I thought I’d participate in this weeks Sunday Sevens devised by Natalie. Here’s some of the things I filled my week with.
Gardening: David and I spent three hours in the yarden yesterday, it was tiring work. I replanted some bulbs and re-potted my honeysuckle into a bigger pot. While David pruned the jasmin and passion flower, I sowed wildflower, poppy and borage seeds for the pollinators come summer. We also planted some maris bard chits in the hope of harvesting (once again) our own grown potatoes. While we worked, the song of a blackbird was a joy to hear.
Hyacinth multiplying
Honeysuckle
Reading: This March as part of my continued participation in the Year in Books, I have been reading The English Girl by Katherine Webb. I may not be on course for my 40 books in the year but I am managing at least 1-2 books a month.
The English Girl
David Tennant with Olivia Colman
TV: The third series of Broadchurch has recently started on ITV. David Tennant reprises his role as moody detective, Alec Hardy. It’s made me realise how much I have missed seeing him on the small screen!
Walk 1000 miles: My tally for this past week has been 18 miles, bringing my total from 1st January to 12th March to 230 miles. My miles are mainly made up of city walking and exercise. I’m very much looking forward to long summer walks in the countryside which should boost my final total come December.
Eating out: This week has seen me out and about in Liverpool. On Tuesday I met up with my ‘boss’ for a catch up at Leaf, (you can read the post here,) and then on Thursday after a Dr’s appointment I enjoyed a nice tea-cake and coffee with Mum at Costa.
Where there’s tea, there’s hope.
Mum at Costa
Baking: David has taken over the kitchen! He has been baking cakes! He attempted a lemon drizzle cake, the result was a very moist cake! I added fruit with mine, blueberries being my favourite at the moment. 🙂
Lemon Drizzle Cake
So there you have it, my week in pictures. Did you get up to anything fun? I wish you a good week ahead.
It was thanks to Sharon from Sunshine and Celandines, (who informed me of this month’s photo an hour challenge), that I managed to participate. Unfortunately the challenge fell on a Sunday when I had nothing planned. My photos all come from a stay at home day. I hope it’s not too boring for you?!
Photo and Hour – 29th January 2017
My Sunday started at 9am. I feigned sleep while I heard the bed springs creak as David got out of bed, to make the most of the last day of the weekend. I didn’t really want to get up as the day before had been tiring, we had spent five hours repainting the bathroom. It looks fresh and clean now though!
Bathroom
Gym
10am – 11am: A 40 minute session on the treadmill beckoned, then a quick cool down.
Big Garden Birdwatch
Snow drop
11am to 12 noon: I tootled about the yarden before lunch, filling up the bird feeders in preparation for the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. I also celebrated the appearance of a lone snow drop standing proudly!
Blue Faced Parrot Finches
Chocolate Silverbill Finches
12 noon to 1pm: Lunch was spent in the living room with the finches flying from their aviary. David photographed the Blue Faced Parrot Finches playing in a vase of flowers while I took a selfie with the Chocolate Silverbills who tried to pull at my hair.
1pm to 2pm: I sat down with a cafetiere filled with coffee supplied by the RSPB. In anticipation I counted the visiting birds to my yarden. It was an overcast afternoon with drizzle. The usual suspects appeared but sadly no Blue Tits, (they arrived after the count – typical!) My count for this one hour period was as follows:
8 Goldfinches
5 Pigeons – though there were 10 after the count!
4 Starlings
1 Dunnock
1 House Sparrow
1 Robin
A Crow and Herring Gull flew overhead, but couldn’t be included as not in the boundaries of the yarden.
Robin
The Robin sat in the laurel bush looking at me as I counted him. He sat in the bush for the whole hour! It was nice to have a little company. I will be doing the count again on Monday morning just in case there is a better turn out. We usually see a charm of 20+ Goldfinches. It’s just being at the right place at the right time!
H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald
Hans Zimmer, The Classics
2pm to 5pm: It was a lazy afternoon. As I sat reading H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald, I listened to Hans Zimmer’s new album, The Classics. Tracks from The Dark Knight, Superman, and Inception were among my favourites!
5pm to 6pm: This evenings dinner was a salad, here’s a picture of David’s mountain!
Salad Sandwich
Yellow painted nails
6pm to 7pm: I sat listening to Classic FM while painting my nails. Perhaps it’s the dark days of winter that have inspired me to paint them bright colours!
7pm to 8pm: After a hot relaxing shower I pampered my skin with a gift I got for Christmas. This Body Shop body butter really does make your skin look radiant and nourished.
Body Shop Body Butter
My Blog
8pm to 9pm: I finished the day by writing this blog. I hope you have enjoyed a brief foray into my time at home? Not every day can be exciting and given I had a hectic Saturday, this photo an hour Sunday has been very relaxing. I always enjoy the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, even though we only get a smidgen of visitors. Those visitors are good enough for a small yarden! I look forward to next years count as I do every year!
Once again, thank you for stopping by and reading about my day, uneventful as it was. How did you spend your Sunday?
Sharon from the wonderful Sunshine and Celandines suggested the topic for today’s post. I already do a yearly video compilation (watch out for that in the new year), but I thought I would post 12 pictures (or video) that give an impression of the year 2016!
So here goes!
January:
The year began with a little trip to North Wales. On a cold, drizzly day David and I visitedRhosydd Slate Quarryat Cwmorthin. The weather made the scenery even more atmospheric! Who knows how many ghosts wander the rugged, unforgiving slate scattered landscape?
Rhosydd Slate Quarry, Cwmorthin
February:
On another of David’s days off work, we visited the Lake District and took a leisurely stroll along Derwentwater. Little did we know, we would visit the shores of Derwentwater several times in 2016! I had discovered a new hobby!
Derwentwater
March:
With spring just around the corner, March was all about the yarden! I busied myself with planting free packets of seeds that I’d requested from Grow Wild, a Kew Gardens initiative!
April:
The much anticipated Hans Zimmerconcert in Birmingham came and went in a blink of an eye! A good time was had by all that night! Hans himself introduced film classics such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.
May:
In May, David and I returned to the shores of Derwentwater. This time I bravely stripped to my swim suit and slipped over rocky stones to embark on my first ever wild swim! It would be the beginning of many swims undertaken in 2016 in scenery that is nothing but inspiring!
Facing Blencathra
June:
For the second year running I took part in The Wildlife Trusts, 30 Days Wild. This year I packed even more wild into June. We built a pond, harvested our first crop of maris bard potatoes, grew borage for bees, and I even went without technology for a day!
Maris Bard Potatoes
July:
In July, David and I took a day trip to Sheffield to see their herd of colourful elephants.
August:
The year wasn’t all fun days out and wild swimming! There was lots of hard work to be done on the house. With detritus clogging up the space under the hallway and sagging/rotten beams found under the dinning room, the long summer days were filled with the sawing of wood and hours of reconstruction.
Dining room floor
September:
At BrownsLiverpool, I partook in my first, but very rich afternoon tea. The red velvet cake was delicious but the whole afternoon was a sugar overload!
Afternoon Tea, Browns, Liverpool
October:
Autumn became centre stage in all its colourful glory as I participated in Wild October! I watched a garden spider spin its web, relived childhood by kicking fallen leaves, turned 40 and holidayed in the Lake District.
November:
The iconic Weeping Window from the Tower of London poppies came to Caernarfon Castle, just in time for Armistice. The poppies are touring the UK, thanks to 14-18 Now, and are a fitting memorial to the fallen.
The Weeping Window at Caernarfon Castle
December:
Christmas Tree
December is all about Christmas and spending time with family. My little 3ft Christmas tree, adorned with birds and polar bears always goes up on the 1st. Artie once again had an Advent calendar to count the days to Christmas, and this year I managed to get a Christmas wreath for the front door!
So there you have it, my 2016 in pictures!
For some this year has been a harsh year, but for David and I there have been more happy times than sad. Indeed we have made many wonderful memories out of new experiences this year.
I wish you all good health and happiness for 2017! Let’s make it a year to remember!
We finally finished working on the dining room floor! It took all of David’s seven days holiday! He’ll need another holiday to recover! We still have the hall and living room floors to do but I am thankful that I have my kitchen and dining room back!
I felt lost without my kitchen. I put a lot of effort into cooking the evenings’ meal. So when all I can cook is microwave, convenience meals, I feel rather short changed! Also this week was Meat Free Week, (mainly for Australia and the UK), another initiative to get more people to eat less meat. So once I got my kitchen back, I was able to make meals such as a vegetable taigne.
Ingredients and Method, feeds two people
I fried an onion (chopped), 1 pepper (sliced) and a green chilli (chopped) in an oiled pan until softened.
I then added to the pan 2 sliced cloves of garlic, 1 tsp of ground cumin, 1/2 tsp of ground coriander and 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes.
After a minute I tipped in a tin of chopped tomatoes and threw in a handful of frozen peas. I covered the pan to simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Lastly I added a tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed) and cooked for a final five minutes.
I served on a bed of spinach, with two fillets of Quorn chicken (sliced) and crusty bread.
On Sunday we released Hoppy back into the wild. David had managed to get most of the thread from around her leg, it was a painstaking endeavour. However, everyday since, she has been heard pecking at the back door for her dinner, which we dutifully give! What have we begun?
Tuesday was David’s birthday! (‘Happy birthday!’) To celebrate we went to the cinema to see Star Trek Beyond, not the strongest of the three films but an action romp none the less. We were also invited to David’s brother’s house for a chickpea balti cooked by his wife Bilgen. I was touched by the thoughtful gesture that all of the meals were vegetarian! While we waited for the homemade bhajis to cook we were entertained but their 11th month old son.
Troy
Aura
Pet news, and Troy has a fellow patient joining him in the hospital cage. Poor Aura has had a relapse from his earlier condition which almost took his life last year. We found him on the floor of the cage squeaking, so we have administered anti-mite drops and are keeping him warm. Troy continues to be cursed by his inner ear infection, though seems much happier he has a bed fellow to snuggle up too.
The weekend dawned with the promise of warm, sunny weather (ha ha)! So David and I headed off for a walk, but where did we go? Post to follow. 🙂
This weeks Sunday Sevens, (devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins), comes mostly from our home, as David and I have embarked on a major ‘project’. The fortification of the beams that hold up the floors in the dining room, hall and living room. Phase one: so far, as I write this post, very tired and dusty, we have managed to work four days just on the dining room. David is ever the optimist, but I am a bit more realistic. Things never go according to plan, not in a 100+ year old house.
OH! My poor dining room!
Boards down!
Kitchen/dining room floor
Day one was all about taking the boards up and assessing what work needed doing. Day two was spent in DIY shops, too much time for my liking if you ask me! Work proceeded in fits and starts on day three! Day four we managed, (or more truthfully David) to finish work on the two sagging beams and replaced the floor boards.
Phase two: we have now moved our attention to the floor between the kitchen and the dining room. On taking up the boards David found that the job was bigger than we had hoped! It never seems to end!
You wouldn’t have guessed it but I began the week feeling much more chirpier. I baked an apple pie from the harvest of bramley apples we were given. I still have lots of apples left so when work on the house is done (ha ha), I will make an attempt at making miniature pies.
In between work, David and I have been catching some fresh air in the yarden. While I enjoyed the flowers, David played at being the bird whisperer. Firstly we found a pigeon, (Blake I named him), sitting scared in a corner of the yarden. David picked him up, and we saw what looked like puncture wounds on his wing. We tried to nurse him but he passed away a few days later.
Blake R.I.P.
Hoppy’s first surgery!
All week, David has been trying to catch one pigeon that has been seen with string around its foot. On Friday David managed to catch, Hoppy as she’s affectionately named. He gained her trust by hand feeding her and then captured her in a box! (Probably lost her trust then!) She is now resident in our guest room. How long she will stay is anyone’s guess. The thread that is wrapped around her foot has been covered with skin so David has been teasing the fibers daily in the hope of loosening some. Only time will tell.
I on the other hand caught sight of a large white butterfly resting on my buddleia, and my Grow Wild seeds have grown to become plants that have started flowering.
Normal Service now resumes… after my foray into The Wildlife Trusts’ 30 Days Wild.
Though 30 Days Wild may have ended, nature still plays a big role in my daily life. From noticing the birds visiting the feeders, to the plants we have growing in the yarden, there is always something to record. This week my ‘bonus’ plant, the borage has flowered. I call it my ‘bonus’ plant as I did not sow the seeds this year, however their appearance has been most welcome.
I took another walk up the ‘jungle’ that is the alleyway between our houses. I noticed lots of thistles growing, and snapped one happy mason bee enjoying his lunch.
I’d just like to say a big ‘thank you’ to Louise who very kindly sent me a ‘I love wild’ badge from the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, along with some stickers from the 30 Days Wild campaign that I never received due to not ordering a mail pack, (I will next year!) As an aside, there has been so much friendly camaraderie during this years 30 Days Wild, I have come across so many lovely people with insightful blogs. It’s been nice participating.
Let me tell you a story. A few weeks back I was having lunch when I heard a racket at the front door. Someone was trying to push something through the letterbox. I went to open the door and found a red jacketed Royal Mail postman trying to push a thin letter through the door. ‘Having trouble?’ I asked. He then informed me by brandishing his injured thumb, that Artie had sliced him as he delivered the post on a previous occasion. I had hoped it was just a one off event, but then last week, the same happened to another postman! Seeing a pattern develop I hurriedly found a cage protector for the letterbox. I could imagine being put on the Royal Mail’s list of houses to avoid! I do have such a naughty cat!
This week I finished the Mark Edward’s psychological thriller, Follow you Home. I had not read his work before. I only acquired the download due to an email from Amazon saying as I was been on their mailing list, I was entitled to a free download out of a possible three. Two looked like romance, chick-lit novels so I opted for the gritty thriller! Do you know, for a freebie it wasn’t half bad. The antagonist had superhuman strength for a 70 year old and the protagonist seemed a bit of a wimp, not to mention the stereotypical Hungarians, and feeble women, but I enjoyed it none the less.
David has been preoccupied with the house. We have an issue with damp. So Saturday, he took up one of the floorboards to see what was under the house. Lots of rubble was what we found! I shook my head thinking ‘bloody builders!’ David has hatched a plan on creating ventilation under the front door. I hope it solves the problem!
This time last week I was racked with aching limbs and a fever. I haven’t a clue what brought it on! Thankfully, I have recovered. I am more like my self again. I am writing this post with Classic FM playing. I have been enjoying David Mellor’s Light Music Masters show. I am feeling warm and cosy, have a full tummy and a nice glass of Soave to hand (I thought I would try something different)!
It’s been a rather depressing week here in the UK. To escape the dirge from the media I have dived headlong into wildlife and The Wildlife Trusts’s 30 Days Wild. Below is an account of my fourth week, the last full week of June. I have tried to find light within the gloom!
Day 22: Wednesday
On the 30 Days Wild Facebook page, someone had created a collage of rainbow colours taken from nature. I thought I’d try one. All pictures are taken from the yarden. Featuring: antirrhinum, honeysuckle, foxglove, jasmine, campanula, erysimum and lithodora.
Day 23: Thursday
This week has been National Insect Week, an initiative to encourage people to learn more about insects. In celebration of this week, I have been putting out insect pitfall traps in the hope of catching sight of the creepy crawlies that make the yarden their home. Unfortunately on both occasions, the traps were empty, probably because they were not the best traps.
Common Clothes Moth
Cinnabar Moth
Since we have had some fair weather these past few days in the NW of England, I decided to try my hand at a moth light trap. During the day we see many Cinnabar Moths, but I wanted to see what night moths we attract to the yarden. I draped a white sheet over two chairs and positioned a light directly behind and waited for the darkness to deepen.
It was almost 11.30pm when it became dark! I could see many micro moths fluttering but no hawkmoths which I had hoped/wanted to see! As the stars and planets twinkled from the indigo sky, the light trap only attracted one small moth. I think it was a Webbing or Common Clothes Moth!
Though moth sightings were thin on the ground, David and I did manage to have fun in the yarden. David took to photographing the stars and dodgy ‘ghosts,’ while I enjoyed the perfumed scent of the air. Everything feels so calm at night, unlike the madness daylight hours tend to bring.
On clearing up the equipment for the night, as David was in work the following day, a beautiful marbled moth fluttered towards the light. I was half in the house, half out as it danced around the halogen bulb. Sadly we didn’t take a picture, so I don’t know what type of moth it was. I feel I have some unfinished business with moths in the yarden. I hope to maybe fit in another observation session before June is out! Needless to say my dreams were full of moths that night!
Day 24: Friday
The weather this June seems to have conspired against us! Today was another one of those days with sparse sunshine and heavy showers! With having little ‘get up and go,’ I turned to the ‘wild’ cards for inspiration. The card I chose, search for mini wildness, suggested to look for lichens and forests of moss in pavements. So I decided to take a closer look at the liverwort growing in my yarden! (I didn’t know it was liverwort until I started researching it!)
The type of liverwort in the yarden is called Marchantia polymorpha. Apparently they like compacted, wet, acidic soils. Bad luck for my camellia, but the liverwort does look nice as a green base for the plant in its shaded pot. I shall evaluate how the plant is growing and if the liverwort is effecting it in future!
Day 25: Saturday
I usually make lard cakes for the birds come winter time, but as I did this task for last years 30 Days Wild, I shall replicate it this year too!
I used a block of lard (it’s usually cheap in the supermarkets). I then microwaved it for 3 minutes until it was liquid. Threw in handfuls of mixed seed, (you can use peanuts and fruit also.) I then bulked it up with wholemeal flour. I used the suet holders with paper lined templates and scooped the fat mixture into these. I left to solidify. I shall hang them out tomorrow!
Day 26: Sunday
I never thought I was a big technophile but participating in this years, National Unplugging Day, I have discovered I turn to my computer and phone more than I care to. A typical day usually starts around 7am, the alarm on my phone wakes me up! While having breakfast, I scroll through Facebook and look at WordPress. Throughout the working day I communicate with David via email. I text my mum, even though she lives next door! I use the timer on my phone and playlists on my laptop while I am working out. I also use the timer when I am cooking. I have many books downloaded to my Kindle. I turn to Google whenever I have a question. During 30 Days Wild I have been hooked to my blog feed, looking for new posts from fellow bloggers. I wind down to BBCi and music on YouTube. All day I have Classic FM playing in the background!
So, participating in this initiative is going to be both challenging and enlightening!
My unplugged day started at 9.30am. I had asked David when he got up an hour earlier to wake me after 9. I awoke at 9.15am and lay there waiting for my wake-up call. I snoozed and woke up again fifteen minutes later. Still no wake-up call. I was walking down the stairs to make breakfast when David came out of the living room. ‘Oh you’re up!’
‘Yes, where was my wake-up call?’
‘I didn’t know the time,’ meaning he had been busy playing GTA5! I shook my head! I took my breakfast and a hot cup of black coffee back to bed. It was a Sunday after all! While relaxing, I perused the pages of my paperback of Katherine Mansfield short stories. Though I had to fight the urge to reach out and grab my phone!
To counter the boredom I had moved the household chores from Saturday to today. The opposite was done for my session on the treadmill, which I did on Saturday as I use my laptop for motivational music! At 10.30am I climbed out of bed, got dressed and made a start on the cleaning. I dragged Henry around the house and wiped/disinfected surfaces and floors. The whole task took me three hours, with lunch in-between!
I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I baked bread, which I shaped in the form of butterflies and made a very healthy, (and tasty) pan of blind scouse, (vegetable stew). I got David to take pictures of the finished article! I really missed my phone for taking pictures!
There wasn’t much opportunity for communing with the wild, as persistent rain arrived in the afternoon. I watched from the kitchen window the birds visiting the freshly filled feeders, of which there were:
2 House Sparrows (males)
2 Goldfinches
1 very disheveled Blue Tit
1 Dunnock
8 Starlings, (1 was a baby)
Many Pigeons!
I also saw Tree Bumblebees brave the rain to forage from the campanula flowers.
Come evening, I chatted to David while he cooked his lunches for work that week. All day he had been teasing me about not using technology. At one point he even came down the stairs with the laptop, and said ‘aww but you can’t watch!’ Meany! I then relaxed by reading some more Katherine Mansfield stories while enjoying a nice cold glass of pinot grigio.
10pm arrived. I cheered and ‘wooped!’ I had survived a day without a phone or laptop! (It was hard!) A text off my mum was waiting for me saying, ‘welcome back to the technological world!’ It was an enlightening initiative. One I would repeat. I find that technology is so habit forming! It’s so easy to reach out for that mobile device, have information at your fingertips. I do think that it contributes to a general lack of concentration and an inability to face boredom. I already don’t like phones at the dining table. I may encourage David and I to have technology ‘black-holes,’ times when we don’t use phones or computers, in the future.
Did you participate in the day? How did you fill your time?
Day 27: Monday
I felt a bit jaded today. In the afternoon Artie and I popped out into the yarden, to see how the plants were getting on (the lily and passion flower have flowered at last,) and to listen to wild sounds. It also gave me the opportunity to sip in the wild, I indulged in a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit.
Lily
I closed my eyes (but not for long as Artie was on the prowl) and could hear the wind rushing through the trees. A plane thrummed overhead. Goldfinches twittered, pigeons cooed, and a family of house sparrows, babies begging, flew onto a roof nearby. The yarden was filled with bees buzzing softly and the dunnock shrilled his song loudly!
Day 28: Tuesday
To end this post I took inspiration from the 30 Days Wild app. Of the 101 ‘random acts of wildness’ I chose look up at the clouds. I actually did this activity yesterday as today the NW of England is shrouded with increasing cloud and the threat of further rain!
Of the clouds gracing the evening sky yesterday, I noticed cirrus (fair weather cloud) and cirrocumulus, (could precursor rain). It shows how contradictory British weather can be!
Final thoughts:
I really don’t want to mention the EU referendum, the result made me sick to the stomach! However like many, I will make a comment.
At present the air is thick with depression! I avoid the news the best of times, but my Facebook page is full of doom and gloom. It makes one want to reach for the razor blades! But we have to endure, what else is there? (Those razor blades look inviting). We have survived plagues, famine, wars. We will endure this!
Life probably will be tough, for a while, but we will recover, (we have to). Instead of the constant backbiting, we must forego bad blood and look to a future, a future we can only make good if we work hard, together!
There has to be a life outside of the EU. We had one before, there will be one now. Though many of us did not vote to leave, we have to make the most of this decision. Perhaps we can learn from the EU and build a better Britain, with transparent laws, human/worker rights, wildlife protection and a more uniformed distribution of wealth throughout the kingdom? Perhaps I am dreaming, maybe not with this government! I have not followed any of the hype surrounding the referendum. I have felt disgusted that we have been placed in this position! But the unthinkable has happened and we have to deal with it. Not with a culture of blame but one of acceptance and action.
I don’t know why but the whole farce calls to mind a soliloquy in Hamlet. To be or not to be!
Hamlet:To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Only two more days until the end of June! Come with me as I approach the finale of 30 Days Wild 2016 and see what wonders I find!
I can’t quite believe how fast this June is going, too quickly for my liking! Unlike last years 30 Days Wild, I am trying to look beyond the yarden. Taking more days out in the country for long scenic walks and wild swims.
Here’s a summary of week three!
Day 15: Wednesday
The third week of The Wildlife Trust’s 30 Days Wild dawned with a migraine. So I forsook the treadmill and spent a lazy day of watching ‘wild’ webcams. I particularly enjoyed watching the Derby Cathedral peregrines. It had four, close to fledgling peregrine chicks in a nest that had lots of pigeon kill! I also tried to spot the puffins on the Teaching Through Nature website. David had chosen this ‘wild’ card and it was perfect for the type of day it became. I frequently tune into the RSPB’s Lodge webcam to watch garden birds visit the feeders. Today when I logged on, two grey squirrels and a great spotted woodpecker hung off the feeders. It cheered me up!
Day 16: Thursday
I wasn’t feeling very wild today. It was a staying under the bed covers kind of day. So I thought I would ID a plant that was growing in my yarden. I used the Pl@nt.Net app, but the programme was having trouble identifying the leaves. I said to David ‘I’m sure I’ve seen the buds before,’ but on what plant I could not remember! Then I realised! The flower buds are very like borage, though the leaves look very different. I grew borage for the bees last year as one of my 30 Days Wild and it looks like some have seeded themselves! I am not complaining though, they’ll be more food for the bees! 🙂 And I suppose it ticks off another wild task without me even trying! 🙂
Day 17: Friday
Today was a special day. It was a day I got to go wild swimming again!! The weather may have been much grottier than my first time in Derwentwater, but it was a much special day. I got to swim in the waters of my favourite lake, Buttermere! 🙂
After walking three hours alongside Crummock Water and then back towards Buttermere, I finally submerged my weary body under the cool, clear waters of the lake, with Fleetwith Pike as the glorious backdrop.
Today was busy with shopping and visiting family, so I didn’t have much time to do anything ‘wild’. In the evening, I decided to try my hand at identification, with little result. I began by looking at Google images in the hope of identifying the owner of this feather I found at Crummock Water the day before. Then I turned to theForest Xplorer app by the Forestry Commission to discover what type of tree I had hugged.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I am useless at identification. After a good few hours searching, I stopped feeling frustrated, with still no answers! I really need to improve my skills, perhaps I should take a course in the future?
Day 19: Sunday
Today’s ‘wild’ card was, keep an eye out for newborns. Once again I had set my camcorder at the kitchen window overlooking the bird feeders. During the hours recording, it captured a baby Goldfinch visiting the feeders with two adults!
Day 20: Monday
Happy Summer Solstice or Litha. I don’t think I have sat up and watched the Longest Day of the year dawn, if I have in the past it was unintentionally! For one of my 30 Days Wild this year, I wanted to wake up with the city dawn chorus. I decided it would be a perfect way to celebrate the solstice too.
Sunrise was at 4.42am. I crawled out of bed blurry eyed an hour before. I left David in the thrall of Morpheus. With a hot drink in hand, notepad and pen, camcorder and phone, I sat in the guest bedroom with the window open wide and listened to the soft breeze for any birdsong.
It was faint, ethereal almost in the gloaming, but there was the sound of sweet birdsong. I think if I lived closer to a park the volume would have been louder. I tried to record the sound, which I have mixed in a video below.
I found it difficult to identify the birdsong. I had expected to hear a blackbird’s call but I think the predominant song was that of a robin. (I heard the blackbird before I returned to bed.)
Half an hour before the dawn, I saw herring gulls circling in the sky. These birds get up early! Members of the tit family were also calling and flying between the houses at this time.
It was after sunrise, when the birds came to the yarden, that I captured the loudest of the birdsong. It seemed that the lighter the day became the louder the sounds! 5am seemed to be the best time! Goldfinches came to the yarden in charms. I saw a crow fly over the roof. Mr. Dunnock sang so loudly he almost deafened me! Pigeons visited the feeders and magpies cackled somewhere in the near distance. Also at this time a tree bumblebee was heard and seen buzzing loudly around the campanula, bell flowers. If that was not enough for my small yarden oasis, a black cat walked along the wall crying. It jumped into the yarden and went for a long, quenching drink from our pond before jumping back on the wall and walking out of sight!
The sunrise was less eventful than the dawn chorus. The day broke grey and uninspiring. I retired to bed, to a fitful snooze after 5.30am.
Day 21: Tuesday
David went back to work today, so I spent the day looking over the pictures we took during out visit toChester Zoo on Monday. I know I am cheating a little here and its not totally nature or indeed wild but the weather in the morning could have been described as wild so its going into my 30 Days blog.
Chester Zoo do have an initiative called Act for Wildlife. They have conservation projects not only around the world but in the UK too.
We spent a good three hours dodging the showers. We spent over half an hour watching the Aye-aye (Madagascan Lemur), he is so cute, and marveling at the new dinosaurs collection. We both liked Utahraptor with his feathers!
Aye-aye by David Evans
Utahraptor
Summary:
This week has been quite a diverse one! Like last years 30 Days Wild, I am loving every moment! I am continuing to read and enjoy other blogs and I am learning along the way.
With only one more full week left of June, I hope you will continue to follow me as I discover more wildness in my life.
I can’t believe how quickly the first week of 30 Days Wild went and now I am finalising this post at the end of the second week! I am enjoying reading other bloggers’ adventures, and The Wildlife Trusts, 30 Days Wild app, of 101 random acts of wildness, is really inspiring me to learn more about the nature that I see around me.
Day Eight: Wednesday.
Wednesday was World Oceans Day. Highlighting the plight of the seas and collaborating for a better future. I was unable to get to the coast but I still managed to celebrate the diversity of the oceans. It was a day of cooking and baking bread. I shaped these granary loaves into sea turtles (recipe here). I’m no artist but I am pretty happy with how they turned out. What do you think?
In the afternoon I opened the app for the Great British Bee Count. I thought with the amount of bees flying about the yarden that I could do a timed count. I set up alongside a popular plant and started the one minute timer. Sadly, all the bees must have known and only one mason bee made an appearance! Typical!
Day Nine: Thursday.
I turned to the wildness cards for inspiration. I downloaded the cards from the email pack The Wildlife Trusts sent when I signed up for 30 Days Wild. (I wish I had asked for a mail pack as they sent a cute little ‘I love wild’ badge! But such is life!)
I picked the sketch up close card. If my sea turtle bread rolls were any indication, then this activity could go horribly wrong, but I had to try. So I grabbed a piece of paper and sharpened a pencil and sat down to draw one of my favourite garden birds. The dunnock.
Some interesting facts on the dunnock (hedge sparrow):
Has a fine bill due to preferring insects and beetles than seeds.
Is a ground feeder.
As their diets are similar to Robins, can come into conflict if food is scarce, usually losing out to the more aggressive Robins.
Their nests are often parasitised by the cuckoo.
Most are polyandrous (female has more than one male mate) or polygynous (males have more than one female mate).
Day Ten: Friday.
I let David chose today’s ‘wild card’. He chose keep a note of wildlife. List the species that you see from your window. I decided to spend an hour watching the yarden after the evenings dinner. Here’s what I saw.
House Sparrow (x1)
Pigeons (x4)
Bees (many)
Hover flies (many)
Flies (many)
Dunnock (x1)
Goldfinches (x2)
Small white butterfly (x1)
Cinnabar moth (x1)
Spider (garden) (x1)
Snails (x2)
Magpie (x1)
Herring gull (x1)
Day Eleven: Saturday.
During 30 Days Wild, I have also been setting up my camcorder to record for an hour a day. Below is the ‘highlights’ video of the species, mainly birds visiting the yarden.
Day Twelve: Sunday.
With the flowers having fallen, it was time to haul up our potato plants. We have found that it has not been easy to grow our own vegetables. However, David and I were overjoyed that we got some kind of harvest! Below find pictures of us celebrating our maris bard potatoes!
Maris Bard potatoes
For the evening dinner we boiled some of our harvest and had them with a vegetarian roast. They were delicate and creamy. They tasted all the better for having grown them ourselves.
Day Thirteen: Monday.
Sadly the weather has taken a turn for the worse, even this poor buff tailed bumblebee was having trouble today. David rescued her/him from the yarden floor and the jaws of Artie and fed it some sugar solution. After a while it perked up and flew away. Later on I saw another bee busily enjoying an oriental poppy.
Ornamental Poppy
I also managed to do another bee count, in between the showers. Within a minute I got a tally of three!
I decided to write a short creative passage around wild swimming. I didn’t intend for it to become so morbid… sorry!
On a frosty winter’s day. Erin dipped her toe into the water and shivered as the delicious cold touched her skin. She often wondered if her sister had felt the same sensation before she slipped eternally into the dark abyss. Perhaps her depression had steeled her against the cold? Either way Erin gasped as she stepped in.
‘What torments brought you to these waters?’ She thought, finding herself waist deep in the lake. ‘If only I could have helped.’ She swam through the icy water towards a small island, a tangle of tree branches and sandy shores.
During the summer holidays, Erin and her younger sister, Elise used to swim out towards the island. The warm waters suspended their sun kissed limbs as they splashed headlong towards an adventure of exploring over rock and under root.
Erin, felt her teeth chatter as she breaststroked through the choppy waters. Erin didn’t mind, she was a strong swimmer. Elise too, but on that fateful day she chose to succumb. ‘It’s very easy to get cramp,’ their swimming instructor had prophesied. ‘If you don’t respect the water or your ability, tragedy can happen.’ Erin swam on until a man’s voice from the lakeside beckoned tensely.
‘What are you doing?’ She turned, noticing her funeral garb heaped on the shingle shore. The waters caressed her breasts, stroked seductively between her legs. She saw Josh standing at the lakeside. In his hand he held the length of his black tie. His shoes discarded.
‘I’m okay!’ Erin called through the drizzle. She looked at Josh as she treaded water. She felt the love Elise had felt for him. Watched as he disregarded his mourning clothes and lunged into the lake. His arms were strong as he crawled towards her, while she felt cradled in the waters embrace.
Erin recalled the last time she and Elise swam together in the lake. Elise had been no older than eleven. They both lay on their backs looking up at the blue cloudless sky. Swallows skirted over the water catching flies, and laughter tinged the air with joyful exuberance. Elise had been so full of life. Her death remained inexplicable.
‘Come back to shore.’ Erin felt Josh’s arms embrace her. They were becoming shrouded in a mist that rolled down from the mountains. ‘You’ll get hypothermia.’ Josh reached for Erin’s hand. They swam alongside each other back towards the shore.
Erin’s body ached with the cold as she walked out of the water. She looked into Josh’s dark eyes that searched her face for a reason. ‘I just felt like a swim.’
‘In this weather?’ She felt Josh’s warm lips on hers. ‘I don’t want to lose you too.’ He threw his jacket over Erin’s shoulders before hurrying her towards their hotel where Elise’s wake was winding down. With luck, Erin’s disappearance had gone undetected and they could creep inside unseen.
A warm light flooded from the hotel doorway, and bathed their heads in a golden glow. Josh took Erin’s hand in his and they both walked into the light.
Summary:
I have taken things much slower this week. Perhaps a bit too slow. Most days haven’t been really ‘wild.’ I have enjoyed doing the creative activities, like molding bread into turtles and even drawing the dunnock, I found relaxing.
I wonder what discoveries week three of 30 Days Wild will uncover? At some point, I am hoping to go looking for moths and perhaps a wild swim will feature, who knows? I hope you will join me in my forthcoming adventures…
Again, I wasn’t going to write a Sunday Sevens post (devised by Threads and bobbins) but I thought ‘what the heck!’ I may as well document my mundane life.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent, second series of the BBC’s adaptations of the Shakespeare history plays. (The Hollow Crown, The War of the Roses.) Culminating in the final film, Richard III. After watching Henry 6th part two with my hands over my face in horror at Benedict Cumberbatch’s sublime performance as Richard, Duke of Gloucester. I eagerly anticipated his performance in Richard III. It was engaging viewing! At first Richard nicely spun a plot to gain the crown but after being crowned king, his mind soon unraveled. He became paranoid and fearful. Quite rightly so, with the future Henry 7th waiting in the wings in France. The film climaxed with Richard’s death at Bosworth.
Mid week, I made a short visit to Liverpool’s Central Library. I came back with my haul of wild swimming books. I also came back with S J Watson’s second novel,Second Life. It wasn’t a particularly nice book to read. I kept thinking that the main protagonist was rather stupid! She kept saying she had too much to lose, her child and husband and yet she continued with a rather violent affair! It wasn’t my cup of tea. I only read it as I had quite enjoyed his first novel,Before I go to Sleep.
This week happened to be the fourth anniversary of David and I receiving the keys to our house! I was going to celebrate by baking a cake, but I decided it would be cheaper to buy one already made, so I bought a Victoria sponge!
Thursday poured with rain all day! It was a rather gloomy day. I was in the kitchen, making my lunch of curried red lentils when I noticed a male house sparrow on my feeders. I took a closer look and there was a baby sparrow alongside him. The baby looked quite independent, but kept begging for food off the adult. I got my camcorder out and filmed the below.
I’ll finish today’s roundup with a picture from the yarden, of an aquilegia. This plant has grown readily in the yarden for three summers now. Long may it continue to grow!
‘Take time to be thankful for everything that you have. You can always have more, but you could also have less.’ Mohd Uved
This week I finished the Mark Edward’s psychological thriller, 
It’s been a rather depressing week here in the UK. To escape the dirge from the media I have dived headlong into wildlife and 
I can’t quite believe how fast this June is going, too quickly for my liking! Unlike last years 30 Days Wild, I am trying to look beyond the yarden. Taking more days out in the country for long scenic walks and wild swims.
I wasn’t feeling very wild today. It was a staying under the bed covers kind of day. So I thought I would ID a plant that was growing in my yarden. I used the 
I can’t believe how quickly the first week of 
I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent, second series of the BBC’s adaptations of the Shakespeare history plays. (
