Bah Humbug
We two are not renowned for our excessive Christmas’s and festive cheer and this year we had our inoculations and Christmas went without a hitch, in fact it passed by us without our knowing. Happily friends and family all enjoyed their holidays.
I have to admit to having a funny turn on Christmas Eve, dancing to ‘This could be the last time’ The Rolling Stones and my Mick Jagger impression had Pat reaching for the camera, the video camera! Threats to put it on U-tube soon calmed me down, I really don’t think the world is ready for that kind of entertainment!
I walked around the village in the morning and it was so quiet and the mildness confused the birds. There was a Blackbird with his beautiful rich melody singing, some Blue Tits and Great Tits calling and a Robin gave me an impromptu chorus of his watery song. The Great Tit, with his ‘teacher, teacher’ call always makes me feel happy because it’s a sound I associate with Spring. The Song Thrush, repeating his call 2 or 3 times is another Spring sound and even he was singing out from a tree on the Common. There was a Sparrow flitting around the hedge with a feather in it’s beak, either collecting nesting material or been fighting? Rooks which do start gathering early were already bagging the prime branches in the Rookery at Wren Hall and I noticed a Kestrel sunning itself in the tree on the Common. A good sign that, because that means there is food, mice and voles and creepy crawlies in the grass.
We are beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from fishing now and so we walked around Pennytown ponds, an oasis in the middle of the industrial estate. As it was Sunday it was fairly peaceful and quiet. Two hardy souls had ventured out but weren’t catching anything. It was very quiet and we had done a circuit before we saw the first ring appear on the water, ha there is life in there!
Halfway round I saw a rat swimming towards the bank close by, thinking it was a water vole we stopped and waited but when it ran straight up the bank towards us we realised it wasn’t ratty of ‘Tales of the Riverbank’ variety but a common brown rat. It stopped underneath some bramble and watched us. I pursed my lips and made a silly noise at which he turned tail and disappeared into a hole just above the water line. So much for my conversational abilities.
I’ve been carding and spinning my Zwartbles fleece. The Zwartbles sheep are a Dutch Rare breed. Maybe 3 years ago we spent a night on a campsite that had a small flock of the large sheep. Of course I started talking wool and spinning and before I knew what had happened Pat had parted with some cash and I had a huge polythene bag full of dirty black fleece.
It was huge, but Zwartbles are huge. It took me ages to get it all washed and I’ve nearly finished carding it now. I’ve already spun some of it and started making a new rug for the van. A real wool rug is so lovely to rest your feet on. The wool is also a beautiful rich black and I’m already looking forward to designing and making more rugs.
I hope to be able to get my Shetland and Jacobs fleece (I’ve just realised I’ve had 6 sheep in our spare room for the last 18 months!) ready for spinning before Spring because I’d like to take some with me when we start exploring again. Talking of exploring we are planning on visiting the South East corner of England as soon as the rain eases. We’d both like to see Dover Castle and that seems a good enough reason for going there.
30 December and what a beautiful morning after the night before? There had been gale force winds overnight but they had blown themselves out by morning. It was lovely to see the sun again, it certainly lifted our spirits and we dashed off into the Peak District for a stroll along the River Derwent at Matlock. That reminds me I had a call from a mate who lives local and she realised that I hadn’t named the River in my last entry, thanks Margaret it’s nice to get constructive advice back and just confirms that it is difficult to write about your own area.
So the River is the Derbyshire Derwent, does anyone know how many River Derwent’s there are in this country? My mind has now wandered to the Derwent Dams holding back Ladybower, Derwent and Howden Reservoirs. This is one of the places where the Dambusters practised their low flying for the bombing of the Mohne and Eder dams in the last war. I think it was in 1990 when there was a memorial flight over the Dam commemorating the 45th anniversary of the raid and I remember Pat and I considering bunking off work to go and watch, but then we realised that there would be television cameras and knowing our luck we’d get caught. We did walk into the TV camera’s in Lincoln many years ago when we shouldn’t have been there but that‘s another story!
Back to life in the present, I am still on cloud nine after early retirement and Pat is still trying to come to terms with having me home all day, it’s great and I’m enjoying every minute. We are totally free agents now and can stand in a car park watching a Buzzard getting mobbed by crows, they are plucky birds, the Crows, it would be like me attacking an elephant - no thank you! We can go out in a rainstorm just looking for rainbows - we were driving through Darley Dale (Peak District again, we do love that area) and there was the most magnificent full rainbow I have ever seen. As usual the sky was lighter inside the rainbow ………………..at this point I was going to explain why? But I’ve just re read my junior weatherman’s book and it says ‘because the raindrops deflect light away from the observer’s eyes’ - I’m no wiser now! Still you don’t have to understand the science to be able to appreciate nature’s magic.
The rainbow travelled with us, the end moving across the fields and houses, now there would be some photographs to sell, your house with the end of the rainbow lighting it up in all it’s different colours!
Despite the last few days being very wet and miserable we have managed to get out every day, either for a short walk along a canal or to measure out aerial’s for High Frequency radio. We had success with today’s aerial, from the number of contacts point of view as well as getting the wire high off the ground. We have been practising throwing a lead weight with nylon cord attached over trees, so far we have left one lead weight plus 4 foot of cord in a tree in Brassington and some cord in a bush (a big bush) near Crich! If we’re not careful we’ll be accused of decorating the Derbyshire Dales with ribbons! Today I managed to throw the weight over a 30 ft tree and pull the aerial up to about 20ft. When I’m swinging the lead weight Pat makes sure he is safely in the van because nowhere and no one is safe! My arm and brain don’t seem to be able to communicate effectively and my fingers let go of the cord before the brain had sent the message. So far I have not had any major mishaps and as long as we always make sure we are at least 500 yds from the nearest greenhouse I should survive!
One of the contacts we had was down into Devon and we were pleased with the signal report because we are only using very low power, 5 watts when some of the other stations are using 100 watts and a lot are using up to 500 watts. Radio Amateurs like to get contacts all over the country and take details of the map references where the station is located. With this in mind we are hoping to transmit from all over the country and will get to know lots of people.
I’m back to my rug making now so even though we’re well past New Year, a happy and healthy 2007 to everyone.
I have to admit to having a funny turn on Christmas Eve, dancing to ‘This could be the last time’ The Rolling Stones and my Mick Jagger impression had Pat reaching for the camera, the video camera! Threats to put it on U-tube soon calmed me down, I really don’t think the world is ready for that kind of entertainment!
I walked around the village in the morning and it was so quiet and the mildness confused the birds. There was a Blackbird with his beautiful rich melody singing, some Blue Tits and Great Tits calling and a Robin gave me an impromptu chorus of his watery song. The Great Tit, with his ‘teacher, teacher’ call always makes me feel happy because it’s a sound I associate with Spring. The Song Thrush, repeating his call 2 or 3 times is another Spring sound and even he was singing out from a tree on the Common. There was a Sparrow flitting around the hedge with a feather in it’s beak, either collecting nesting material or been fighting? Rooks which do start gathering early were already bagging the prime branches in the Rookery at Wren Hall and I noticed a Kestrel sunning itself in the tree on the Common. A good sign that, because that means there is food, mice and voles and creepy crawlies in the grass.
We are beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from fishing now and so we walked around Pennytown ponds, an oasis in the middle of the industrial estate. As it was Sunday it was fairly peaceful and quiet. Two hardy souls had ventured out but weren’t catching anything. It was very quiet and we had done a circuit before we saw the first ring appear on the water, ha there is life in there!Halfway round I saw a rat swimming towards the bank close by, thinking it was a water vole we stopped and waited but when it ran straight up the bank towards us we realised it wasn’t ratty of ‘Tales of the Riverbank’ variety but a common brown rat. It stopped underneath some bramble and watched us. I pursed my lips and made a silly noise at which he turned tail and disappeared into a hole just above the water line. So much for my conversational abilities.
I’ve been carding and spinning my Zwartbles fleece. The Zwartbles sheep are a Dutch Rare breed. Maybe 3 years ago we spent a night on a campsite that had a small flock of the large sheep. Of course I started talking wool and spinning and before I knew what had happened Pat had parted with some cash and I had a huge polythene bag full of dirty black fleece.
It was huge, but Zwartbles are huge. It took me ages to get it all washed and I’ve nearly finished carding it now. I’ve already spun some of it and started making a new rug for the van. A real wool rug is so lovely to rest your feet on. The wool is also a beautiful rich black and I’m already looking forward to designing and making more rugs.
I hope to be able to get my Shetland and Jacobs fleece (I’ve just realised I’ve had 6 sheep in our spare room for the last 18 months!) ready for spinning before Spring because I’d like to take some with me when we start exploring again. Talking of exploring we are planning on visiting the South East corner of England as soon as the rain eases. We’d both like to see Dover Castle and that seems a good enough reason for going there.
30 December and what a beautiful morning after the night before? There had been gale force winds overnight but they had blown themselves out by morning. It was lovely to see the sun again, it certainly lifted our spirits and we dashed off into the Peak District for a stroll along the River Derwent at Matlock. That reminds me I had a call from a mate who lives local and she realised that I hadn’t named the River in my last entry, thanks Margaret it’s nice to get constructive advice back and just confirms that it is difficult to write about your own area.
So the River is the Derbyshire Derwent, does anyone know how many River Derwent’s there are in this country? My mind has now wandered to the Derwent Dams holding back Ladybower, Derwent and Howden Reservoirs. This is one of the places where the Dambusters practised their low flying for the bombing of the Mohne and Eder dams in the last war. I think it was in 1990 when there was a memorial flight over the Dam commemorating the 45th anniversary of the raid and I remember Pat and I considering bunking off work to go and watch, but then we realised that there would be television cameras and knowing our luck we’d get caught. We did walk into the TV camera’s in Lincoln many years ago when we shouldn’t have been there but that‘s another story!
Back to life in the present, I am still on cloud nine after early retirement and Pat is still trying to come to terms with having me home all day, it’s great and I’m enjoying every minute. We are totally free agents now and can stand in a car park watching a Buzzard getting mobbed by crows, they are plucky birds, the Crows, it would be like me attacking an elephant - no thank you! We can go out in a rainstorm just looking for rainbows - we were driving through Darley Dale (Peak District again, we do love that area) and there was the most magnificent full rainbow I have ever seen. As usual the sky was lighter inside the rainbow ………………..at this point I was going to explain why? But I’ve just re read my junior weatherman’s book and it says ‘because the raindrops deflect light away from the observer’s eyes’ - I’m no wiser now! Still you don’t have to understand the science to be able to appreciate nature’s magic.
The rainbow travelled with us, the end moving across the fields and houses, now there would be some photographs to sell, your house with the end of the rainbow lighting it up in all it’s different colours!
Despite the last few days being very wet and miserable we have managed to get out every day, either for a short walk along a canal or to measure out aerial’s for High Frequency radio. We had success with today’s aerial, from the number of contacts point of view as well as getting the wire high off the ground. We have been practising throwing a lead weight with nylon cord attached over trees, so far we have left one lead weight plus 4 foot of cord in a tree in Brassington and some cord in a bush (a big bush) near Crich! If we’re not careful we’ll be accused of decorating the Derbyshire Dales with ribbons! Today I managed to throw the weight over a 30 ft tree and pull the aerial up to about 20ft. When I’m swinging the lead weight Pat makes sure he is safely in the van because nowhere and no one is safe! My arm and brain don’t seem to be able to communicate effectively and my fingers let go of the cord before the brain had sent the message. So far I have not had any major mishaps and as long as we always make sure we are at least 500 yds from the nearest greenhouse I should survive!
One of the contacts we had was down into Devon and we were pleased with the signal report because we are only using very low power, 5 watts when some of the other stations are using 100 watts and a lot are using up to 500 watts. Radio Amateurs like to get contacts all over the country and take details of the map references where the station is located. With this in mind we are hoping to transmit from all over the country and will get to know lots of people.
I’m back to my rug making now so even though we’re well past New Year, a happy and healthy 2007 to everyone.
posted by Marilyn | 9.1.07
|
0 comments
