2016

10 August 2016

I am watching the Olympics in Rio and it is indeed a bittersweet thing for me as my lovely Si and I had many conversations, at least daily and usually a couple more than that, concerning the 2012 Olympics in London as we shared so many common interests and could discuss those which we most enjoyed, principally the Judo which he loved and which he was so good at.

I cannot dwell on the past but also I cannot help but grieve the loss of this beautiful bright, shining young man whose designs from his website are still generating small amounts of royalties after four years. He would be so proud.

3 July 2016

There is a school of thought that as one ages, the time flows more swiftly and that is certainly the case for me.

My lovely friend A has had a serious health issue which is being resolved but I have spent some time ferrying her from appointment to appointment with a glad heart as she has been such a support through all the trying times I have had since 2003.

Thankfully she will be fine and her daugher, who is a surrogate daughter to me, is due to have a baby in late September so that is something wonderful to look forward to and I am busy knitting for that event. In the meantime the lovely birds give me so much solace and we are now blessed with some baby blue tits - which are actually green!

25 September 2016

Four years ago today the great garden disaster happened and I was reminded of this by the ever-helpful Facebook!

The last couple of months have been very stressful; my lovely friend A's daughter is unexpectedly pregnant with her third baby and I was privileged to be asked to attend her several scans as an adopted grandmother and this has really helped me to turn my grieving into something positive. There have been many hospital visits culminating in the birth of the most beautiful little soul and the best bit is that she was born on the anniversary of Si's funeral which will always give me joy on this day.

And she is to be Rose which is wonderful.

18 October 2016

There is nothing more annoying in life than having a service for which you are paying which is unsatisfactory; even worse when the "technicians" who are supposed to help are blessed with such heavy accents that they are incomprehensible.

It is indeed fortunate that I have been able to rescue both this website and my sanity thanks to the lovely man at OH's company who has brought calm, serenity and most importantly, publishing to this little corner of my world.

And at last I can sort out some of the early pages and update the garden!

9 March 2016

On Friday 26th February 2016 the staircase was at last finished. As the house is on four floors with two landings and two halls I appreciate that it was a complicated job but it still was galling that it took nearly eight weeks to finalise. I have to agree with OH however, that it is beautiful!

19 February 2016
It seemed like such a good idea at the time to have our horrible staircase renovated to be a thing of beauty and indeed mostly, that is the case. However, the "installed in 2 days with no major work" has proved to be a hollow promise and now, nearly seven weeks onward, we are in the position of having to wait in once more on Monday to have a "snag" ironed out. The man who needed to remove the carpet arrived this morning at 6.45 am - a time which I only see when I have had a really bad night's sleep. OH as usual is so laid back about it that he just says how beautiful it looks - and I do have to agree it does - but it is the assumption that I have no other life to live except to wait in whilst these so busy and important people arrange my life for me!

As a top-up to a horrible week my beautiful BirdCam has failed and I have had to return it!

30 January 2016
A horrible lurgy which I don't seem to be able to shake off and a good friend's death, weather variable to say the least, OH's hospital procedure, staircase renovation which was as bad as moving house and it is safe to say that the start of the year has been eventful to say the least! As I write we have snow, hail and sunshine but yesterday was 11 degrees - crazy weather. At least my lovely visitors are giving me something on which to try out my beautiful camera and I am so pleased with the results.

A lovely long-tailed tit

Goldfinch

6 November 2016

We were so glad that we had some lovely little "Trick or Treat" visitors this year as last year we had lots of small bags of chocolate and sweets and no-one came! At least the goodies didn't go to waste as OH took them to work with him to be finished off"

I have spent quite some time refreshing the archive and comparison pages on here and so far all has gone very well thanks to the new web-hosting and I have really enjoyed it. The reading back to 2007 has been at times painful, sad and cathartic in remembering some of the lovely times I have had not just with Si but also on holidays when both OH and I were much more able to get about.

A new iPad Pro has been a present to myself and I am loving it although I use Si's computer for most things but it means I don't have to rush upstairs when I want to answer emails which is a blessing.

20 November 2016

Well, what a wonderful way to spend a birthday!

I had long known that the Choral Society's concert would be on the same day as my birthday but the programme of Vivaldi and Handel was just too tempting so I was always going to sing!

After opening cards and presents and spending a quiet morning with OH I ventured out, first having to demist the car which had been snowed on the previous day and then negotiate the awful traffic on the local trunk road and finally arrived at the church for the rehearsal. The conductor did our warm up and then asked everyone to sit down and produced a note, a g natural asking everyone to sing - Happy Birthday!

I was so thrilled - particularly as the orchestra had already been primed and played for the choir to sing in harmony to me. It was a memory I will never forget and it made my day. The concert in the evening went off splendidly with a really good audience and six friends came from my previous church choir- with another gift and cards for me and for once I was speechless!

Still I managed to sing which was the whole point of being there.

success with the smallest bit of suet

not quite able to hover

Jackdaw exploring

7 May 2016

It is a constant source of amazement to me just how inventive our bird population can be. The last couple of years have been difficult in May because the jackdaws have bred in the chimney of the house next door. However, this year they seem to have been frightened off and we have been left with just one or two. One, a male, has spent the winter being rather solitary and I have not minded too much if he has foraged when food has been scarce.

However, he does seem to have at the least a friend and they have been causing a bit of havoc on the feeders as even the starlings do not care to confront them.

The feeder they target has small pieces of suet mixed with some dried mealworms and they just cannot resist having a go at getting some. As they are unable to hover I would not have thought that the effort was worth it but the pictures prove me wrong!

23 July 2016

Well, I was completely wrong about the jackdaws - yesterday when the clouds rolled in we had almost forty of them circling the house and coming close to the windows and the noise is horrible. I can but hope that this is the last of them and that they are off to torment some other poor folks!

However, this one is just fabulous. He has not only taught himself to balance, swing and perch but now thinks that the squirrel-proof feeder is here for his sole delight! As long as he is on his own, and he does seem to be rather elderly, I cannot help but allow him to feed!