Monthly Archives: February 2017

Rainy Day at Rufford

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It was clear that with rain, mist and low light levels I wasn’t going to be taking many high quality photographs. The first few attempts confirmed this so I decided to have a go with the various settings. The Landscape setting, which enhances the greens in a scene, seemed to work quite well.

Can you tell which is which?

Moss at Rufford
Moss at Rufford – Landscape setting
Catkins at Rufford
Catkins at Rufford – Landscape setting

The soft focus effect isn’t due to a cunning use of settings. That’s due to carrying the camera round in my pocket when it’s wet.

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As you can see, the Great Crested Grebes and Black Headed Gulls are moving into breeding plumage. The pheasant, I see from the photo, has a crossed beak, though he still seemed able to feed by plucking the seeds from teasel heads. As for the Robin – just one of many that seemed to follow me round.

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Did I mention it was raining?

Another Walk at Clumber Park

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Stilton cheese improves with age, but knees do not. That point was brought home today as I ate cheese and biscuits tonight after a walk by the lake at Clumber Park. Fifteen years ago I visited the lake for the first time and walked right round it in an afternoon.

Today we went to Clumber Park and selected a suitable car to allow us to park close to where we wanted to be. This saved time and pain, and took us directly to the end where all the birds had clustered last week. This time, of course, they all seemed to be up at the other end.

In two visits I estimate we’ve walked the equivalent of halfway round the lake. I am reminded of the words of Roger McGough:

No, old people do not walk slowly
because they have plenty of time.

We left the main road at the fourth sign (it’s a big place) and followed the network of roads through the estate. First we used the Lime Tree Avenue, the longest double avenue of lime trees in Europe. At “over” or “just under” 2 miles long (depending on where you get your information) and 1,296 trees it’s impressive, though it wouldn’t be practical for my garden.

From there we took a left turn, went through a checkpoint, where we had our cards scanned, and pottered off through the woods, where we saw a buzzard lurking in a tree on the edge. Naturally it flew off as I tried to get the camera on it.

Houses at Hardwick village
Unused farm buildings
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Finally we reached the village of Hardwick, which is slightly confusing, but nothing to do with Hardwick Hall. There are toilets here and a mobile cafe working out of a converted Landrover. This map might help – it’s better than the others I’ve used.

It’s a great walk round this end of the lake, with trees on one side of you and the lake on the other. Over the years this end of the lake has been remodelled by mining subsidence (the estate of the Dukes of Newcastle literally being built on their coal mines) and has a number of skeletal trees standing in the water. When I walked this way fifteen years ago these trees were streaked with white from the many cormorants that sat in them. These days they are cleaner and were occupied by gulls and a male Sparrowhawk. I did see one cormorant, but it flew along low to the water and carried on flying without stopping for a photograph.

Shoveler at Clumber Park
Clumber woods
Drowned tree at Clumber Park

Right at the end, as the lake tapers to nothing, we found a group of Shovelers and Goosanders, which added a bit of interest to the walk.

We had a variety of weather on the way round, including rain, sleet and snow. At one point we even had snow that was so icy the noise of it hitting leaves was even louder than the conversation being held by two retired teachers. It appears the school has gone down the pan since they retired. We knew that while they were over 50 yards away – they must have been games or drama teachers with that ability to project their voices.

Swan and Gadwall and snow
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Robin

We decided to call it a day due to the snow and call at The Big Fish at Ollerton. The lure of warmth and food was greater than a look round the Kitchen Garden in the snow. It’s a good place to eat fish and chips (actually better than some coastal chip shops we’ve been to) and there’s nothing like a nice piece of haddock for restoring the spirits on a wintry day.

Next time we’ll look at the Kitchen Garden and the 135 types of rhubarb.

Looks like a curry…

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If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

Douglas Adams,  Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Most people are familiar with the Duck Test. but how many people can tell the difference between a stew and a curry?

For instance, I cooked a spicy dish of beef and vegetables tonight, what was it?  I ate it and I’m not sure.

It included carrot, sweet potato, parsnip, onions, mushrooms, ginger, chillies and lentils. With the exception of parsnip I’ve had them all in curries before – either from Indian or Chinese restaurants.

So was it a curry?

The ingredients don’t seem to be a reliable indicator. You can make curry without using curry powder. You can serve either dish with a variety of breads and rice, though the jury is out regarding potatoes.

After giving it an evening of thought, and discussing the nuances of potato cuisine, we’ve come up with the following guidelines (which probably don’t apply outside the UK).

If you serve it with dumplings it’s a stew.

If you use a recipe (no matter how vaguely remembered) it’s probably a curry.

If you use the random ingredients you happen to have to hand, it’s probably a stew.

As a result of this discussion I’ve also identified  a possible gap in the market for a takeaway stew restaurant, but that’s a discussion for another day.

 

 

 

A New Dawn…

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I slept better last night.

This is probably due to my management of liquid intake during the evening (as what goes in must come out) but may also be due to the events of the day. I certainly feel happier than I have for some time.

Three notable things happened, two of which produced a feeling of wellbeing. Those two were the conversation with the new tenants and a visit to the farmer’s parents (where we completed a jigsaw to check it had all its pieces before it went to the charity shop). I like jigsaws.

The third event was lunch at the Garden Centre. I swear they have reduced the size of the paninis. It’s difficult to say without evidence to back it up, but it seemed to me that the bread was shorter and the fact was concealed with artistic arrangement and an extra dab of salad (which is, let’s face it, just adding insult to injury).

It’s a re-run of the eternal Little Chef Breakfast Conundrum – you know something is lacking but you can’t quite recall what it is. I’m sure that the Olympic Breakfast is half a tomato and a full sausage down on what it used to be. If only I had photographs…

With the panini all I needed was a ruler.

Julia, as usual, has little sympathy with my quest for value, or my thirst for scientific knowledge.

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Olympic Breakfast with fried bread option

I can’t imagine Pierre Curie met with such obstruction in his scientific research/

Closure

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Today effectively started last week when we arranged to visit the farm and pick up the rest of our rammel. It’s been hanging over us for days after what happened on the last visit

Fortunately it turned out to be quite a lot better than we were expecting.

The big bird feeder has been moved. That wasn’t really  a surprise as that sort of thing has never been of much interest to the farmer- apart from the occasion when he had to put up nest boxes the week before an inspection for a grant payment. Money is a great motivator.

Apart from that things were going pretty much as expected.

Some things have been moved by the horticultural project, and the people renting the centre were tidying today. I braced myself for exposure to these high-flying  corporate predators and…

… found that they were very pleasant people.

This is a useful lesson.

Looks like the future of the Ecocentre is going to be in safe hands after all. Strange how things work out. It now feels like we’ve passed the baton rather than been thrown out.

Now, if only someone rings to tell me the farmer has an embarrassing rash, my day will be complete.

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Under Fenland Skies

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We went for a trip into the Fens today. There’s not much to see apart from black soil and big skies with a few scattered houses (that always seem to need some paint or a repair to the fence).

Fenland skies
Fenland skies
Fenland skies

Actually that’s not really fair. They have large agricultural buildings, reeds growing in roadside ditches and a lot of history.

I would be happy to move back, as they are actually more interesting than any town in the Midlands. The Fens are an example of what we do to the world. First we drained them, then we watched them dry out and blow away. The ground level is currently around four metres lower than it was in 1850.

Mainly they have big skies. I’ll leave you with a few photos for now. They would have been better if there had been some foreground interest like wind turbines or pylons but there was nowhere to park so I took what I could. With long straight roads and thundering lorries you need to park safely.

Fenland skies
Fenland skies
Tree on the FEns

Writer’s Block

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A proper post on writer’s block would, I suppose, be blank.

What I really mean is that I’m having trouble concentrating and writing anything coherent that has a chance of being interesting for people to read.

Got up, complained about knees, procrastinated, ate breakfast with wife, avoided washing up, watched TV, moaned about weather…

It’s not riveting stuff is it? I’m hoping it’s just the normal dull stuff that everyone does. You do all have mornings like that don’t you, it’s not just me? If you don’t, please don’t tell me. It’s bad enough that I’m having a bad day without finding that I’m the most boring man on WordPress.

I’m supposed to be planning, but that didn’t go well either.

The 50 new recipes I’m planning to make by the end of the year have ground to a halt because I have limited enthusiasm for poorly seasoned veggie burgers. It’s the fault of the recipe, but that doesn’t make them taste any better. The Mark 2 version with double seasoning, plus lime juice, lime zest, Henderson’s Relish and half a teaspoon of chilli powder is still bland, though a definite improvement on Mark 1. I may have to resort to using salt, but if I do that I might as well just buy them from a shop.

The killer CV (resume to those of you living in the New World) lives only in my imagination because I’m leaving job applications until after I’m sorted out health-wise. There’s no point getting a job interview if you then have to tell people you’ll be needing time off for medical reasons as soon as you start.

Then there is the redesign of the garden. We’ve neglected it badly for the last few years and it needs some serious attention. It’s an embarrassment. So I’m going to avoid talking about it.Yesterday I bought one of those tools for weeding between paving slabs without bending down. Tomorrow I may get round to using it. Then I will have to decide on the future of the slabs – they aren’t very permaculture…

Finally, fitness and diet.I’m doing more walking and birdwatching so that’s going OK. The diet seems to be working too, but when you think of the failed recipe experiments that’s not a surprise. I suppose some good is coming from those veggie burgers…

 

 

A View from a Hill

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It’s strange what you see when you’re out with a camera. I’ve never really thought of the “hill” element of Arnot Hill Park, and definitely never considered the idea of a view from the top.

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The Home Brewery Building from Arnot Hill Park

The pond looks massive from this angle. The grey building is a Royal Mail Delivery Office. I’m not sure exactly what happens there, but it has lots of vans based and it’s where we go to pick up letters when they need signatures or penalty payments.

I once went there to pick up a letter, paid a penalty because it had the wrong stamp on, and opened it to find it contained an advert on glossy card. It was just after the Post Office started charging extra for letters that were larger than standard and the sender had obviously not heard the news.

The tower in the background is now, I believe, empty. For the last few years it has been used by Nottinghamshire County Council. Before that it was the HQ of Home Ales, the famous Nottingham beer. I never liked the beer, and thought that most of its pubs looked like they’d been designed by an East German, but I can’t fault the main building or  Sir John Robinson, the founder.

There’s more information here. I will try to get more photographs as it deserves a better write-up.

The specks in the sky are the feral pigeons from the park.

Ducks and Sunshine

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It’s one of those Saturdays where I had nothing in particular to do.

Leisurely breakfast, drop Julia off at work and take a walk round the park in the sunshine.

It’s not a bad life. I didn’t go shopping because there was a queue for the car park (which would have dispersed my feeling of well-being) and I couldn’t go on anywhere to take more photographs because I really needed to get to grips with something that looks like work.

Life can’t be all ducks and sunshine.

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Arnot Hill Park – ducks and sunshine

My sister reminded me last night that I have a cookery book I haven’t used yet. She didn’t actually say that, she told me it was currently on sale at half price and did I want her to get me a copy.  At that point I guiltily recalled buying it just before Christmas, flicking through it and putting it to one side for later.

I have two sorts of cookery books – ones “for later” and ones with food stains. Really I should get rid of them because these days I mainly get my recipes from blogs I follow or from the internet. That means one pile is redundant and the other is a health hazard.

Time, I think, to open the book, work out a menu and write a shopping list.  Julia has already started it with three items. For those of you who like shopping lists, it reads:

Union Tea

Black Sloe Potash

Bears

You may gather that I have trouble reading her writing. It’s not a one-sided problem, as everyone has problems with mine. I have, over the years, managed to use a squiggle to replace most letters of the alphabet and developed a style of handwriting which even I have difficulty reading. This probably disqualifies it from being called writing.

However, bad as mine is, I still have to buy three items based on the list.

I’m off for another go at shopping now, before picking Julia up. I’m going to buy Lemon Tea, Black Shoe Polish and Beans. If there’s a problem I’ll tell her TESCO doesn’t stock Black Sloe Potash. Or bears.

Friluftsliv

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That’s right – friluftsliv. It’s not a typo and I didn’t fall asleep with my head on the keyboard.  (I have, once or twice, fallen asleep with my head on the keyboard, (in case you are wondering) but the result has never been very interesting).It is a Norwegian concept, meaning “free air life”.  It’s similar to ecotherapy, nature therapy, blue sky hospital and green gym but in Norway it’s part of everyday life, while we struggle to find time to include nature in our busy lives.

I say “busy lives” but in truth how much is “busy” and how much is just just useless clutter generated by emails and texts and Twitter?

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View from the office
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According to a 2016 UN Report, Denmark, with hygge, is the happiest country in the world, with Norway fourth. The USA comes 13th and the UK 23rd. No disrespect to American readers but we have free health care, half the suicide rate and a quarter of the murder rate: how can we be less happy? Can a lack of wilderness make so much difference?

The ironic thing from my point of view is that we’ve just spent five years pushing the idea that getting outside is good for you and despite all the evidence that supports us, we weren’t able to get the idea across.

We know that working with soil combats depression, aggression, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, irritable bowel and fibromyalgia.

We also know that getting outside has a wide range of benefits, such as increased self-esteem, reduced anxiety and aggression, increased energy, weight loss and improved mobility.

Various researchers have shown benefits in increasing overall health, decreasing anti-social behaviour, promoting healing and slowing the progress of long-term degenerative conditions. I can’t find my list of references and I’m having trouble tracking a link for the last one, sorry about that.

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The availability of outdoor space even affects the development of children – there’s even a condition attached to lack of outdoor play – Nature Deficit Disorder. Generally I’m sceptical about this sort of thing, but having seen what happens when you put a group of kids in the middle of a field I’m a convert.

Sadly, the UK is slow to learn the benefits of being outside.