Wrens and Robins, Sparrows and Snow

So it's winter. A winter rather more severe than has been usual of late. It's been a bit late getting to us here in Saltash. There was dry snow on dry roads yesterday morning which didn't cause too much difficulty so I went into Liskeard to the resource centre as usual, but by 12 it was snowing again - big, wet, flakes - so I made an executive decision to close early and go home. By the time I got home the snow had turned to rain and disappeared altogether. Nice afternoon, just not quite nice enough to dry everything up before it all froze as soon as darkness fell. And then it snowed. The dog and I went out for a last midnight walk on a thin crunchy layer of 'proper' winteriness, owls hooting in the distance, crisply peaceful, pleasantly cold and still.

By morning there must have been almost an inch of snow. However, from shortly before dawn until slightly too late to go to work or school there were blizzard conditions and the world came to a halt. By the time I took the dog down to the creek (10ish) it was starting to melt and again was almost gone by the time everything froze at dusk. Apart from walking up and down the coombe twice I've not been out at all; I would have gone to aquacise tonight, but the leisure centre had also made an executive decision to cancel all classes, so I couldn't even do that.

One of the bright sides of this weather is that it's giving me more birds to watch. A robin has recently created a 'territory' which encompasses my garden, the birches on the grass by the car park, and (I believe) one garden on the other side. I've seen and heard him several times, singing that 'keep away all you inferior birds' song, and he was singing his heart out from a birch branch at 8 this morning when I looked out of the kitchen window. Then he came down to the feeders for the first time. There was a certain amount of exploration and hesitation before he settled on fat balls for breakfast. Ten minutes later the sparrows started wandering over from the escallonia over by the community room where they roost, and were quite viciously driven away from the 'robin' food. Or at least when they came one at a time. By lunchtime they were all sharing quite happily with only the usual sparrow squabbles.

I am now certain that at least one wren has taken up residence in the rare red jasmine, which is, let's face it, the only thing around with proper cover. It's an amazing bush, as high as the fence, and spreading out like a small tree. In milder winters it will flower all through, but even with this icy weather it's hardly lost a leaf. If anything startles the birds on the feeders, a couple of dozen of them can disappear instantly into its bulk. And every day now for more than a week I've seen a wren hopping out for a stroll along the fence rail and a dip down to the garden. Today I watched one come out, hop down behind the pond, then I saw it come out on to the fence from the top of the jasmine again! So maybe there's more than one. I do hope so... Normally I feed the sparrows and that's it, but today I have also seen bluetits, chaffinches, starlings, blackbirds, great tits and longtailed tits and a thrush all in my patch. There was at one time a line of 24 blackheaded gulls all facing into the wind and snow on the ridge of Hugo's roof opposite (two actually had black heads) with a lone herring gull behind them.

It's now (10.30pm) freezing hard again but the sky is clear. I shall shortly go out for a slide. Thank goodness for sensible hiking boots and spiky sticks!

New Year Walk - Camel Trail

A nice long walk on New Year's Day is getting to be a bit of a tradition, but I can't remember ever having better weather for it. Last night, New Year's Eve, was a full moon in a clear sky and the first morning of the new decade dawned clear and cold. Serious car windscreen defrosting was required - there was even ice on the inside, something I've never had before - even at 10 o'clock when I was getting ready to leave. And lots of layers of clothes, of course. There had been talk of a packed lunch, but at 9am an executive decision was taken that it was probably too cold for a picnic.

Wadebridge to Padstow along the Camel Trail - former railway now cycle track - is five and a half miles, flat but not boring. On the way there the tide was out, and we saw lots of different birds. We met a man who was properly watching the birdlife with a telescope on a tripod. When we expressed an interest he let us have a look - I have never seen an egret in so much detail. There were curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers, gulls of all descriptions, egrets and herons, sandpipers, greenshanks, and many smaller waders I was unable to identify with the naked eye and my incomplete knowledge. The trail itself was much busier than I expected, thanks to the good weather. All three collies are pretty well cycle track trained now, but the new cocker spaniel hadn't quite got the hang of stopping and waiting for the bikes to start with. By the end of the day he was fine, though.

Padstow was manic, with queues outside all the pubs, cafes and restaurants. We really should have taken a packed lunch, but in the end we got fish and chips (very nice) and ate them sitting on a bench on the quay in the sunshine, with dunlins pretending to big sparrows and nicking what crumbs they could. Not to mention dogs pretending to be gannets...

New Year's Day is a traditional 'Darkie Day' in Padstow, when the locals have always blacked their faces, put tinsel round their hats and made music through the town. I'd heard that it had been banned for political correctness, but apparently not. Or not quite. The repertoire now seems to consist of instrumental versions of 'Scotland the Brave' and 'My Grandfather's Clock' rather than the more controversial traditional songs. And I overheard a lady with a north country accent telling her friends that the black faces 'were something to do with the miners'. No, love, it's tin we mine (or used to) round here, not coal.

Then it was that long haul back to Wadebridge through the increasingly cooler afternoon. The tide was rushing in and many of the waders had moved along a bit, flocking here and there on a mudspit or the shore. Having been so pleased to spot a couple of individual lapwings earlier, I was really happy to see a big flock of them flying round before presumably settling down for the night. As we got nearly back to Wadebridge Ty did finally manage to sneak off for one quick swim and was quite unhappy that I wouldn't let him stay longer. The truth was, however, that on leaving Padstow for the return trip I had detected a certain unhappiness in my feet, and it got worse as we went along. I didn't dare stop for too long, for fear I'd be unable to carry on...

We got back to Wadebridge just as the sun was setting, 4.30ish. It had been a beautiful day and a wonderful way to start this new year, but I must confess that I was quite glad to stop. By the time I got home after an hour's driving my feet did not want to put themselves down, and when I took my boots off I found out why - my socks had worn completely through. They were only cheap kiddies' socks from the pound shop with pictures of huggy bears or something on, and I've probably been using them a couple of years, so I deserved to suffer. New socks tomorrow!

Trifling trifles

When we first moved back to England ten years ago I kept getting into trouble. We'd been in Spain for 17 years and I found the culture shock rather worse than moving to a new country in the first place - I felt that I ought to understand what was going on, but in many subtle ways I was worse than a stranger.

I was unfamiliar with the coins. Worse, I had a mental pricelist which hadn't allowed for all those years of inflation, so the prices of everything shocked me and I wasn't always able to keep my surprise to myself. I could see shopkeepers looking at me sideways and wondering where I had been confined... I couldn't work public telephones. It was many months before I thought to ask someone what those rows of short white lines on the road were. I had missed bypass protestors, militant feminism, a couple of waves of immigration, the demonisation of smokers, oh, lots of things. Taking an OU sociology course helped fill in some of the gaps, and after ten years I am fairly satisfied that I know what's going on, apart from in the popular music field, where I haven't even tried.

Until yesterday, that is. I don't do much in the way of overindulgence for Christmas, but I have promised to make and take a trifle for an extended family party on Sunday. So I took myself to Waitrose yesterday with a shopping list, having discovered that the only trifle component I had in stock was walnuts, which aren't exactly essential. Sponge fingers, madalenas (the Spanish alternative) fruit, custard, jelly, decorations, cream... All got, plus the stuff to make an Eton Mess for the non triflers, including, naturally, even more cream. Sherry could wait till Lidl for financial reasons.

Quite pleased with myself, I was, until later in the evening when I was reading an email chat list where a friend had posted a trifle recipe. And several other people had corrected/improved/suggested alternative recipes. Interesting, but I have my own plan. Then I noticed something odd - they all said "cream or elmlea". Isn't elmlea cream? Emlea is what I had purchased quite a lot of from the somewhat depleted display in Waitrose - there was own brand organic double cream or elmlea or nothing and I had chosen the latter, thinking it was a brand name. Well, of course it is, it's just that it's the brand name for a cream substitute, not the real thing. Invented in 1984, apparently, shortly after I left the country. Ah well, you live and learn. A new day, a new word, a new product. I shan't say anything, just hope no one notices.

Winter Weather Report

All over the country people are reporting wintry weather, snow, ice, disruption, disaster. Here in this little corner of Cornwall, close to the coast and only 100 metres above sea level we rarely get extremes of weather - frost free in winter, and merely warm in summer when others are baking in the sun. That's what I like about it, in fact.


This last few days, however, we have actually had a bit of winter. And of course it took us (well me, anyway) by surprise. Last Friday morning was when it began. It was chilly in the morning but bright sunshine - a lovely day dawning as I took Ty down the coombe. At 9.15 I picked up a neighbour to drive into Liskeard to a meeting. No ice on the car, started nicely, out of the car park and round the corner, sun shining on the windscreen, ooh it's dirty, use screen washers, windscreen covered with ice! Luckily I was still on a very quiet side road so I could stop and clean up.


Friday night was cold. As I was making the first coffee of Saturday morning I watched a blackbird and a sparrow hopping across the top of the pond - icy! By the time Ty and I got down to the creek it was snowing, but just a very light powdery proto-snow which could not be felt, although it didn't melt... When we got back I checked the garden - the pond was covered with ice, and a planter which was full of water had ice over an inch thick on it, which I removed. The birds' waterbowl was frozen solid so it had a wash and new fresh lukewarm water put in it. I also filled two seed feeders and put out more crumbs. Once I was back indoors I watched for a few minutes as the starlings lined up to drink from the nice fresh waterbowl. But not for long - the world disappeared in a sudden white out. Ron was down at the waterside at the time, helping someone take a boat engine out, and says they couldn't even see the tools they had out on the deck. They couldn't stop work, though, as the crane had been hired and had to be paid for.


The blizzard didn't last too long, but left a couple of inches of nice crisp snow everywhere. That didn't last too long either - it had pretty well disappeared again by the time it got dark and the freeze began again.

Sunday morning dawned clear, cold and bright. A lovely day for a walk, which was just what we'd got planned anyway. It was a bit slidey underfoot, but nothing that couldn't be coped with, and the nasty white stuff on my car windows slid off easily with a towel. The roads weren't as clear as they could have been but I got to Hessenford without incident, only one very gentle slide pulling in to the side of the lane going downhill to let a line of traffic up. The Copley car park, however, was pure skating rink. It was much, much colder than Saltash as well. I watched a man try to start his car which he'd left overnight - ten minutes to get in the doors, 20 to scrape the windows even with the engine running.

Once the company was assembled - six people and four dogs, including the new and adorable Harvey - we set out. Just crossing the road was quite frightening, but we thought once we got into the valley we'd be fine. Not quite; much of the valley trail has duck boards covered with chicken wire to give a grip, but when covered by sheet ice the wire doesn't work. So it took us about twice as long as usual to get to Seaton, where it was different again. We walked along the beach in brilliant sunshine under a sky as blue as I have ever seen anywhere in the world, the sea calm, the light amazing. As far as Coleadon and back for lunch at Seaton Beach Cafe before marching carefully back through the valley to Hessenford as the light began to fade.

Seagull vs Crow and other birds

Nobody likes seagulls. In general they are loud, bold, intelligent, omnivorous, ubiquitous... and they do, I must admit, tend to make a nuisance of themselves in urban settings. Circumstances being what they are in the modern world, however, one can hardly blame the gulls for utilising the roofs of houses for look-out posts now that there are very few unoccupied cliffs.

Round here there are almost always rows of gulls perched on the rooftops, mostly blackheaded gulls with a few larger herring gulls among them. Early this morning - beautifully clear and dry but very cold - I watched as a whole row or eleven or twelve gulls were evicted from their rooftop by one single crow. It squawked, chased and chivvied them, not hesitating to nip at the tail feathers of the slowest to move, until, satisfied that it had the whole terrace of houses to itself, it perched on top of the highest TV aerial in sight and preened itself, croaking gently in pride in a job well done. Many times I've watched birds being mobbed by other species of birds, for all sorts of reasons, but never before have I seen a whole flock routed by one individual, slightly smaller if anything, bird.

The cold weather is making the sparrows much bolder, too. They are getting through a fat ball every two or three days, and they no longer move when anyone walks up or down the steps by the fence. All the birds visiting the garden seem less shy, but it's probably just that they are hungrier. The jackdaws who clamber over the roofs acting as moss removers have also removed all the moss I carefully planted round the edge of my precious pond. I shan't replace it now until the spring...

A Senior Moment

That nice Mr Automatic called me the other evening. It was the first time I'd heard from him since around last February, and it was good to hear his dulcet tones enquiring after my health and temper in this wintry weather. Are your symptoms worse than usual? No. Do you have enough medication to last two weeks? Yes. And so on. I'm not sure quite what happens if you answer 'Yes' and 'No' respectively, mind - a couple of years ago, when Mr Automatic was still experimental and not so well trained, my symptoms really were a lot worse than usual and I was having problems talking at all. After several repetitions of questions with a polite 'I'm sorry, I can't understand you' he finally just gave up, hung up and said he'd call again! I'm sure, though, that the new, better trained Mr Automatic would not behave in such a cavalier fashion but would send round knights in shining armour (or green scrubs) to make sure I was OK.

Anyway, some considerable time later I was mulling over my good fortune in having someone checking up on me so nicely when I realised that I had no recent memory of acquiring any medication. One particular item on which I depend lasts exactly four weeks, and I usually re-order as soon as I start on a new supply, so that I don't have to panic about getting down to Fore Street to collect it until I feel like it. But I was about half way through, and - had I ordered it? There was no new supply on the shelf. I had ordered and collected medication for Ron last week, but where was mine? I had to call the surgery and ask them - had I ordered it and forgotten to collect it? Had I collected it and forgotten to put it on the shelf? No, I hadn't ordered it at all. So now I have, and all will be well.

Mr Automatic, I thank you. On your very first day of operation this winter you have already saved, if not a life, at least considerable discomfort and embarrassment. According to the BBC, Mr Automatic costs the taxpayer £21 per patient per year, and he is worth every penny. Taxpayers, I thank you too.

Winter Sunshine Walking

It is so much nicer to go walking when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Even if it is a little on the cool side. Not quite freezing in the morning, but a slight touch of frost on the grass at the side of the coombe. In truth, the weather has been clear and bright for a few days and I've been actually enjoying dog walking, just locally around the creek and Churchtown, instead of dutifully carrying out the miserable obligatory chore it is when it rains and rains and rains...

A proper walk had been scheduled for today; the fine weather was a very welcome bonus. From the small coastal village of Pentewan, half way between St Austell and Mevagissey, up and over inland round the edge of the lost gardens of Heligan, down through the woods to Mevagissey itself and back along the coastpath for lunch at the Ship Inn. Five and a half miles or so, some very steep bits with which I struggled a bit, but managed better than I had expected. I'm lucky to have companions to walk with who at least pretend to be happy to amble along at my slowish pace, taking photographs and playing with the dogs.

Inland it was quite sheltered and even warm while walking so that the strong northeast wind blowing along the coast took us a little by surprise when we dropped down into Mevagissey before climbing back up along the coastpath. No surfers, far too rough for them, and just one solitary inflatable bobbing about in the waves.

After a very enjoyable lunch (carvery, but they knew we were going to be lateish so saved some for us special) with even more enjoyable draught pear Rattler at the Ship we resisted the temptation to sit and listen to the jazz band for the afternoon and took the dogs on to the beach, as the sun was still shining and the surf still running. Ty swam for sticks, although I was careful only to allow him where it seemed fairly safe away from the rocks and the biggest waves.

On the east side of the 'harbour' (now landlocked) there's a vertical cliff about 100ft high covered in dense and mostly thorny vegetation. A terrier, Boris, had run up there after a rabbit and got himself stuck half way up in a gorse bush. His family of Mum, Dad, two small girls and another dog were standing below calling him, but for all his panicked scrabbling and whimpering he could not seem to get free. He even attracted the attention of a buzzard who came in and alighted about twenty feet up from where the dog was caught, before deciding that either the thorns were too thick or the dog wasn't weak enough to make a meal.

It was odd; there was absolutely nothing we could do, but one still feels somehow committed to stand around and wait for an outcome. We had to leave eventually after twenty minutes or so, but I still need to know. Did he eventually manage to escape? Did they call out the Coastguard? There's been nothing on the news yet...