cushion is just where she likes it. It takes a lot of effort to get a chair <i>just </i>right.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-8841308930337608002010-06-03T18:27:00.000+01:002010-06-03T18:27:16.116+01:00Baa!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I want one of these!</div>Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-7212825861239209332010-05-24T15:30:00.000+01:002010-05-24T15:30:46.166+01:00Eggs everywhere...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'll never make a food blogger! For a start I don't cook very often - I earn the living, OH does the cooking. But he's been cooking practically every day for the last 18 years or so, and I feel it's time he had the occasional break. So the idea is that, when I'm home, I'll cook on Saturdays, and younger son thinks he might do a regular slot as well.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this week I pretty much forgot about it and spent most of Saturday in the garden, cleaning chicken houses and planting strawberries - I did offer, but the thing that needed using up was sausages, so OH very nobly made toad-in-the-hole with ratatouille - it was very good. Since I offered to take up the spatula again my contributions have mostly involved eggs, since we have a glut, and I do a mean soufflé, if I say so myself. Last weekend I did potato and fennel soup, thanks to the <a href="http://www.rivercottage.net/Default.aspx">River Cottage</a> May newsletter and to our local Green Shop, which had lovely fennel and excellent spelt bread, followed by Scotch eggs. In the past I've always made these by deep-frying them, something I'm not entirely happy about - it uses a lot of oil, the end result is a bit greasy for my taste and it no doubt ups the calory content. This time, though, I baked the eggs in the oven and we all really liked them. <br /><br />Hard boil as many eggs as you want, cooling them as soon as they are done and peeling them - I like to do it under a trickle of water from the cold tap, which helps to loosen the shell. I used sausages for the coating, splitting the skin and peeling it off - it took about one and a half sausages per egg. Wrap the sausage meat round the egg, sealing all the cracks, then dip the egg into beaten egg, and then into fresh breadcrumbs. The bake in the oven at 200 C for about half an hour. Let them cool a bit before serving, it intensifies the flavour of the sausage - best with salad, but in my student days I liked them with baked beans.<br />
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The other reason why I'll never make a food blogger is that I don't take pictures of things. I'll try to do better in future.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-8632256948874535082010-05-06T13:03:00.000+01:002010-05-06T13:03:27.669+01:00Poorly puppy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Bolter isn't very well today. She ran full-tilt into Senior Dog a month ago and since then has had bouts of limping after she's been running. She's on rest and anti-inflammatories at the moment, but yesterday I thought she was feeling a bit off-colour and this morning she was sick - quite unusual for her, she has a pretty cast-iron digestive system, trained by years of eating every disgustingly dead thing she can find! She has clearly decided, though, that poorly tummies should be kept warm, and has retired to bed (mine) for the day.I expect the pills have upset her, so we may be in for a couple of days of this.Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-29632246380636115162010-04-25T15:13:00.002+01:002010-04-25T15:23:54.616+01:00Salad daysReading John Lanchester's<i> The Debt to Pleasure</i> for the <a href="http://www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk/">Cornflower Book Group</a> last week provided a good deal of food for reminiscence. Early in the book its horrible but compelling narrator, Tarquin Winot, talks about first experiences of restaurants:<br />
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One’s first restaurant is not or need not be one’s literal first restaurant, the place where one ate in public for the first time and paid for the experience (the forgotten motorway service station on a trip north to auntie’s, the first good-behaviour rewarding teashop scone), but rather the place where one first encountered the blinding, consoling hugeness of the restaurant <i>idea</i>. Stiff napery; heavy gravity-laden crockery; pristine wineglasses, erect and presentable as Guardsmen on parade; an expectant Commando of pronged, edged and expectant cutlery; the human furniture of other diners and the uniformed waiters; above all the awareness that one has finally arrived at a setting designed primarily to minister to one’s needs, a bright palace of rendered attention.</blockquote>
I got to thinking about my own experience of eating out and came up with a trio of memories, mostly by no means as grand as those which Tarquin is thinking of. The earliest is when I was six, in Scarborough, where my mother was working at the gloriously opulent Royal Opera House, in those days a proper repertory theatre and sadly now demolished, despite the fact that it had been refurbished in the 1970s. Rep companies tend to be very familial, so it was a fairly regular occurrence for a large group to descend at Sunday lunchtime on Scarborough’s first Chinese restaurant, where chopsticks and chop suey (which I adored!) were a novelty. I remember a large, light, upstairs dining room, leisurely meals accompanied by the sound of laughter.<br />
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My second recollection of eating out as a small child involves that largely-defunct institution, afternoon tea which, in the 1960s, could still be ordered in most hotels around the country – station hotels being particularly reliable in this respect. Sunday trips out in my grandparents’ car occasionally ended with tea (I recall a slightly undignified visit to the Loch Rannoch Hotel in Perthshire* when I had just fallen into a bog and was rather damp around the nether regions). Hot toasted teacakes or marmite on toast seemed much more of a treat than they could ever do at home: the toast was crisper, the butter sweeter…in those far off days, hotels seemed like heaven to me.<br />
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By 1967 my mother was working in London as wardrobe supervisor for a large organisation, overseeing productions both at home and on tour, and that summer she was asked to go to Bournemouth, where a summer show was opening next week at the Winter Gardens (to my horror, also now demolished – we used to joke that theatres my stepfather went to always burnt down; now it seems that all the theatres of my childhood proved surplus to civic requirements). I went too, and the team for getting the costumes ready for a show starring Tommy Cooper and Frankie Vaughan (big names then!) comprised my mother, the elegant and charming designer, two dancers from Bournemouth’s other theatre, the resident wardrobe mistress and me – there were 12 dancers in the show and I can’t remember how many costume changes (at least six, it was a lavish affair), but by the end of the week I was a dab hand with a staple gun and was practically on first name terms with the assistants at the haberdashery counter of Bournemouth’s department store. Yes, really, sixty yards of elastic, please.<br />
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The designer stayed in the rather splendid Royal Bath Hotel, while my mother and I went to a hotel next to the theatre, so that if I got tired (which I didn’t, it was all much too much fun) I would be near at hand. The evening we arrived though, we all sailed into the Royal Bath, where it was agreed that although the dining room was officially closed, the chef could probably rustle something up if we didn’t mind a lack of choice. I don’t remember what I ate, but vividly recall the pleasure of sitting by an open window on a warm summer’s evening, and watching several slices of melba toast float gently upwards in the breeze. The head waiter, who attended single-handed to our needs was stately, but not unbending. Several nights later, following the show’s opening, our wardrobe “team” returned to the Royal Bath dining room at nearly midnight – the centre of the room now taken up by a long table sparkling with silverware and glass – for a celebratory dinner, the head waiter, now an old friend, again presiding. This rather blurred photograph, the best I could find, shows that the
dining room hasn't changed much in 40 years!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdn1mg38ULD0xSVMZmo-3vB0di_SKAd3wkp5BTHoFOazq7Y0xV1ISWjdmtzoPj81cyTP9zWjM8MYMwEVMcM9cswUXgbMFXnJuca0CnTH0qZqDtZut8RlEqTzsTtXVd2RqusKpefagg3Q/s1600/royal+bath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdn1mg38ULD0xSVMZmo-3vB0di_SKAd3wkp5BTHoFOazq7Y0xV1ISWjdmtzoPj81cyTP9zWjM8MYMwEVMcM9cswUXgbMFXnJuca0CnTH0qZqDtZut8RlEqTzsTtXVd2RqusKpefagg3Q/s400/royal+bath.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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If I'd known then how much time I would spend in hotels now, I wouldn't have minded in the slightest – actually, even now, I don't mind it much, finding them to be places where you can retreat behind a closed door. I prefer them medium-sized, not so huge that you are completely anonymous, but not so small that you feel constantly on display. I generally eat elsewhere, though I could easily be tempted back by mid-afternoon toast and marmite!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* Edited later to add that the Loch Rannoch Hotel's <a href="http://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/lochrannoch/gallery/">website </a>makes it quite clear that afternoon tea is still served there - nice to see they have got their priorities right. I must go back there one day. </span>Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3721699631305175272.post-61963675408452180262010-04-21T18:21:00.000+01:002010-04-21T18:21:01.151+01:00And seeing visitors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkLod-Fu9nJi36TxcEqVgBQC5CkmJ2ZgdU-YYRtpxK66l5N_gMQY7890UioRa5mPqUHIUQvnMW5zyOsJ2lDJVW08v7eWrLpxmYBsE-awdcfIkkcXhW6JyRkZ9KhaezyBhHUEz9I-LLReA/s1600/ring-ouzel-romania-2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkLod-Fu9nJi36TxcEqVgBQC5CkmJ2ZgdU-YYRtpxK66l5N_gMQY7890UioRa5mPqUHIUQvnMW5zyOsJ2lDJVW08v7eWrLpxmYBsE-awdcfIkkcXhW6JyRkZ9KhaezyBhHUEz9I-LLReA/s320/ring-ouzel-romania-2009.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Photo: <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.birdfinders.co.uk/images/ring-ouzel-romania-2009.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.birdfinders.co.uk/news/romania-2009-pics.htm&h=350&w=350&sz=192&tbnid=_EZD1qgq8RLnqM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dring%2Bouzel&usg=__fF7laSSRRIHtTrtIzhUt2R__5Ik=&ei=fjDPS53lJ4uanwPa8NEe&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&ved=0CAoQ9QEwAg">RSPB website</a></span></div>
<br />
Rather exciting to see one of these walking across the lawn this afternoon. It's a ring ouzel, presumably on its way into Britain and heading for the nearby moorland and summer nesting ground. I was hoping to get a photograph of it, but the resident blackbirds were very agressively seeing it off even as I spotted it. The population is in serious decline in here, so I count myself lucky to have had even a fleeting sight.<br />
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The jackdaws, meanwhile, are frantically flying in the most bizarre collection of potential nesting material, bits of fluff (deer and dog?), spare feathers - even an unattached pheasant wing, which was proudly conveyed to the nest site. Ten minutes later, it was lying on the lawn - rejected? too heavy to stay put? A little later still, it had disappeared again, replaced, I assumed, but then I saw one of the jackdaws flying <i>away </i>from the nest with it. I'm not sure whether it was a strange bird, poaching, or a disenchanted partner ("It's not <i>hygienic</i>, dear!") Five minutes later, and its proud finder was back again with the wing firmly clutched in its beak. I guess it has now been cemented in!Jodie Robsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02442935205880334932noreply@blogger.com0