Month: February 2020

About The Birds TWTW # 65

On By TontowilliamsIn Birds, books, Kindle, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature

I was on my travels this week, down to see a client in Somerset again, I made what is becoming a regular stop and a visit to a charity shop on my way back and picked up a couple of secondhand books. I think I’ve purchased something in there every time I’ve been there, and their stock turnover seems to be quite frequent so there always seems to be new stuff for me to look at.

On Monday I was walking the dogs and saw a Kingfisher flying along the little creek in one of the local patches of woodland. I was quite surprised to see it, as I’ve always considered that little patch to be a little too urbanised to attract such a bird, but then what do I know. I was able to watch it for a couple of minutes and then lost sight of it.

We’ve also had a one legged / one footed Grey Wagtail hanging about our garden. He’s obviously lost the lower half of one of his legs, whether this is due to a predator or getting it caught or tied up in something and then slowly losing it I’m not sure. He seems to be quite happy though and getting about without too much trouble, although I suspect why we’re seeing him in the garden so much is that he finds it easier to find food in our garden that he would elsewhere in the wild. We’ve always had the odd grey wagtail about so it’s not unusual to see one, but we’re seeing a lot of this one. We’ll keep up with the regular feeding of all of the birds, and he’s most welcome to take his fill.

I’ve been reading a couple of books this week. First up was Ellis Peter’s – A Virgin in the Ice, which is a Brother Cadfael mystery, it was an enjoyable read although one of the things that I’ve noticed with these is the slightly misleading data that I get from the kindle. I’ve noticed this before as I have several of these books on my kindle and each one has a chunk of the next book at the end and some other material which although is interesting is not part of the story. This means that the percentage reading on the kindle is out, and the actual book ends at around 60% to 70% and the remaining portion is the other stuff. It’s not a big deal, but does make for some confusion when a book you think you’re only about halfway through ends.

My second read is Andrea Camilleri’s – The Treasure Hunt, which is an Inspector Montalbano mystery. I picked this up in the charity shop in town earlier in the week, and am reading it now because we’ve been watching the Inspector Montalbano mysteries on i-player and I know that this one is coming up soon, so I wanted to read it before we watch it. They’re quite gentle watching and we’re enjoying watching some of the earlier ones that we haven’t seen before. I hope that the tv adaptation sticks quite closely to the story in the book because I think it will make for an entertaining watch.

The allotment has been a bit of a wash out these last few weeks with the two storms we’ve had and this past weekend has been pretty wet and windy too, it’s not been too conducive to getting anything done. It’s looking a pretty desolate place, but it won’t be too much longer before things really start picking up.

It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, and I asked for some 35mm film so that I could get one of my old film cameras out and use it. It’s not terribly expensive stuff and it provoked a little question as to why I’d want it. Anyway it was duly ordered and evidently arrived this week and was given to me as an early birthday present. I haven’t done anything with it yet, and will probably wait until my birthday before I load the camera up with it, but I am looking forward to experimenting again.

I’m on the road again a couple of days in the upcoming week, but otherwise I’ll be cracking on with work at home for clients. There are some deadlines for various things in the not too distant future, so it’s important to keep things moving on forwards.

Wherever you are I hope you have a great week.

The Weather Outside Is Frightful – TWTW # 64

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Cooking, The Week That Was, work

We’ve just had another weekend of weather warnings, more wind and rain. Again we seem to have escaped the worst – although it’s been pretty miserable and not very conducive to doing much outdoors – other parts of the country have been very badly affected.

I’ve been staying in, reading and making chutney – another batch of gooseberry and red onion, which went down really well last year, and gives me a bit of space in the freezer after I defrosted the gooseberries.

I’ve gotten through a couple of books this week, another Vivian Shaw Novel – Dreadful Company and an HP Lovecraft novella – The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I enjoyed both, I’m slowly rereading the HP Lovecraft stories but taking my time, no need to rush them. Not sure what’s up next, although I did get given Denali by Ben Moon last week, and have a copy of Mark Twain’s Notebooks that I want to get stuck into at some point. My problem of a never seemingly decreasing “to be read” pile, doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Works been pretty busy this week, mostly just moving various things forward for clients, and some discussions with an old client about doing something for them. The next couple of weeks are looking pretty busy with some travel coming up.

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I was contemplating going to the London Pen Show next month, it’s just before my birthday and I thought that it might be a nice treat. Then I looked at the cost of the rail ticket, and the accompanying weekend railway works and bus replacement services and decided instead to put the cost of the rail ticket towards a new fountain pen and some ink instead. I was contemplating getting the pen at the show, but I guess I’ve cut out the middle bit!

There are many things in politics that I feel like commenting on, but I’m afraid my commenting would probably lead to ranting in fairly short order. However it is leading to some great political cartoons, at least at the moment.

And on that note I’m out of here. Have a good week everyone!

Drawing Blood TWTW # 63

On By TontowilliamsIn books, The Week That Was1 Comment

Hello, how are you? I’m good. I did have a visit to get a routine blood test this last week. It’s one of those where you have to fast beforehand, in my case nothing to eat or drink (except water) from 6.30pm the night before, so I was ready for something to eat and drink by the time it was done. I also made the most of my trip to return some library books and do a few other things whilst in town. I’ll be able to get the results in a couple of days, although if there’s anything to worry about I’m sure they’ll be in touch. It’s just routine, so I’m not expecting anything unusual.

I’m writing this section on Sunday morning (I often write bits and pieces in these post in the week before they go live rather than waiting until Monday morning), the wind is howling around outside as Storm Ciara is battering the Country. So far no problems.

[Update: We seem to have come through relatively unscathed, the roof is still on the house and the allotment shed is still in one piece. Other places have not been so lucky.]

Work’s been chugging along pretty nicely this week, got quite a bit done and have set various things up for the coming weeks.

I read So Disdained by Nevil Shute this week, another one of my library haul from last week. It started off very slowly but turned into a good read once the story got going a bit. Not sure what’s going to be next, but happily I have plenty to choose from.

Mad Dogs!

https://twitter.com/backt0nature/status/1225816489170784258

We’ve had a sparrowhawk in our garden a few times over the past few weeks. I think he’s been trying his luck on our neighbours bird feeder, and if he’s unsuccessful uses our garden as an alternate landing spot. I managed to catch a few seconds of video of him this week.

This video has been around quite a bit this week. The full story can be found here.

Great post here by Amy Brady, on her love of Star Trek but how it didn’t cover climate change.

Build your own bird feeder that uses facial recognition to count the birds visiting.

 

Brave New World – TWTW # 62

On By TontowilliamsIn books, The Week That Was

Welcome back. The world doesn’t actually feel any different today than this time last week, but of course the UK has now officially left the EU. I think this is a mistake that we’ll come to regret but I hope to be proved wrong. Otherwise this week has been another busy work week (mostly).

If you’ve been reading these posts for a couple of months you’ll know that I was going through an upgrade of my work computer. I did do this towards the end of last year and have been using it for about six weeks or so. I had a lot of teething troubles, but to some extent I was expecting that, but things really haven’t settled down. I have significant problems with things like accessing my emails, printing and a few other fairly basic things. This came to a head at the start of the week when I couldn’t send emails, particularly emails with attachments.

I’ve spent a lot of time over this introductory phase in forums and other places online seeking solutions for the teething problems, but this really was the final straw. So for the remainder of this week I’ve put the new computer to one side and I’m back to my old machine to give myself some thinking space. I’m not sure what comes next. This was a big (and expensive) shift for me, and a move between operating systems (windows to mac), but I am regretting that decision somewhat at the moment.

When the above computer problems kicked off at the start of the week, I knew I needed a break and so went out to do some chores. Buy groceries, pick up a prescription and return my library book.

In the library they had a big display of  “classics”, including a big pile of Nevil Shute books. Some of them I have read before but there were a few there that I didn’t recognise the titles or the descriptions on the covers. So I picked up a few and a Julian Barnes.

I’ve already read An Old Captivity and enjoyed it, although felt the ending was a little weak.

I also finished listening to the audiobook of Andy Weir’s The Martian this week. It’s been my travelling companion for a few weeks, but I’d got down the the last hour of play, so I prioritised finishing it before my next longish journey so that I wouldn’t finish it mid-journey. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I reviewed and posted that review for Matt Gaw’s Under the Stars which if you’re interested you can read the review here.

Yesterday’s date was a palindrome 02022020. That hasn’t happened for a while, and won’t be happening again any time soon.