An everyday story of country folk

Last week, a scene in a long-running play was acted to a conclusion.  The play is a bit of a ‘whodunnit’ with heroes and villains – but since we haven’t yet seen the ending there is time for villains to repent.  Sometimes it’s difficult to know on which side some people are until the final…

Pieces and bits

Yesterday was a lovely day to pass through the Cotswolds on the way to and from Cheltenham racecourse – four short-eared owls, raven and red kite.  No winners, but Big Buck’s ran up his 15th successive win. I did the Big Garden Birdwatch – I’ll blog about it next week – have you, yet? I…

Newts

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary last week which made me wonder whether the habitues of Lou and Perry’s diner were all voting for him – maybe they are all Democrats anyway. Newts are tricky things though aren’t they? There are three species of newts in the UK; smooth, palmate and great crested,  and…

Not a word more on this

Damian Carrington’s Guardian blog reveals that Oliver Letwin wants a hard edit done on environmental legislation and guidance so that it can all be reduced to 50 pages to mimic the ‘success’ of the NPPF edit. Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt (James Naughtie please note spelling), is even now whittling down Hamlet’s 32,241 verbose words to…

Little owls – would you miss them?

My American friend who visited recently would have quite liked to have been shown a little owl, and I would have quite liked to have shown him one, but they are dropping out of my life. And if you can’t see a little owl in Northamptonshire then where can you see them, I ask?  The…