Tag Archives: Sherwood Forest

Holiday Day 2 Part 2

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The Trees of Sherwood Forest

More Trees of Sherwood Forest

Sunday Sunbeams in Sherwood Forest

Those are links to three posts I did about Sherwood Forest. Some of them seem to be in galleries, so must date from the time I struggled with the new editor. Looking at them I wonder if it my be worth trying again. I just wish they would leave it alone and would keep it simple. I’m here to write, not to become computer literate to keep up with constantly changing systems. My brain is not wired like that.

However, I haven’t come here to complain about WP and modern life.

I just came here to add some links to blogs about Sherwood Forest. I’m sure there must be more, but I have probably omitted the word “Sherwood” from the titles.

Julia is not happy with me. We have, as I may have mentioned once or twice, been married 33 years. Two nights ago she dreamed that I was conduct an affair with another women. This is clearly not a likely scenario as I am a man of great fidelity. I am also lazy, bad at lying and, to be frank, look more like a tramp than a paramour.

What she really took offence a was the fact that I described her as s “squeaky guinea pig”. I pointed out that it was her dream and she couldn’t blame me for what I did in her dream. It clearly irked her though, as she kept going back to it.

It would have been better if I hadn’t added, after holding this conversation half a dozen times, that if I were to describe her as anything in the pet line it would be a hamster because although they are small and squeaky, they are also cutely rotund. I won’t make that mistake again.

And I definitely won’t do my impression of a hamster using my fingers to form cheek pouches.

I thought I’d add some pictures of her looking glamorous to try and dig myself out of this one.

Julia – looking sophisticated in Bakewell

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Holiday Day 2 Failed Parcel Delivery

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Took Julia to work. Went to see friends at local jewellers. Got home, found that the delivery company dpd had been, left a card and gone. They could have left the parcel in the porch. They could have left it with a neighbour. But they didn’t. They did, however, leave a card. I used the code on the card to track the parcel and found out that they had tried but failed to deliver. I didn’t actually need a website to tell me that as all the evidence was pointing that way . . .

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

I also found they had taken a picture of my front door. This was also useless as I already know what my front door looks like. If they need to prove that they have been here, the fact that I have the card will do that.

dpd are very big on being green these days. They even asl me to   recycle the card. They tell me that allowing them to use my local pick up point will allow them to cut CO2 emissions by 63%.  MY local drop-off point is the Post Office – 0.2 miles away. I don’t see how dropping it within that distance helps reduce emissions. Due to my difficulty walking I will use the car to pick it up anyway. It will, of course, reduce the emissions from a second journey to deliver, but so would leaving it in the porch or with a neighbour.

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

I am currently on live chat with them. The first contact swiftly shoved me on to someone else – I suspect they were a robot. I am now in a queue and am currently Number 7. This has gone from 20 to 7 in two minutes so isn’t bad . . .

Another two minutes and I engaged in live chat with someone helpful and we got it all changed. For once everything went well, though not as well as if the delivery man had used his head.

The pictures of Sherwood Forest are by request. They are, unfortunately, not great photos, but it was a dull evening for a lot of the shots. I will look for some better ones.

Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

As an aside, I have often found dpd drivers to be inconsiderate on the road, but as they delivered 1.9 billion parcels worldwide in 2020, it might just be that there a lot of them.

Sherwood Forest – Robin Hood and Little John – the old visitor centre

Sundown in Sherwood

Sunset at Sherwood

Sherwood Forest – carving

Owl carving – Sherwood Forest – it’s on the back of the carving of the head.

Acorn Sculpture – Sherwood Forest

 

Some Pictures from Last Week

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Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest
Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest
Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest

These are just a few photographs from our trip to Sherwood Forest last week – I’ve just got round to sorting them out. It’s amazing what you can see if you wait around for ten minutes on a roadside verge. Quite a lot of them were blurred, or featured the space where something interesting used to be. The bees were quite frisky in the sun, as were the Ringlet butterflies. I didn’t even manage to frame a Ringlet. They are always tricky to photograph, but I can usually get something, even if it is blurred.

Flowers are easier because they don’t move as much. Fortunately there wasn’t much of a breeze.

Roadside – Sherwood Forest
Roadside – Sherwood Forest
Roadside – Sherwood Forest

They aren’t the the most inspiring pictures, but they are a start. We couldn’t go to Clumber Park because you have to book now, and we couldn’t go to Arnot Hill Park because the car park always seems so full.

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A very light grasshopper

I’m not sure what sort of grasshopper it is, probably a common one with funny lighting rather than a pale one. I suppose a light one would soon be eaten. It really was at that angle when I took the photo, but was down near my feet and I didn’t really frame the shot properly. I would try to turn the photo round to make it look more normal, but I can’t get the rotate button to work.

When we arrived home I noticed we had a couple of grasshoppers amongst the weeds in the front garden, but they had gone before I could get the camera.

All that travel, and I could just have stayed at home. There’s a moral in there somewhere.

 

 

 

Tearoom Tour – Number 1 – Thoresby Park

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I’ve been meaning to start a Tearoom Tour of Britain, with a target of 100 in the year. Julia has indicated disbelief in my ability to do this (citing logistical difficulties rather than my lack of capacity for cream teas).

Rather than put a number to it, I’m going to start and see where we end up.

Today we went to Thoresby in Sherwood Forest. It’s not the best of the grand houses in the forest but it’s free and the service is a lot better in the cafe than the off-hand, rude, inefficient and useless service encountered at Clumber. Clumber is a better attraction in general, though expensive if you aren’t a member of the National Trust. But the cafe at Thoresby is a lot better. You may have formed that idea after reading my comments on the disgracefully bad, lamentable, terrible, rotten service at the Clumber cafe.

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That’s why we won’t be rejoining the National Trust this year. We aren’t saying we won’t rejoin in the future, but for the next year or two their surly waiting staff will have cost them money.

Anyway, back to Thoresby. We didn’t have much time so we had a quick snack – I had the cream tea, Julia had the toasted teacake and we both had plenty of tea. Very palatable, served efficiently by pleasant staff and in nice bright surroundings, There was no time to look round the courtyard, which is partially closed for the winter, but we have done before, and it is worth a visit.

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The downside – the scones seem a bit regular and industrial, rather than home made, but they were still good.

I’m happy to recommend Thoresby to anyone. £8.90, in case you are interested.

To be fair, I’m happy to recommend Clumber to anyone who wants grudging, slow, inefficient service in a dingy room, but it’s a niche market. It’s also slightly more expensive, as I recall, but you do get a free snarl and a long wait thrown in as extras.

Cream Tea with plastic
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Memories

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Sherwood Forest – carving
Owl carving – Sherwood Forest
Sherwood Forest – Robin Hood and Little John

When I picked up my old camera last week there were nearly 1,400 photos on it. Each one is a memory, even if the memory is “…and that’s one I took in case the first photo wasn’t any good…”.

The first photos I’ve taken off are from Sherwood Forest – I presume three of the sculptures are still there despite the remodelling of the visitor centre, though I suppose the Robin and Little John statue will have gone as part of the demolition of the old one

 

Sherwood ForestO
Oak leaves of Sherwood Forest
Old Oaks of Sherwood Forest

The last photo of this set is an outlaw in the car park – I’m afraid that there probably won’t be any outlaws in the new car park. Well, there are no trees, for one thing. This is progress.

Robin Hood lurking in the Forest

Robin Hood lurking in the Forest

I’m quite enjoying a stroll through the old photographs, though some are a bit painful when you think about the passing of time.

 

Budby Flash

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It was difficult knowing what to do with my afternoon off. By the time I’d been round Aldi to track down their prize-winning mince pies (which weren’t that good in the end) and eaten lunch, there wasn’t much time left.

Clumber is a bit too far, so I thought I’d have a look at the oaks of Sherwood Forest. Well, was I in for a surprise. The car park is closed, the new visitor centre is in place and they now have a new car park. It’s about 400 yards away from the visitor centre and across a main road. When you get to the visitor centre it’s a long way from the proper forest. I say this from distant observation as I couldn’t be bothered with the walk.

Several people feel the same way if Trip Advisor is to be believed.

In shock, I tried Budby Flash. It’s nothing much, on paper, just some flooded subsidence with a few birds, but it can be quite magical at times.

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Budby Flash, Notts

The sun tried to be entertaining, a flock of tits came to frustrate my camera skills and despite a lack of funding to build a visitor centre I left feeling cold but happy.

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More Trees of Sherwood Forest

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After preparing the last Sherwood post I realised I didn’t have a very good selection of trees. This was partly because I hadn’t taken enough pictures, partly because I needed to visit more trees and (to be honest) because I’ve mislaid some photos.

I can’t do much about the last point, apart from a lot of boring searching, so I short-circuited that by making another visit and taking more photos.

Sunset at Sherwood
Can you see the face?
Can you see it now?

It was an admin day today so we’d lost the best of the light by the time we started, but there was enough to get a good selection of photos. Many of them look like they are dead, and some are, but many of them will have leaves when spring comes, despite being hollow. Hollow trees are often quite vigorous as the material from the middle rots down and feeds the remaining parts of the tree.

Ancient oaks
Oak in Sherwood Forest
Ancient oak of Sherwood
Oak tree in Sherwood
A walk in the woods

Smaller holes are good too – providing nest holes for various birds and roosts for bats. The population of Great Spotted Woodpeckers has increased 400% since the late 60s due to a number of factors, including more available nest sites. Nest sites are important to hole dwelling birds.  In Sweden half of their Red Listed birds are hole-nesters who are declining due to a lack of tree holes. Meanwhile, Swifts, House Martins and Sparrows are all finding it difficult in the UK as people close holes in buildings.

Hollow ancient oak
Ancient Oaks
Ancient oaks
A path in the woods
Sundown in Sherwood
Major Oak

The Trees of Sherwood Forest

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When I say “The Trees of Sherwood Forest” I really mean the ancient oaks. At the moment when people quote a figure they seem happy with the figure 997 – 450 of which are living.  About 250 of the 450 are healthy and 200 are in various states of declining health.

They say an oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years in maturity and 300 years dying, so this isn’t necessarily a cause for concern, though in 2007 they did lose seven trees – including four in one particularly blustery night.

There is a plantation in Dorset that contains 260 saplings grown from acorns of the Major Oak, but it was only planted in 2003, so they are still 287 years from maturity. I know that you have to take a long view when dealing with trees, but planting for a time 300 years from now is hard to take in.

Oaks support more species than any other tree, being host to around 350 species of insect and 30 species of lichen. The insects are food for birds: acorns feed jays, badgers, deer and squirrels (and, traditionally, pigs) and the flowers and buds are the foodplants of the caterpillars of the purple hairstreak.

Even the dead trees provide habitat for insects, plus nesting and roosting sites for birds and bats.

ncient Oaks of Sherwood
Ancient oak in Sherwood Forest
Holding up the Major Oak
Strapping to hold an oak together

The most famous of the ancient oaks is the Major Oak, voted Britain’s Favourite Tree in 2002 and England’s Tree of the Year in 2014. It is something of a celebrity and will always be associated with Robin Hood. The story that he hid inside it is unlikely – at an estimated age of 800 – 1,000 years it was, at best, a young tree in Robin Hood’s time, and possibly just an acorn. Such are legends…

Here is a link to a site detailing some of the other famous oaks of Sherwood.

 

 

 

More Birds – Screveton and Sherwood Forest

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Here are photographs of more birds from last Wednesday, following up on the previous bird post and the Friday post.

The Goldfinches are acting like a bunch of thugs, quarrelling amongst themselves and driving other birds away. You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but they really can be very aggressive.

We had a flock of Long-tailed tits look in, but they perched in the surrounding trees calling to each other before deciding not to contest the feeders with the Goldfinches. We really need fat balls to tempt them, but after the Jackdaw [roblems earlier in the year I don’t really want to use fat balls again. I may try coconut halves filled with fat as they seemed to work well when we saw them at Sherwood Forest last Friday.

We have moved the second feeder from the back garden to see if we can ease the thuggery by spreading the birds out more. It has never been well used, even though it is situated close to a belt of trees that attracts quite a lot of birds. The ones that use the feeders tend to fly out of the trees and pass it on the way to the other feeder.

Birds can be very strange.

Male Chaffinch at Screveton
Greenfinch at the feeder
Goldfinch at Sreveton
Heron stalking the field margin

So far, after one day, very few birds have chosen to use the new feeding station, despite it only being five yards from the other.

It’s a tricky situation because we will have to stop feeding the birds at the end of the month when we leave the centre. We haven’t really started feeding properly since we let it tail off in late summer. They have had plenty of food in the fields and some of the food in the feeders had actually gone off because birds had stopped visiting.

I rushed into it last week, cleaning the feeders with a piece of stick and using food that had been stored in a bin for the last few months.  The bin had been chewed by mice and I had to evict several before I could get the food, which smelt very mousy. I’m not sure if this has a bearing on the lack of enthusiasm for some of the feeders.

We will wash the feeders on Monday and refill everything with freshly purchased food. I know I found the smell off-putting and I wouldn’t blame the birds for feeling the same way.

We will feed until we leave and will leave the remains of the food and ask the farm to feed after we have gone. It’s not ideal but it’s the best we can do. Meanwhile the group can continue to watch birds until we finish.

Practical note here – cheap plastic feeders buckle when subjected to boiling water. It may seem hygenic, but it’s annoying to hqve to buy new feeders so be careful. I’m going to use Milton. It works for babies, lambs and apple pressing so it whould work for bird feeders.

The following photographs were some we took in Sherwood Forest on Friday. I’m quite pleased with the shot of the acrobatic Robin eating from the coconut shell and the Nuthatch. I’d hoped we would see a Nuthatch and we did see several in the end, though they are difficult to photograph. Julia managed to get the best shots, much to my frustration. Most of mine looked like blue blurs.

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Coal Tit – Sherwood Forest

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Acrobatic Robin eating from coconut shell

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Great Tit feeding from coconut shell

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Nuthatch – Sherwood Forest

My Favourite Friday

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On Friday we planned to visit Sherwood Forest, photograph the oak trees and look for Robin Hood.

Sorry, I’m a bit late wth this – it’s so late on Saturday that it’s almost Sunday.

So much for my good intentions about being more organised and reliable. (And that’s before I reveal that I left my spare batteries at home and had to use the back-up camera).

Squirrel eating from a bird feeder
Robin in Sherwood Forest
Wood pigeon viewing the bird food

The plan was that we would get up early and make the best of the light, but there was no light, just a foggy murkiness. So we went back to sleep for another hour. By that time the light was a bit better so we set off for Sherwood Forest. It’s not quite as big as it once was. At one time it covered 115,000 acres: now the country park manages just 450 acres. Royal Forests once covered a third of southern England, including 100% of the counties of Essex and Huntingdonshire.

Fortunately a Royal Forest wasn’t full of trees, which would have made it very awkward for living and farming, they were just areas where Forest Laws took precedence over normal laws. This made life difficult, but still allowed for fields, grazing, marshes and other land without trees.

Strapping to hold an oak together
Ancient oak in Sherwood Forest
Sherwood in Winter

Anyway, in today’s country park there are around 1,000 ancient oaks, all looking to be on their last legs. Despite this they keep coming back year after year.  The most famous is the Major Oak, around 800 – 1,000 years old and held up by a cradle of wood and iron. It was supposedly a hideout used by Robin Hood, but if it’s only 800 years old it would have only been an acorn at the time.

Holding up the Major Oak
Major Oak

This is just a selection of photos – as usual  have managed to take too many!