Category: Wildlife/Nature

Mid January Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Film, Garden / Allotment, tv, Wildlife/Nature, work

Welcome. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter (Fifty From Fifty / Life After Fifty) and you missed the last post there I’ve moved you across to my blog as I will be discontinuing my writing there. I hope you’ll stick around but if you don’t want to then there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. If you did see the last post then you’ll already know what is going on and hopefully you are receiving this.

I noticed that there were a couple of duplicate subscriptions (i.e. people already subscribing here with the same email as the newsletter), and have tried as far as possible to make sure you’re not on the list twice! If however you subscribed to both using different email addresses then it’s possible you will get two copies and will need to unsubscribe from one of them. It’s not a perfect system but overall the move seems to have gone okay.

Right, enough housekeeping.

An Update from the First Couple of Weeks of January

I find it hard to believe that three weeks have passed since Christmas already and I’m not altogether sure what it is I’ve actually done in that time. I know I took some time away from work and pretty much everything for a while to reflect on a not particularly great year gone by and plan for a better one (as much as you can) in 2024.

Life moves forward at a regular pace, but I think sometimes we don’t. We’re either trying to push on ahead or fall behind and I don’t think either of those things are particularly healthy. Time is probably our most valuable commodity, and it was something that I felt like I had less of than I needed in 2023, so some of my decisions for 2024 were to guard it more jealousy. Of course I’ve already found myself challenging that decision when a work offer came in. I have however stuck to my decision and turned it down. It was hard, but on balance it feels like the right thing to have done and honestly it’s unlikely that I’ll ever find out anything differently, so…

Reading

I’ve read a couple of good books so far this year. Holly by Stephen King and Local by Alastair Humphreys. I recommend both.
The Stephen King is more on his crime writing than horror, although some of the crimes in the book are pretty horrific and has the returning character Holly Gibney.
Local is the culmination of Alastair Humphreys year long exploration of his local Ordnance Survey map, visiting on square on the map randomly each week and writing up what he finds. Originally a series of blog posts during the pandemic/post pandemic it’s packed full of his adventures and lots of facts and information about what he discovers. Also recommended.

TV / Film

It seems we really don’t watch much TV anymore but I did sit and watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny yesterday. I loved the opening but didn’t love the film as a whole. Raiders and Last Crusade are my two favourites of the series, the others I’m pretty much not interested in. I’ll watch DoD again but I’m not expecting my opinion will change much.

The Garden

Bit too cold for much to be happening out there are the moment. I have however cleaned out the greenhouse in preparation for the growing season and I’m still shocked everytime I walk past and realise how much cleaner it is now. It’s positively shiny! I’ve also sown some tomatoes, chilli and sunflower seeds in a tray in my office – I like to sow something each year on New Year’s Day, to mark the turning of the year, plus chillies have a long growing season and the early you can get them started the better. The sunflowers have already germinated but no sign of the chillies yet.

Work

I think I’ve pretty much covered that above, otherwise I’m just doing some new year admin stuff.

Outside

It’s been a bit of mixed bag weather wise, and I long for the lighter mornings, but being out early and hearing the calls of tawny and little owls is a bit special, as is seeing the eyes of deer light up in the beam of the headtorch.

Well that’s it from me. I hope to write a bit more here this year and I hope that you’ll stick around for the journey. If not however I understand and no hard feelings if you choose to unsubscribe. I’m not sure how frequently these will be coming however and I’m not planning to stick to any schedule, I’d rather write something when I have something to say rather than write something for the sake of a calendar date.

Talk soon…

End of the Year 2023

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, books, Dog, Film, Garden / Allotment, Life, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work, writing2 Comments

I couldn’t decide whether I was going to sit and write one of these this year or not. I’ve done something like this most years but the latter part of this year I’ve not been really feeling the desire to blog or write my newsletter or even be on the socials much. Some of this is because in the case of the site formerly known as twitter it’s pretty much a horror story these days and unless you’re paying for your account you’re unlikely to show up in anyone’s feed, so why bother. Most of it though is because I’ve just not felt much in the way of creative energy to write, I pushed through AudioMo because I do genuinely enjoy it but the energy just hasn’t been there since April when we lost Wilson.

He was 13 and hadn’t been well for a number of years, one thing on top of another was finally too much and when he stopped eating and drinking it was obvious. I try and remember the good times, but I miss him terribly and genuinely struggle some days.

I am hoping that I will be writing more in 2024, and probably here rather than anywhere else. I think that perhaps my newsletter has run its course, and I have more control over what happens here than anywhere else. I’ve heard some people talk of a resurgence in blogging since the demise of twitter, I’m not sure if that is likely to be true or not but I’d rather set out my shingle here than anywhere else.

So what else has been happening in 2023? Let’s see shall we?

Books
I’ve read a lot this year, at last count 109 112 books, more than I’ve ever read in any year previously that I’ve got a detailed record for. You can check them all out on GoodReads here. I’ve been continuing to read some old favourite series such as Simenon’s Maigret novels and discovering some newer ones too. I also finally managed to read all of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” probably ten years after it came out and I bought it in paperback. I actually enjoyed it too and have been enjoying a bit of a King renaissance this year, which I’ll probably continue next year, along with a couple of other authors. A couple of stand-outs for me though were some of the most troubling books that I read. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and “Berlin Diaries” by William L Shirer. I wanted to read the former with a view to seeing if what happened 80 – 90 years ago bears any resemblance to what is happening in the world now, and in particular is reflected in some of the politics of this country. Whilst what happened then might be remembered as being some extremes of humanity, it didn’t necessarily start that way and I think we would be well advised to remember the times before the world was at war and what was happening. It’s a slippery slope and there are certainly examples of gaslighting and lying and reinforcing those lies in our modern political discourse that are exactly the early behaviours seen then.

We can and should be better than that and as nations and governments are too good at ignoring the facts because they do not fit the narrative that we want to tell, rather than being honest about them.

Watching
I haven’t watched much of anything this year, hence why I’ve had so much reading time. I did enjoy the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon but other than that I haven’t watched much. There are several things that I would like to see, the new seasons of Foundation and Slow Horses on Apple TV+ but we stopped our subscription to those as we weren’t watching. I also have a stack of things recorded that I should try to watch or delete if I’m not going to. I was planning on doing some of this over the Christmas break but I haven’t managed it yet.

Work
This year started slow, but picked up a lot of pace in the latter half of the year. Overall I’d say it’s been a successful year for me. Some old clients and some new ones, and some interesting projects that blurred the lines a little between work and personal projects (in a good way).

Gardening
There is always more I could have done this year in the garden, but I think I’d say that I’ve pretty much hit the minimum targets that I had and a few additional things. Next year I am hoping to devote more time to the garden generally and now we’ve seen it through a full year that means we have a better idea of some the things that we want to achieve next year.

Outside
I’m still walking between 5 and 6 miles most days (a bit less when it’s raining hard) and it’s a delight, it has helped to keep me balanced mentally and physically and it is not something that I am planning to pull back from next year. I’ve kept notes pretty much everyday of the things I’ve seen and heard and want to double down on that particularly next year.

To 2024
As I said at the outset I hope to be more present here in 2024, but please don’t hold me to that, I need a certain amount of mental space to be able to write these posts and ones similar to those I have before and during a good chunk of 2023 I just didn’t have it. There are a couple of big changes that happened at the beginning of December however that were bigs things for me to have removed from my life and I hope that now gives me the mental space and more importantly the time to be able to get back to writing more.

December 2022 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, work

I’m not yet sure if this is the end of the year show or whether I’ll do another post looking back across the whole year before the end of the month. I’m feeling very tired at the moment so I suspect that this might be the last one you’ll get here, but you never know a break across Christmas might just revive me enough to write something else.

So why so tired? Just life. It’s been busy, new house, work etc., just things occupying my time. Busy is good but sometimes you think that some things are really surplus.

We’ve been continuing to unpack our stuff and now that we have a bit more sense of what we want and how we want it set up, move furniture about a bit. There’s still a ways to go, particularly with books and ornaments. I suspect we’ll tackle this afresh once the Christmas decorations come down and we don’t have a tree that seems to be in the way.

We’ve had another round of visits to the vet with Wilson, and are about to embark on a change of diet for him. I’ll be honest here and say that I think the vet is grasping for straws, but I’m willing to go along with him for now. He is young and eager and not as old and jaded as me but I’m increasingly feeling that there is no cure and we should be settling for the situation and making the best of what we have. It feels a bit like we are repeating the same things we’ve done before hoping for different results. Wilson is happy enough in himself but perhaps we should just respect that for what it is.

We received the news at the start of this week that the care home where my Mum lives have had another outbreak of Covid. This means that for the third year in a row our Christmas plans have changed. I’m sure we’re not alone in having last minute alterations, particularly if your plans require any sort of travelling, but it is frustrating. For me personally I’m also being careful where I go and what I do as I was in the care home visiting Mum on the day that they undertook the tests revealing the outbreak. Although I was masked and as always careful about hand sanitising etc., I have taken a couple of tests subsequently which have both been negative and am watching for any symptoms.

The farce that is Twitter continues to provide “news” on a nearly daily basis. The manbaby Musk seems to only think that free speech is what he says it is and not what the rest of the world understands it to mean. In fairness he does own the company but it seems to be getting worse. I’m not even sure that him standing down as CEO will make for much difference. I’m sticking with it for now, although mostly staying away, but did create a Mastadon account just in case. I don’t intend to use it unless things get really bad. In the meantime I’m going to be sticking to writing here and using Instagram as my main outlets. Also my newsletter once I’ve decided what I am going to do with it when it reaches it’s originally intended limited run.

Reading

The only thing that I’ve completed this month is Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot which I wrote a newsletter post about. There are a couple of reasons for my lack of reading, firstly there’s being too tired and second I’ve been struggling to find anything that I’ve wanted to get stuck into.

Watching

This is a bit of a similar story to my reading. We’ve barely had the tv on this month, mostly this is down to tiredness and a succession of early nights. I’m hoping that over the Christmas period I might be able to indulge a bit more and having had a look at what’s on there are a couple of things that look interesting so we’ll see.

Garden

I’ve been continuing to do a little bit of tidying and planning for next year. We’ve had a spell of very cold weather with temperatures dropping down to -6°C which put some things on hold while the ground was frozen, but as it’s thawing now I should be able to get back to it in due course.

Work

The start of the month was very busy finalising some reports but now it looks like it will be quiet until the New Year and I’m planning on not being actively chasing things until January. I feel like I need a break and a recharge until then.

Outside

I’m enjoying my daily walks and going further when the time allows. There is much more space for walking here, away from other people and without having to walk alongside roads. This is such a bonus for us, and the dogs enjoy it too.

Well that’s about all I have for this month, as you can see that isn’t much. So I’ll wish you a good break over the forthcoming Christmas and New Year and I’ll catch you again soon. In the meantime stay safe and take care.

All The Leaves Are Brown TWTW # 153

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Cooking, Dog, Garden / Allotment, photography, The Week That Was, tv, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work

Welcome to Autumn

This week has been a mixture of many things. It started bright and early on Monday working remotely while a carpenter fitted a new external door. So many doors these days are known as engineered doors and are made at a standard size to fit a standard door frame, this frame wasn’t a standard size and you can’t cut an engineered door (because they’re basically a sandwich of wood with a pulp filler). Engineered doors are relatively cheap, but a door to fit this frame wasn’t and I didn’t want to risk trying to do it myself with my rudimentary skills. The chance of catastrophe would be high as would the length of time it would take me. While the carpenter sawed and chiselled, planed and sanded, I finished a report for a client. By the end of the day the door was fitted and my report was finished.

I came back a couple of days later and painted it, I can be trusted with a paintbrush. While the paint dried I went for a walk with my camera and took some autumn photos. The beech trees this year are pretty spectacular and were so inviting to the camera’s eye.

Later in the week I had to take Wilson to the vets for yet more tests. We’re trying to decide whether to change his treatment or persevere with what we’re doing at the moment which isn’t completely working. There’s no guarantee that something different will work any better, so it feels a bit like reaching into the dark for a solution that might not even be there.

On Friday I did something that I haven’t done since February 2020, and drew some cash out from a cash point. With the pandemic, the shift to contactless and card payments I’ve had very little need for cash but I was down to my last fiver from what I drew out 20 months ago. I wonder if I’ll have enough to take me to 2023 or perhaps 2024?

Reading

I finished Alistair Maclean’s Floodgate which was really hard going. Not his best work by a long way and if you’re thinking of reading something of his it’s not a good place to start. Instead try Puppet on a Chain, Where Eight Bells Toll, Golden Rendezvous or Ice Station Zebra. As a rule of thumb his older novels are better than the newer ones (although St Andreas which came straight after Floodgate is one of my favourites), the later ones are reported to mostly have been written by ghostwriters and then reviewed by Maclean. Not sure if this is true but it would explain the patchy quality of the later novels.

After that I’ve started reading Julian Hoffman’s The Small Heart of Things which is a complete change of pace – non-fiction, natural history and place.

Watching

We watched the season finale of Foundation on Friday night. I’m glad it’s over and I’m glad my Apple TV subscription is a freebie. I’m pretty sure I won’t be renewing it, there just isn’t enough on there that can make me justify the cost.

We’re continuing to watch both Shetland and Adam Dalgliesh both of which are excellent, the season finale for the former next week and the latter ended this week.

I didn’t watch much of Children in Need but I did catch bit of the Drumathon:

An audience with Richard Mabey

Links

RIP Cedric Robinson – Queen’s Guide to the Sands

Key Outcomes Agreed at COP26: Summary

Everything You Thought You Knew About Hobo Code is Wrong

Net Zero / Not Zero/

Allotment

I harvested our Brussel Sprouts and some leeks on Saturday and converted them into a rather acceptable pasta, leek, sprout and onion dish in a rich cheese sauce. Probably not a cholesterol buster, but very tasty.

Well that’s it for this week. I’m expecting a fairly busy week ahead work wise, but not sure what else I’ll be up to, whatever you’re doing, stay safe and take care.

The Amethyst Deceiver TWTW # 152

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Fork To Fork, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, tv, Wildlife/Nature, work

This week has been has been focussed on work related things without much time for other things apart from dog walks, eating and sleeping. In part because I have less time for work in the week ahead but lots to do and want to be ahead if I can.

We did manage an afternoon walk in the woods this week and I spotted this bright purple mushroom. The app on my phone, confirmed by my field guide when I got home, told me that it was an Amethyst Deceiver. Despite the colour it is apparently edible, although known to absorb arsenic if it’s present in the surrounding environment, so maybe not totally safe. It’s quite late in the season for this particular mushroom, but a first for me as I don’t recall ever seeing one before.

Reading

I finished reading Daily Rituals by Mason Currey this week, it’s the sort of book that you only dip into now and again, which to be honest has been just what I needed this week when I haven’t had space for extended reading. It did get me thinking about my own daily routine which has been pretty fixed for a while now, particularly when I have work on.

I’ve been reading Alistair MacLean’s Floodgate since, but haven’t made many pages of progress.

Allotment

Last week’s rain has left the plot pretty damp so I’ve been focussing on doing some tasks that don’t require me to be on the main beds. I’ve been cutting out last years old growth from the loganberries. As they are spring fruiting they’ll produce that fruit on this years new growth, which needs tying in.

I harvested some leeks which became leek and potato soup for supper on Saturday, with enough left for lunch today, homemade rolls to boot.

Watching

A bit more Apple TV this week (and I’m now pretty sure that I won’t be paying for it when my freebie membership comes to an end). As the first Season of Foundation comes to an end I’m quite glad I don’t remember the story from the books – although I think I will reread them once it’s done – as it’s really unclear as to just what is going on. The other show we’ve been watching, we’ve decided not to bother with from now on, Invasion, is just a mess.

We have been enjoying the BBC’s Shetland, based on the Ann Cleeves novels and also the adaptations of P D James’ Adam Dalgliesh series being shown on Channel 5. The latter I’m pleased to see has tried to stay faithful to the time period of the novels, which other versions haven’t. I’m hoping that it will get a second season, as we’ve really enjoyed the first.

Links

Neil Gaiman – Art and Climate

Honey and Co – The Food Sessions: Red Sands with Caroline Eden

The Accounting Trick That Could Wreck The Planet

Following on from that who doesn’t need to see a singing banana playing the guitar?

Well that’s all I have for this week. Next week I’m going to be hanging about waiting for a door to be fitted, and hopefully working while that’s taking place, and then probably painting the same door. Whatever you’re up to – Stay Safe and Take Care.

Life Juggler TWTW # 128

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Dogs, Garden / Allotment, radio, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work

Once again I seem to be writing this post on a Saturday. In a couple of hours, I’m going to get my second Covid vaccination, so I went to the allotment yesterday rather than have to try and juggle things today. My unscientific analysis of other people who’ve had their second jab is that side-effects aren’t too bad, but I’m keeping my diary clear for a few days just in case. All of this means the time to write this post is now.

How are you doing? It’s been a busy week for me, as they all have just recently. Monday ticks around to Friday without me really noticing and the weekends are gone in a flash. I sometimes wonder what I have to show for it and often it is just knowing that things have moved forward is confirmation of success.

I had to take Wilson back to the vet again, he still doesn’t seem to have recovered from his upset stomach. Another course of pills and the potential delight of having to collect a three day stool sample are on the horizon for us. I was quite astounded to see that two-thirds of the money that I’ve spent this month (excluding grocery shopping) is at the vets.

Allotment. As mentioned I went to the allotment yesterday, I’ve had a lot of plants that needed to be transplanted out and so I was busy preparing ground, putting up canes, rigging netting and all sorts of other things. I’ve transplanted french climbing beans, cabbages, broccoli and leeks. I still have courgettes, squash and a few other things to go. As ever there’s lots of things to do, for example I need to net the fruit bushes soon, but before I can do that I need to remove all of the cleavers and other weeds that have done so well in the last periods of rain. Always something to do and that’s when I’m not being distracted by the wildlife – a passing buzzard, woodpecker or something similar.

Work. Another quiet week. I gave an evening Zoom talk to a gardening club and this is the last one of these now until October. Unless there is another booking in the meantime the next one I give will in theory be in person, although who knows whether that will actually be the case or not. My work diary is looking quite sparse.

Reading. I finished reading the Brother Cadfael that I started last week and then picked up Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie. This is the first book in the series which were made into the TV series Grantchester. I also picked up an interesting blog post by the author Paul Finch – Daytrips to Terror: the counties of England, which in summary is a horror / ghost story from every county of England by different authors selected by Paul. I thought I’d read a few if I could track them down and will start with my own home county of Hampshire, so will be tracking down The Humgoo by Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes for some Bank Holiday reading.

I’ve been watching some of the nature webcams on CarnyxWild’s YouTube channel. I particularly like the Chichester Peregrines and the Coquet Puffins.

Links.

End Mowing of road verges to create huge wildlife habitats (I wish my local council would be more mindful of this. I’ve tackled them about it a number of times but always get the same answer – it’s a highway verge, so we mow it – their lack of ability to think astounds me).

The Folly of Cumbria’s Plans for a New Coal Mine

Making Concrete Green

Well I think I’ve blabbered on for long enough for this week. I hope you have a great week ahead, particularly if you’re on the half-term break. Whatever you’re up to take care and stay safe!

A Blanket Made of Home Spun Wool TWTW # 127

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Dogs, Fork To Fork, Garden / Allotment, Memories, pupdate, Quick Links, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work

Once again the allotment is wet and miserable, but the weather is due to improve later so I’ll be heading down there then. I did pop in to check everything was alright this morning after a day of strong winds yesterday. No damage to report. While I was there I picked these radish, the warm and wet conditions of the last couple of weeks means that they’ve grown well, and these have a very fiery taste, eye-wateringly so!

I’ve spent a little time on the plot during the week this week, it was perhaps a perfect way to spend an afternoon, I was earthing up the potatoes and sowing some extra broad bean seeds. The weather was sunny and the temperature not too hot.

I’ve also been clearing out the potting shed of the over-wintering plants and converting the space to enable us to grow some tomatoes and cucumbers.

I had to take Wilson back to the vet on Monday, and upset stomach has kept us busy but it wasn’t resolving on it’s own. Things seem much improved now though.

It was also Ruby’s 7th birthday. I pulled together a short montage of some of my photo’s of her over the last seven years.

Reading. I’ve been rereading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for the umpteenth time this week, I enjoy these stories so much but it’s been a while since I’ve read the whole collection. I’m planning to go on to Memoirs and Return in due course but picked up a Brother Cadfael – The Confession of Brother Haluin to read in the meantime. I always learn something new reading these, often having to resort to looking something up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. For example did you know that a “Brychans” is a blanket made of home spun wool?

I’ve also been reading some of George Orwell’s Diaries, these are interesting particularly as you can see how his experiences recorded in them later translated to some of his books. For example his journey to go hop-picking where he spends some time sleeping “rough” is very similar to what ends up being in Down and Out in Paris & London. I hope as I read more of them there will be some similar parallels.

Links. There’s been a lot of coverage of the Queen’s speech and the government’s announcements about tree planting and peatlands. There’s a good summary here. Personally I think the proposals are a bit weak and don’t go far enough, particularly with regards to stopping the use of peat-based compost, with the government holding yet another consultation on this rather than actually taking action based on the decades of evidence that it already has.

There’s also a good ranking of companies by the Financial Times of those reducing their carbon emissions here.

Twenty firms produce 55% of the worlds plastic waste [LINK].

David Quammen on travelling into the past to cover the pandemic [LINK]. I’ve said it before but you need to read David Quammen’s book Spillover to help understand how we got to where we did with Covid-19.

I’ve been sorting through a lot of boxes from my parents loft this week. In one I found a lot of old books from my childhood. There were a lot of Dandy annuals and also my old i-Spy collectors books. It looks like I had a life membership from around 1977 but there no longer appears to be an i-Spy club going in the same format anymore. Great shame as it these and other similar books that really got me into nature and the outdoors and recording all the things that I saw. Something that I am still doing to this day.

Work. A very quiet week workwise, it’s a real struggle at the moment. I’ve got a booking for an evening allotment talk next week and have been making the final arrangements for that and preparing my slides. It’s a Zoom talk and the last one I have in my diary for several months. In fact the next one is supposed to be an in person talk – booked before the pandemic – but whether that will go ahead in that format remains to be seen.

The week ahead is looking fairly busy but with small things of little importance but that are necessary and will take up time. I seem to have weeks like that now and again when I try and get through a lot of tasks that I’ve been putting off or unable to do. It gets them done but makes for a pretty boring week overall. I’ll have to see if I can find a way to put a little bit more life into it!

Whatever you’re going to be getting up to, Stay Safe and Take Care.

New Avian Arrivals TWTW # 126

On By TontowilliamsIn Birds, books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work

I have a sense of Deja vu today, once again it’s Saturday, it’s raining hard enough to mean the allotment isn’t on the cards for the time being and I’m writing a blog post.

THis week the garden has been full of baby fledgling birds. Mostly Starlings and Great Tits. The starlings arrive in big rowdy gangs, a few adults and lots of youngsters. It’s a bit like watching an out of control school trip of teenagers come marauding through town. They arrive at the bird feeders and proceed to strip them bare. It only lasts for a few days and is fun to watch, but the youngsters aren’t all that adept at flying and will crash land all over the garden.

The Great Tits are the opposite. Unless you know they’re there, you’d miss them. Like their bigger brash cousins their flight skills are wanting but they are more prone to “hiding” in the top of a flower pot or under the hedge and waiting for their parents to bring them food.

Throughout this we keep a relatively low profile, the birds have the garden apart from when we spot a cat or a magpie and then we just go for a walk across the garden to deter the interloper.

Already the young Starlings are improving in their abilities and will now visit the feeders without crashing into them on approach and sending them spinning around like a fairground carousel. My guess is the Great Tits are still a few days behind, but hopefully will soon be exploring the wider world.

I also saw my first Swift of the year this week, only one and not where I normally see them so probably an early arrival or perhaps one just passing through on the way elsewhere.

In other news I took Wilson for his latest vet check-up midweek, so far so good in terms of the outcomes but we’re still waiting for the results of a blood test before we decide on next steps.

Allotment. As mentioned above, no allotment this morning but hopefully later on or tomorrow. Since last week however, I finally managed to get down to the plot with the mower and give the paths a haircut, and do some digging after the rains of last weekend. It was perfect timing, particularly for digging with the rain softening up the ground just enough to make it easy going. I’ve just got a couple more bits to do and now things seem warmer, more plants to get out. I’ve been planning where the last few things will go, so in the next few weeks things should start to properly resemble a veg plot.

Reading. Another week of reading little bits and pieces of lots of things. I’ve been reading a little about the life of Ernest Hemingway and separately about the life of adventurer Beau Miles. You may recall that I’ve posted some of his videos here before, most recently about his 90km commute to work on foot or like this one below about sleeping overnight in a 100 year old Gum tree. Both are fascinating, both a little crazy and both worth my time.

Work. It’s been a quiet week workwise, and has enabled me to spend more time walking in the woods and breathing in the world around me a bit more, and thinking about work in general.

I did hear that the bid I worked on over the bank holiday has been put on hold. The potential client is having a rethink about what they want. Sadly this happens all the time and is very frustrating because you’d assume that the client has decided on what they want by the time they go to the market. These things are always undertaking some unpaid work on the assumption that it might lead to a period of paid work, even if you might lose out to a competitor, but when the client pulls them and no one gets the paid work, that is even more frustrating. With work very suppressed at the moment because of the pandemic and it already being a competitive marketplace it’s increasingly apparent that having more than one source of income is important. Working on that.

More than 2 million voters may lack photo id required [LINK]

New planning laws an utter disaster say countryside campaigners [LINK]

Tory Death Cult [LINK]

Which App Will I Need For My Covid Passport [LINK]

I had to update my “new” cars software this week. This involved a lot of toing and froing between the car and the computer with a USB key and following a sequence of button presses that was a little like trying to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time. I think we got there in the end but when did cars become this complicated?

Well that’s it for this week. My diary for the week ahead is looking quite empty, so the world could be my oyster (subject to following whatever covid guidelines are in force). Whatever you have planned, take care care and stay safe.

Mental Rabbit Holes TWTW # 118

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, podcasts, The Week That Was, tv, Video, Wildlife/Nature

Hello again. If last week was a rollercoaster I’m not quite sure what fairground attraction this week has been but it’s had similar ups and downs.

We’ve had a bit more drama with the car when the garage were trying to diagnose the problem and we were looking at a reasonable bill or one that would effectively write the car off. Luckily the gods were smiling and although not cheap we are back on the road again. We’re now still thinking about a “new” car because sadly I think the inevitable terminal bill is coming at some point and at the moment we have some trade-in value. This has bought us back to the question of what that “new” car should be powered by and whether we can afford the upfront costs of electric or not. Watch this space.

Reading. I’ve been continuing and finished Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the painting of the water lilies by Ross King and have started Skylarks with Rosie – A Somerset Spring by Stephen Moss. This is the authors tale of the first Covid lockdown and the wildlife in his local area while he’s confined to that “patch”. I’ve enjoyed the previous books this author has written about his local area more than many of his others so am looking forward to reading this.

I also published a book review of Gone by Michael Blencowe earlier in the week. If you missed it, you can find it here.

In between books this week, I picked up a copy of Kurt Jackson’s Botanic Landscape and was reading the introduction which happens to be written in part by the author Robert Macfarlane. He mentioned Richard Nelson who was an anthropologist who also produced the Encounters podcast which is essentially a series of field recordings of different animals and outdoor spaces. It’s no longer available as a podcast but the archive can be found here. I’d really recommend checking them out. In addition he wrote a couple of books, The Island Within (which is excellent) and Make Prayers to the Raven (equally good).

I’d thought that Richard Nelson had perhaps retired as there hadn’t been a new edition of the podcast for quite some years and by now he would probably be in his 80’s, but I was curious and I did a quick Google, only to find that sadly he had passed away in 2019. Here’s an obituary from the local paper in Sitka Alaska where he lived for many years.

Nels took his last breath listening to a raven’s call.

Sitka Sentinel 4th December 2019

He had quite a considerable influence on me over the years and I admit to be a little sad that not only has be passed away but the news passed me by for over a year. I’ve been listening to a few of the Encounters programmes this week.

Whilst mentioning Robert Macfarlane, he announced this week a collaboration with the notebook producer Field Notes to produce a special edition of the iconic notebooks linked to his iconic book Underland and the books amazing cover produced by the artist Stanley Donwood.

Macfarlane used a number of Field Notes notebooks when he was researching the book and wrote a piece about it for Penguin. I use a lot of Field Notes and normally have one in my pocket, mostly they’re for lists, short notes and bits and pieces I want to remember rather than research for a book, but I do like the special editions that they’ve been producing over the last few years.

Watching. We’ve been working our way through the final season of the French crime series Spiral this week. It’s not been bad, but I think there are some better earlier seasons, and they’ve probably quit at the right time.

If you’re interested in nature at all you might be interested in watching Deer 139 (below) which follows the 85 mile migration of a mule deer and the wildlife biologist who followed it.

Allotment. I’m pretty sure Spring has arrived (and yes I do know today is the equinox) there is a definite change in the weather. My seed potatoes are just about ready to go in the ground, so on my trip to the plot this week I dug the trenches into which they will be planted. Other than last year I have always used trenches for my potatoes; physically this is harder work than other methods but I find it has delivered the best results for me. Basically you dig a trench, then place your potato tubers in the bottom of the trench about 12 to 18 inches apart. Next backfill part of the trench with the soil you dug out, then a layer of compost or manure, then the remainder of the soil from the trench. You want to end up with a slightly raised mound along the length of the trench. Now wait. Once the potatoes start to show through you want to “earth up” the mound with more soil from either side of the trench, repeat this until you have a good mound of soil over the trench. Then leave for around 2 to 3 months depending on the variety, watering regularly. You can add grass cuttings, comfrey leaves and other things the the sides of the mounds to help retain water and provide some extra nutrients. At the end of their time, gently dig with a fork (or tickle with you hands and fingers) to unearth the potatoes.

If you don’t have the space of an allotment you can do something similar in a large sack or pot, put a layer of soil / compost in the bottom, add your seed potatoes and then cover with more compost and earth up as the leaves appear until the sack / pot is full. Water and wait as above and then harvest.

That’s about all that I have for this week. Wherever you are stay safe and take care!