My car

My car is in limping mode and the garage says it might cost a lot of money to get it fully back up to speed (literally). But after 254,000 miles, the last 190,000 of them in our care, it certainly doesn’t owe anyone anything. Given that we last put fuel in the car over two…

A few things

I’m trying to write something for this blog about Curlew, but each time I try, I get in a mess. It’s because there is too much to write for one blog post and I can’t get it straight in my mind as to how to structure it. So you’ll have to wait – although until…

After…things I would like to be different (5)

The Westminster Petitions System I’m a keen supporter of the idea that an ordinary citizen can initiate a petition to parliament which, if supported by enough fellow citizens, then receives a response from government. This seems to me to be a modern manifestation of an ancient right which goes back to and beyond Magna Carta….

After…things I would like to be different (4)

A move away from meat eating. I’m nowhere near vegetarian, and even further away from being vegan, but my meat consumption is very low these days. Particularly these days because it’s summer – and I love salads – and because it tends to be when eating out that I am tempted into eating more meat…

After…things I would like to be different (3)

Sitting in my garden I now see and hear far fewer planes crossing the east Northants skies. Aside from Icelandic volcanoes, nothing has jolted our addiction to flying as effectively as a global pandemic. A tiny virus has done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation than all the good intentions of individuals and…

After…things I would like to be different (2)

My Twitter timeline seems to be full of pictures of mown verges where tidiness has been prioritised over nature. I totally accept that for reasons of road safety some grass cutting is needed at some time in some places, but there seems to be an awful lot of it going on – and it happens…

After…things I would like to be different (1)

After coronavirus (which might be quite a long way away), or at least when the world settles down to a new normal, there are some things that I’d like to be different. So over the next days and weeks I’m going to write them down. They will mostly be to do with our relationship with…

My second BBS visit

This morning I did the first visit of 2020 to my second Breeding Bird Survey square. Although starting in a sizeable village, as usual, there weren’t many people about, and as usual the caged canaries in a shed in a garden made me pause briefly to think ‘What’s that?’. I did meet a man with…

A traditional Spring thing

This is Jack by the Hedge or Garlic Mustard growing in my garden – like a weed some would say! But I love it. It’s quite pretty but it is also one of the food plants for Orange Tip butterflies (Milkmaids, Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo Flower is another). So every Spring, I look at the…

My first BBS visit

Travelling a couple of miles by car for a 6km walk is the furthest I’ve been for weeks. But we are in mid-May and the May is out in flower, and this is the time for the first visit to Breeding Bird Survey squares. I can see why the BTO hasn’t yet updated its guidance…