This And That

 

 

At long last we have some proper Winter Weather. It was -4 when I drove over to the farm this morning to collect some of the cover crop to check for nitrogen levels, and -1 when I drove home a couple of hours later. The pots (buried 90cm down in the Chalk) have only just started yielding water- did you know that the average date for drainage to start in the UK is November 27th? Before that the soil moisture deficit is too high after the summer months (how fascinating will I be at dinner parties). There is still ice in the shady bits in the garden and the birds have been keeping up a non-stop flow too and from the feeders all day and I am eating far too much :o)

Pop had a V.E.T. visit at lunch for a booster. She is Mrs Brave when Teddy is there too, effecting a kind of casual insouciance that compares favourably with Ted's shakes and shivers and fooled me thoroughly last time, but today she was on her own and it was a Very Different Matter. She scrabbled up on my lap the second I sat down and remained there with her tail firmly wedged under her bottom, growling at everyone who walked through the door. The humour aspect was largely derived from each person looking round for the expected enormous dog and then grinning broadly when they realised the source of the ferocious noise was a small, scruffy terrier who only measures about ten inches at best when she's standing. She was fine and told Ted all about it when we got home. She came out running with me through the gloaming this evening so I don't think the experience has left her all that emotionally scarred.

We are having Duck for supper (special 1/2 price offer at Waitrose). I haven't cooked it before and when I googled it everyone said 2 1/2 hours. This seems way too long to me, so I'm betting on 90 mins. If you know different and happen to read this before about 7pm please correct me :o)

Before I go, I urge you all to pop over to Leanne's blog (if you don't already read it) and take a look at her photos of Goose Barnacles washed up on the shore of her beautiful beach in Cornwall. I've never seen them before and have been thinking about them all day. They are wonderful things. On a similar theme (because you'll find Leanne talks about birds a lot too), the two books above are well worth a read. I've learnt masses from both and they are written in a very accessible and easy to digest style. The Sparrowhawk's Lament was only published last year so all info is bang up to date. It has a chapter for each of the fifteen breeding UK birds of prey with info on their ecology and conservation status.

Right, the Duck is calling and the fire needs lighting and there is a mountain of washing in the airing cupboard to sort and distribute among various bedrooms before we all run out of pants and (even more urgent) there are two hungry dogs looking at me telling me it is past their supper time and what on earth do I think I'm doing blogging when I should be feeding them....?

Hope all are well,

CT :o)

 

 

I have been Very Brave

 

We took the boys to London for the day yesterday. I was born in Westminster and I do have a soft spot for the Capital, but I think you'll agree I am not an Urban Girl by any stretch of the imagination. I break out in Hives if forced to spend too long in Romsey for heaven's sake (population 13,000), so a day in London is usually plenty for me.

The weather was perfect- cold, clear and bright and the journey up (Basingstoke station to Waterloo, plus an underground trip which usually involves at least one person's ticket being lost and/ or chewed up by the machines that let you through and then a panicked race to find a guard to open it manually) ran smoothly.

Usually, when we go to London, M doesn't let me out of his sight because he knows I am likely to get a) lost or b) frightened, so I rather astonished both of us by stating my intention boldly of taking myself off to Libertys on my own. I did and I didn't get either a) lost or b) frightened and even more: I enjoyed it.

We'd gone up so F could ensconce himself in the Celts in Art exhibition which is currently on at the Brit Mus. L (not a fan of museums or Celts) decided the allure of Foyles bookshop was strong enough to pierce the otherwise all-encompassing Sloth Of The Teen, and actually got out of bed and was dressed before we needed to leave at 10am. He didn't manage to resist the temptation of an enormous bag of maltesers at the train station however (which at £2.95 were clearly aimed at desperate mothers who'll pay anything to ensure a peaceful train trip with their offspring). Some of these were consumed on the train in a post-breakfast-dip, and the rest sometime between lunch and the return journey. This resulted in the inevitable stomach ache accompanied by a piteous plea to remove the bag from his sight and a heartfelt statement of intent never to stuff so many chocolates in in one short afternoon again (which will last until the next time). Despite the chocolate binge, he spent four happy hours absorbed in five floors of books, came home with a new one and  read through the entire catalogue of Marvel Comics. M spent an hour with F at the exhibition and came out Moste Impressed at the intricacies of Celtic Artistic Creation, before joining me for a whizz round the National Gallery (which was lovely- I can't think why we don't go more often. I could sit and gaze and gaze and gaze at those wonderful paintings for hours), but before we did that I took myself off to Liberty's.....alone.

You can see the results of my (very abstemious I think, considering) purchases in the pics above. I am making aprons to sell at the Village Christmas Fayre (planning ahead- and is that the first mention of the C word this year? If so I'd like a prize please) at the mo with Phyllis but very much doubt I will use my Liberty fabric for those. I will make one for myself instead :o)

Liberty fabric is both gorgeous and expensive, so three metres was my limit (plus a small splurge in the haberdashery on buttons, pins and needles which I put on a separate bill, allowing me to pretend I'd actually only spent twenty quid). The advantage of flying solo was that there were no grumpy children or fidgety husband hurrying me along so I was able to spend nearly two whole hours wandering ecstatically among the bolts in a fabric-induced daze taking my time and thoroughly enjoying the whole experience.

I fell asleep on the train on the way home and only woke up when M nudged me and said we're back in Basingstoke. Apparently, most of the carriage had fallen asleep too, leading me to surmise that it was comprised of fellow country bumpkiners for whom the exertions of the Big Smoke had proved a little too much.

Back to reality today with non-stop house work and two smelly, scruffy muddy dogs who both needed baths. Pop did two poos on the floor in retribution- one was obvious and was swiftly cleaned up and the floor thoroughly dettoled, the other was less obvious and got trodden on and carried halfway round the house before anyone realised :o(

Hope all are well?

CT :o)

Could Lynx Be Back In GB In 2016?

The flora and fauna of the British Isles has been shaped by people for the last 7000 years. Before that, it was the great ice sheets that defined what was here and what wasn't. When the ice retreated and before the people came, the sea decided, by rising up and creating the Islands we call home today. What was here before we were cut off from the Continent remained here; what wasn't didn't make it. This is why there are no snakes or moles in Ireland but there are in England, Scotland and Wales- they couldn't move fast enough to colonise Ireland before the waters rose and separated the two land masses.

Right from the time people began to arrive here they altered the landscape. First by hunting grazers and apex predators like Aurochs, Elk, Bear and Wolf into extinction or near-extinction, then by cutting down vast tracks of the Wildwood to create fields for crops and grazing animals, and finally by bringing new species in. 

By the time the Iron Age arrived the UK has lost 50% of it's woodland cover; by the time the Normans were here that figure had risen to 85% and by the start of the 20th century it stood at 95%. Now we're back up to something like 13% woodland cover, although of course you can't replace an Ancient Woodland with a new one (despite what Boris thinks) and hope to get anything like the biodiversity back that you've lost (at least not in the short term).

This changing land use was driven by the need to provide resources to meet the demands of a growing population. The more people on the Islands, the greater the pressure on the land. It's the same problem we face today. How to balance the needs of people with the needs of The Wild (but I would argue that the two aren't as different as some might think).

Unfortunately, as soon as humans alter the landscape they effect change in the ecosystems they rely on to provide their food, water, air, temperate regulation and soil. And invariably this change isn't positive. Ecosystems are the sum of their parts: remove or unbalance one element and the whole thing destabilises.

The reduction in numbers/ ultimate removal of large grazers and the apex predators who fed on them during the Neolithic created a cascade effect in the land that was felt right down to the smallest plant at the bottom of the food chain. A cascade effect we're still feeling today. 


The list of species eradicated here by people is significant. Wolverines disappeared from Britain in 6000 BC. Aurochs went in 1000 BC. Elk in 1500 BC. Brown Bear in 1000 AD, Lynx 400 AD, Wild Boar 1300 AD, Beaver 1300 AD and Grey Wolf 1680 AD. And of course we're still losing species today. Smaller species and so perhaps less immediately obvious to most people as a result, but they are going nevertheless, and at a faster rate than at any point in the last 7000 years. I bought a butterfly ID book a few weeks back that was published in 1967. At least two of the species listed there are seen no more on these shores and The Duke of Burgundy butterfly, once a common woodland species, is now on the red list as endangered and near extinction.


It isn't just the removal of species that has unbalanced the way our ecosystems work. We've also brought things in that really haven't helped us. 
When the Normans arrived here in 1066 they introduced rabbits and fallow deer. Rabbits are prolific grazers that prevent plants from growing. On a SSSI not far from here, baby Juniper trees have to be protected from rabbits inside wire mesh cages if they are to have a hope of surviving. Juniper, a native species, is not doing well here. It needs all the help it can get. On another site, rabbits nibble down plants crucial to Chalk-specialist Blue butterflies (think Kidney Vetch, Horseshoe Vetch and the Small and Adonis Blues). These butterflies can't exist without these specific plants, so too many rabbits = bye bye flutters.

But while rabbits are a nuisance, it's deer that have become the more significant and wide-reaching problem. Every managed woodland I know here locally has a stalker who works at certain times of the year to control deer numbers, but they are losing the battle.

Deer eat their way through new saplings and our woods are not regenerating as a result. Most species require a mosaic of habitat heights and ages to flourish. A wood where everything is old and getting older does not provide that and many species that rely on new or young trees (Wood Larks, Black Caps, Dormice, Sparrowhawks) are either predated more easily as a result, or are pushed out of their optimum habitat and forced to compete with better adapted species for new niches where they have lower chances of survival.

Deer trample and consume woodland flora too. Three of our four species of wood spurge have declined to the point of virtual extinction over the last hundred years and 1% of our vascular plants and ferns have gone in the last 300. This is not solely due to deer of course, but they are part of the problem. And the reason deer are such a problem is that we've removed the apex predators who would otherwise have controlled their numbers for us.

In the 1870s, the Victorians introduced Grey Squirrels to parkland. Greys out-compete the native reds which are now hanging on in a few areas of the country. They also destroy trees by stripping them of bark. I've seen this in action in an ancient woodland near here and believe me, they are very effective at killing trees. There are natural predators still here who will take squirrels, notably Goshawks and Pine Martens. Or they would if we hadn't hunted both species to near-extinction during the 19th Century (largely because they were seen as a threat to Game birds) and then took most of their habitat away in the 20th. Pine Martens are pretty much absent from England these days with fewer than one hundred believed to still be here. I've never seen one.

The concern over woodland regeneration, habitat quality and ecosystem services (the provision of food, water, air, waste removal, soil etc) has led to a huge debate among conservationists in recent years on the benefit/ importance/ likelihood of reintroducing apex predators and keystone species to the UK.

Part of the problem is that we've become increasingly isolated from the natural world and as a result, we have no proportionality in our thinking when it comes to The Wild. People scream when a hover fly comes near them. Hover flies are harmless. People 'ewww' when they see a beetle, little realising that a world without beetles wouldn't function- they clear up a vast amount of the detritus that would otherwise expand and be a perfect vector for disease. Similarly slugs. Gardeners reach for slug pellets which poison hedgehogs and kill birds, but did you know that not every species of slug eats your plants? Many of them feed on garden rubbish, being adapted for decaying matter not fresh. Two years ago I overheard a father telling his daughter that bats were birds without eyes, and when I wrote a post about the rats in our garden a while back people expressed the opinion that if I didn't 'do something' about them (ie put down poison) they'd be in the house before I could blink. They weren't of course, but it is a good example of the hysteria and lack of understanding or proportionality people increasingly have about The Wild.

The real problems happen when the balance that nature is so good at maintaining gets knocked awry by people. Yes, too many rats in your garden isn't good in the same way too much of anything isn't. Yes, they carry disease (but so too do hedgehogs, birds and deer and no one screams about killing them indiscriminately) and if outdoors food is scarce and they can find it indoors they may come in to your house. But rats have their own predators who will keep those numbers in check, provided we haven't removed the habitat they need to operate in or so degraded it that it is impossible for them to use it.

So we're left with reintroductions to try and put right some of the damage that we've inflicted onto our land.

We've just about been able to hold on to the wild populations of Beaver in Devon and Scotland (what Beavers do for river ecology is worthy of a post all of its own, particularly with all this rain and recent flooding) but most of the Wild Boar who escaped from farms in recent years have already been shot. There are some populations left but not many. It seems highly unlikely that wolves will come back, because the perception among people of them being blood-thirsty monsters who hunt people is strong, if misguided. But there is a chance that we'll get Eurasian Lynx back.

The Lynx Trust is seeking to gain permission for a five-year trial reintroduction in parts of Scotland, Northumberland and Cumbria, following the hugely successful pattern previously established in Sweden and Norway. The incentive for the Government, who don't seem to be able to grasp the critical nature of the situation our wild things (and so ultimately we) are in, is financial: eco-tourism around Lynx is HUGE and would pull in millions to the areas ear-marked for them.

Lynx are not predators of people; they hunt deer, specifically roe deer but they will take other species of deer too (including the native Red). Farmers are worried they will take sheep, with the NFU Scotland citing examples from Norway where thousands of sheep and lambs are predated every year (although it should be noted this figure includes predation by wolves), but the reality is that the sheep predated in Norway were kept in woods, and we don't have a strong tradition of keeping sheep in woodland in the UK. We're also only talking about a handful of Lynx being reintroduced, at least initially. Each Lynx consumes 1-2 kg of meat a day on average. Sheep weigh between 45-100 kg and roe deer 22kg. Livestock predation from wolves has been reduced by running dogs with the herds (plenty on the internet about it if you want to check it for yourself). If Lynx did prove to be a problem to sheep (if, as the NFU states, we start running flocks in woodland for eg), perhaps this is a potential solution to that problem?

Lynx are woodland hunters who prefer to lie in wait in deep cover and ambush their prey from above. They are secretive and nervous of people and so are rarely seen. They are also crepuscular (hunting at dawn and dusk) which keeps them out of people hours by and large.

I would like to see them back in this country. I think we need them. I think we can find a way to make it work while safe-guarding farmers' livelihoods. We certainly need to do something to rebalance the scales after more than 7000 years of tipping them in what we thought was our favour, but which, this century, we are at last realising wasn't.

What do you think?

CT.

 


 

 

Weekend Round Up- By Ted

Well, you'll all be relieved to know that I am Feeling Better. I still have an unsightly sore patch on my neck (right where my collar goes so going out for walks is hard at present, unless we go across the fields when I don't need it), but I am back on Rat Chasing Duties and have managed to bark at one or two pigeons too, so it isn't all bad.

Mum has changed our food so we don't have horrible dried biscuits anymore. Now we have wet food from a tin twice a day which we both absolutely love. The only bad bit about it is that it only turns up in our bowls at breakfast and dinner time. I am working on this, but so far I haven't succeeded in working out the spell that keeps the bowls magically full at all times. I knew the one for biscuits, but the one for wet food is proving difficult to crack.

Here is a picture of our new breakfast and dinner menu. Mum couldn't see why you'd want to see it. Honestly, after all the photos of people food she puts on here! Of course you want to see it, don't you? Yum! I mean, what's not to like. Right?

And here is one of us enjoying eating it. Double Yum!
 

Wet food is meant to help stop the itching. I'm not sure why Poppy gets to eat it too  because she isn't itchy At All and there is nothing wrong with her neck. The only thing she gets is her Funny Turns in the summer and spots on her tummy from nettles, but as it's winter now she isn't even getting those.

You can tell she's fine because she's torn the tail off my Christmas Tree. She hasn't found the Squeak yet though. Ha Ha! :o)

 

 
Yesterday, Mum and Dad bought a new kitchen. They got it in a big shop so Poppy and I weren't there from a man who reassured them that he wasn't a salesman, despite his badge saying "salesman". Mum said he was very nice, even though he talked a lot about going free diving stripped, which both fascinated and unnerved her. Mum is Very Excited about the new kitchen, mostly because the oven has a setting for cakes, but also because Granny says it's the first new kitchen she's had in 43 years.

Today we have been at Granny's house because it is her birthday. Mum made her a smartie cake, which they didn't even eat because Mum's niece had also made a cake and everyone ate that instead, as well as the plum pudding Mum has made, and by the time they'd eaten all of those everyone was stuffed, so the smartie cake has come home with us. Mum says this is a Good Thing because it hasn't cooked properly in the middle, which is further evidence that she needs a new kitchen. Apparently.

I have my eye on it.

Dad has had to do a Mercy Dash up to Norfolk to see a very poorly relative. He left at 6.50am. Mum lay in bed and read all your blog posts and we jumped up and down thinking breakfast had come early. Because of this, when we got back from Granny's Mum went marching off down the lane on her own carrying a big stick and wearing a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves and a determined expression. 

Poppy and I thought she looked Very Funny Indeed in her wellies and woolly hat with washing up gloves on. We gave each other the Eyebrows Raised look that we've seen L doing when he thinks Mum can't see him, and wondered what on earth she was going to do. 

When she came home an hour later she told us she'd been unblocking the drain at the bottom of the lane which has been flooded all week. This, apparently, is because she is fed up with waiting for the council to come and do it and if you want a job done, do it yourself.  

She told Pop they'd now be able to run without getting drenched feet and legs. Poppy is happy because, although she doesn't mind running through water, this bit was so deep she would either have been swimming or running underwater if she tried.

We weren't allowed to go and help because the flood was on the road and Poppy is silly with cars.

To be fair, Poppy is silly with most things (as we all know). She isn't allowed in Granny's garden unsupervised at the moment because she jumps the fence on to the road. 

Silly. 

You see? 

I have tried again and again to give her the benefit of my own wisdom, but does she listen? Nope.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I hope you are all well and enjoying Pigeon-Watcing/ Rat-Chasing/ Skunk-Avoiding activities, depending on where you live.

Best Regards,

Ted (and Poppy) :o)

Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus

Before anyone states the obvious, I realise none of the birds above are actually Sparrowhawks. What connects them (apart from the fact they were all in my garden this afternoon) is that they are all Sparrowhawk prey.

I'm a bit obsessed with Sparrowhawks right now, having spent the week researching their ecology for an assignment for college. As a result, I have fallen quite a lot in love with them.

 

Not my photo sadly (how chuffed I would be to take something like this).

Persecuted relentlessly throughout the 19th Century by the Game Industry and then poisoned into virtual eradication by DDT, Dieldrin and Aldrin organochemicals during the 50s and 60s (which caused their egg shells to thin to the point they were not viable for breeding), Sparrowhawks have had full protection under UK law since 1971 and their numbers have recovered. Although you'd be forgiven for not knowing it.

How many of you have seen a Sparrowhawk? 

I can count on one hand the number of times I have, and all of these have been in the last two years when I wasn't looking for them. At each occasion they have been so intent on the hunt that my presence was of secondary importance to it. In fact, Sparrowhawks can be so single-minded when it comes to the catch that they have been known to fly into buildings, cars and pylons, sometimes killing themselves in the process. 

Along with the Kestrel, they are the UKs commonest diurnal raptor, but unlike the Kestrel Sparrowhawks are rarely seen, spending almost all their lives in cover and appearing like a bolt of lightening in the open only when about to snatch their prey, so I consider it an absolute privilege to have had my four close encounters with them.

The most recent was three nights ago. I was outside the front of the house watching one of our male Pipistrelles hunting midges through the gloaming. I was admiring the weave and glide of his wings as he twisted through the air above my head and thinking how lucky we are to have these two boys roosting in the eaves of our house, when out of nowhere and so fast had I blinked I'd have missed it, a female Sparrowhawk swooped through the air and grabbed him. In one swift and graceful arcing movement, she appeared, snatched the bat from the sky and disappeared.

M who was with me missed it, despite my squeak. One minute the bat was there, a tiny black shape in the air, the next the sky was empty.

Two summers ago I was eating my lunch on our patio when a noise like a sheet of paper being ripped cleanly and quickly right next to my ear made me start and, again in a split second, I caught the flash of a Sparrowhawk as it shot past me in a silent 50kmph dive. From the front when tucked into a dive they are virtually invisible, having small heads and narrow wings. This gives them an advantage in the hunt. Most small songbirds simply don't see them coming until it is too late. Plus they fly at less than 35kmph, so the hawk has the speed advantage in a straight dash. But small birds are remarkably well-adapted to announcing the presence of a predator when they get the chance to, and the second they do the entire space is cleared of all small birds as they dive for cover as one. Interestingly, swallows, pigeons and waders are faster flyers than Sparrowhawks. Pigeons- can you believe it? I'll have to tell Ted :o)

Last Spring, walking the dogs through the woods I was nearly flown into by a female. She erupted from the undergrowth with a blackbird clutched in her feet and a ferocious expression of complete concentration on her magnificent hawk features. I found myself shivering, as I looked for a split second into those intelligent, single-minded, bright yellow eyes before she twisted her wings to avoid crashing in to me and disappeared back into cover in complete silence. 

Those kinds of close encounters with wild hawks do something to you. It felt like I'd stepped in to a private world, a place usually hidden from humans, somewhere we walk past but can't see in to and are precluded from. A blessing from The Wild. I was mindful of it and walked like I was under a mild bewitchment, unable to shake it off for most of the rest of that day. I can still recall it: the whole thing which lasted seconds has been imprinted in my memory in slow motion.

My only other sighting was from the car. We'd pulled up at a junction last autumn and two birds fell out of the sky right in front of us, another female Sparrowhawk this time with a pigeon pinned underneath her. As soon as they hit the ground she stuck the claws of both feet into the bird (they have an extra long central toe for this purpose) and spread her wings out and down in a tent shape which I have since learnt is typical of the way these hawks protect their prey from competitors.

Male Sparrowhawks are smaller than the girls, to enable them to hunt in summer forests when the canopy is thick. They take no active role in raising the young directly, but keep the female and then later the babies supplied with food (usually small passerines, or songbirds). The females hunt larger prey like magpies, jays, pigeons and thrushes, so you'll sometimes see them hunting in more open habitats. They'll also take male Sparrowhawks if they can! 

Sparrowhawks are not colonial birds but they are mate-faithful and monogamous, sometimes staying together for years (they live for between 5-10 years, although many male chicks die in the first year). They prefer to nest in young conifers woodlands where there isn't too much open space (this is driven by fear of Goshawks who inhabit older, more open woodlands and who predate Sparrowhawks). With the demise of Goshawks and Pine Marten (their other main predator), Sparrowhawks are now mainly at threat from Tawny Owls who predate their nests, and from habitat destruction. Ironically, re-afforestation policies that support the rotational management of conifer plantations every 40-60 years create ideal habitat for the Sparrowhawk, even if not much else gains by them.


The easiest way to find a Sparrowhawk is to look for their plucking posts- usually an area on or near to the ground where a pile of feathers has been left. These are re-used and are often sited not far from the nesting or roosting site. They do roost in broad leaved woods as well, but their absolute preference is for young, large, conifer woods in valley bottoms, so check your maps and take a walk out into the countryside and see if you can find any signs. If you're fortunate enough to see one you'll know you're one of the few who has.

Hope that was interesting/ useful? And that all are well?

CT :o)

ps- Ted still getting better. Poppy still being ultra well-behaved (which makes us all suspicious!)

Sewing Club, Siskins, Croquet In The Rain & An Update On Teddy

Three days back into the Old Routine and the holidays seem a distant memory. I'm already snowed under with assignments for college which I have made a start on and am plodding through, but today I rebelled and took a day out for Sewing Club at Ma's house.

She'd given me some old cushions a while back and I found some farmyard material in the sale at C&H over the weekend that I thought would go perfectly with them, so this morning I whizzed them up with the aid of Phyllis (sewing machine, remember?) zips and all and I'm pleased with the result. I am fully expecting M to utter the immortal words why do we need more cushions? when he gets home, but I will choose to ignore him :o) As I also made him a cover for his netbook and a zipped bag to store mobile phone/ keys/ office card in when he's cycling to and from work I don't think he's in any position to over-grumble, do you?

Teddy is getting better (thank you for all your get well messages), but he is driving me mad in the process. He HATES taking his pill (twice a day and, now that he's wised up to the fact it was being smuggled in via cheese, involving an ungainly struggle with his jaw, which it turns out he is capable of clamping tight regardless of any treat incentives on offer) and he HATES having his neck dressed twice a day and bright pink sticky V.E.T. bandage applied. Poppy tries to help by offering moral support and then licking the exorbitantly expensive manuka honey I'm treating the eczema with when she thinks I'm not watching, or worse by thieving the cheese bribe I've laid by to make friends with Ted again afterwards. 

As a result, Teddy is giving me the Cold Shoulder Proper, while seeking out every other member of the family to tell his tale of woe to :o( He's been taking himself upstairs (highly illegal) and hiding in F's bedroom, presumably also in an attempt to avoid me and today at sewing club it was Granny he went and chatted to when he had something important to say. Poppy sat on my lap and blew a raspberry at him, which didn't improve the situation, and then Dougal (one of their Westie Cousins) came in and peed on one of the new cushions, just as I was expressing the hope that no one would.

The plus side of that was that I found out quicker than expected that the newly-constructed cushion covers do withstand the attentions of washing machines :o)

In Other News, I've been busy chucking out the final remnants of the cold Uncles Charles infected everyone with on Boxing Day. It's been a whopper- Grandad is on antibiotics and croaking like a frog, Uncle Peter has a throat so sore he can't even swallow water, Uncle Charles has lost his voice and is also on anti-b's. The same day as the Great Passing On Of Germs, Uncle Charles' wife fell out of bed after taking two sleeping pills and didn't realise until she woke on the floor the following morning black and blue, and my ma in law slipped in some turkey fat and bruised her coccyx. M likened the day to Lockerley Village's version of And Then There Were None, as we steadily dropped away stricken one by one like flies.

I finally shook mine off yesterday by losing my temper with it and going for a Very Fast Run with Pops. I figure it had reached Kill Or Cure Time. I left Ted at home because it was dusk and I didn't fancy managing two dogs in the semi-dark on a country lane where cars drive past too fast. Of course when we got home I got the Double Cold Shoulder for not taking him too, but on the plus side the cold has shifted and I did also hear a Tawny Wol calling from the Oak as we ran beneath it, which was Rather Lovely. I imagined it was Bop and felt all warm and sentimental.

While it has at long last got colder here, Hellebores are blooming in the garden, as is the Camelia and the Daphne is also in Full Swing. Down the lane daffodils are nodding and I saw snowdrops last week too. The Siskins have returned in a great flock, twittering away in the tops of the Alders, although one beautiful male did also grace the garden feeders. 
Today's weather has been lovely - bright and clear - but more typical recently has been copious quantities of rain. M and F played croquet in waterproofs in downpours over the weekend (croquet is a vicious game the way they play it, involving an absolute determination to knock each other out (figuratively, although with those mallets and their competitiveness I'm never too sure) so I steer well clear). Despite the torrential downpours, the light is slowly returning and running last night was possible between 4.30 and 5 without over-reliance on a head torch. It's always good when you get that sense of the light coming back :o)

Right, off to dress Teddy's wound AGAIN and apologise AGAIN and apply a new pink bandage AGAIN, and then quite possibly make up a large G&T (again) while cooking tea.

Hope all are well?

CT x

Not A Great Start To My New Year- A Post By Ted

Hello Friends Around The World. I am not feeling too chipper today. On Wednesday, I had a Funny Turn at Granny's and when Mum checked me over she found a small cut on the back of my neck. It was washed and dressed with honey and beeswax (these are Mum's cures for everything) and we all thought that was that.

Only then it started itching. 

So I scratched it. 

Of course.

And then it Got Worse.

Mum trimmed the fur, washed it again with salt water and dressed it again with her special homemade beeswax salve, and - how embarrassing is this - last night I had my back paw wrapped up in a sock and taped to my leg to stop me scratching it! I whimpered all last night, I can tell you (mainly because it was itching and I felt uncomfortable, but also because Mum and Dad's bedroom is right above ours).

This morning, I have been to the V.E.T.  

I can hardly believe it.  It's only the second day of the year for heaven's sake and already I've had to see the V.E.T. And it was an emergency appointment. She was very nice though, and told Mum I've got Wet Eczema (luckily Mum knew how to spell that without looking it up because she's had patients with it before) and it has to be dressed with honey and a bandage twice a day and I've got some antibiotics because it really isn't very nice and I don't fell well. So now I've got this stupid blue bandage wrapped round my neck and I am feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

The only good thing about all of this is that I get to have some cheese with my medicine. Poppy is also allowed some cheese (for looking after me), which I don't mind but I think she should probably get a smaller piece as her neck is fine.

Hopefully I'll be better in a day or two, but in the mean time not even Pigeon Watching is helping.

Mournfully yours,

Ted.