under another sun

Up with a determination to do a few things. Some practical... Lorraine and I worked out how to use the new hoover we had bought. I called Mum, and sent off some timesheets for the job I was doing last week, and I emailed Robin who has had a difficult time lately.    Lorraine and I resolved to go out for a walk and we drove to Woods Mill for a bit of a walk. I took my camera and snapped some not very good pictures. We sat in the bird hide and so on. It was fun, nevertheless. By the evening I felt inclined to do little again. I seem to be in hibernation mode at present. Toby called, however, and I had a nice chat with him. Another lockdown in Toronto which is a bit of a drag. Nice to chat, however, although the Tobster a bit bored with lockdowns, especially as he is in a sabbatical year enjoying the world as his lobster etc. I received a quite unexpected and friendly email this evening, having been traced by a cousin I never knew I had called Liz. She is a child of one of Mum's ...

Lorraine and I off to Woods Mill, as is traditional for us around this time of year. Had an amble around looking at new spring flowers, and sitting in the bird hide watching small birds and one mouse foraging and eating from the bird feeders. My favourite bit was sitting in the sunshine, by a lake. Lorraine said she wanted to do a sound meditation, and we both sat there with our eyes closed, listening to the wind moving in the trees and birdsong and distant children and it totally helped me get my head together. Meditation is the answer. Lorraine finding booking a delivery for food for Pat and Maureen and found there wasn't a delivery slot till April. Home and chatting to Mum, and a quiet night in. Sights around Woods Mill, and the place we sat to meditate.

Lorraine keen to go off to the gym this morning. So I went to my gym for the fourth time this week, but once I was there I felt I hadn't much gas in the tank, so instead I sauntered home through the park in the sunshine instead. In the afternoon Lorraine and I went for a walk to Woods Mill, icy ponds there and snowdrops. Feeling for the fish shivering under the ice. We also spent time in the bird hide, looking at the feathery denizens of the wood, we mainly saw blue and great tits, robins and blackbirds Good to have a walk there though, and lovely to drive through the country on a crisp and cloudless winter's day. Home to roast potatoes and pork and a glass of wine. All good. Lorraine and I had a very happy weekend. Below blue ice and blue skies.

Lorraine awake at seven this morning, and woke me up. Rooftops sprinkled with frosty snow that was quickly gone. A cold day, still Lorraine and I stood outside in our back garden measuring things, and then creating a plan and discussing of how to shape and plant it. Then off to Woods Mill to look at a few brave snowdrops, tits, robins and so on. It was pretty cold though so we went off to a garden centre to look at things to do with gardens.  The rest of the day quiet, and focused on eating a large roast dinner, and watching Spiral and Last Tango in Halifax . Below snowdrops, and the miniature sleeping knight I always snap in the woods.

A nice slow start with my Lorraine. Thank God for Saturday mornings. After the treat of a bacon sandwich breakfast, Lorraine had to do a spot of work, and I updated my notebook blog for the first time in a while, based on something I had seen in the play yesterday.  Lorraine getting antsy and so had to be taken out for a walk. We drove off to Woods Mill and had a happy hour or so mooching about avoiding the mud and looking at the abundant water there. Allow Lorraine to walk among trees and nature and she instantly gets very happy, which is lovely to see, pointing to faded looking things and cooing Look! Hellebores! Home via Sainsburys, where Beth came in with her musical new boyfriend called John. Rather felt for the lad having to meet Lorraine and me, but he seems a likeable man. He is just about to go back to Brighton institute of modern music where he studies drums, to continue his studies having taken a year or so out -- and currently works managing the pub Beth's been wor...

To Woods Mill this afternoon with a picnic. I loved drifting about in the peaceful green of this tiny nature reserve with Beth and Lorraine. Particularly enjoyed looking into a little stream, its surface busy with whirligig beetles, and small fish, probably sticklebacks, in the water. After browsing among the plants, we ate a healthy rice salad on a picnic table, and drank sparkling water. Things grew livelier in the evening, when it was decided to have a BBQ in the tiny back garden, inviting Matt and Wayne, and Beth's nice pal Laura. Matt preparing to go on a long walk through Yorkshire by way of a holiday. We all ate and drank and chatted while watching the Olympics closing ceremony, an enjoyable, if somewhat unfocused spectacle. I also attended to a quantity of ouzo to acknowledge the birthplace of the Olympics. Late to bed. Below bee and thistle, part of Woods Mill, two of the stream, the bottom one showing whirligig beetles.

Birdwatching Lots of time this weekend as Lorraine had at last finished her course. She hardly knew what to do with herself. To celebrate we drove off to Woods Mill. On the way there we stopped the car to look at two tractors in a field surrounded by hundreds of seagulls. A Hitchcockian sight. At Woods Mill we sought out snowdrops and sat in the bird hide looking at various woodland birds, mostly great tits, blue tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches and a robin, plus two small reddish rodents. A quick walk about in the woods and then home again. In the evening off to see A Dangerous Method , about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. I quite enjoyed the film perhaps because I wasn't expecting too much from it. Lorraine quite liked it, though was dubious about the casting and Ikea Knightly's Russian accent. We saw it at The Duke of York Picturehouse a few hundred hards from home, which is always a pleasure. Below gulls, they seemed in a great hurry to roost in the freshly ploughed ear...

Woods Mill Feeling happy this morning, although the tiredness has far from abated. Lorraine and I deciding to go for a walk in the small wood at Woods Mill. The downs misty and the clouds leaning into the valleys. Signs of spring in the woods however. We sat in the bird hide for a while, looking at the woodland birds darting about, and then sought out snowdrops. Lorraine eagle eyed in the spotting mushrooms on logs and buds on bushes. Otherwise a quiet day, though chatting a bit to Mark and Sam during the day. Below lichen, bullrushes among the reeds, waterweed, mushrooms in a moss forest and snowdrops

Carp kisses After breakfast at Lorraine's house I returned home to feed Calliope, and sloped uphill to feed Trotski, Lenin and Pinkie Barbie Ariel, then went to the gym to labour on the Hulk Legs machine for half an hour. The afternoon I worked on some mindmaps with Lorraine to plot possible courses of action precipitated by the new Government's slashing of education budgets. Then a car trip with Beth and Mark off to PC World, a Garden Centre and then to Woods Mill under a beautiful blue sky, with the big downs brooding nearby and a breeze in the trees. The mini nature reserve was idyllic and empty, and the four of us wandered about it, Mark sporting a sling, due to a dodgy shoulder. By the small lake we could hear the slobbery kiss of carp mouthing at the surface, and we spent some time hanging from a bridge looking at dozens of of fish high in the water, and lit by the lowering sun so that you could see the red fins of the roach, and the big greenish scales of the mirror carp...

Lorraine's birthday Working hard on the Guernsey Double poems this morning, then at midday whizzed about picking up posters for This concert , and buying a card and flowers for Lorraine. Lorraine escaped work early and we went for a walk in Woods Mill, which is now officially in Spring. Lovely to go there in the middle of the week with only a nature photographer stalking about among the afternoon shadows. The wood anemones out, and the first bluebells, and the may trees blossoming, and the lake's still surface being broken by big muscular carp. All very relaxing. Then back to Lorraine's house to get ready to go out with Beth and Mark to Riddle & Finns. Handily Mark works there part time, so we were able to dine like royalty, and sup champagne while slurp down wasabi oysters, and get a staff discount to boot. I had a really nice fish pie. All very cheery and nice, and Lorraine happy and enjoying herself, which of course was the big idea. Below at Woods Mill and Beth an...

A twitching After a sluggish morning to Woods Mill this afternoon. Walked about the wood and squelched across some nearby fields with Lorraine. Snowdrops emerging in the wood, which was nice. In the small wood, which is used as an educational resource locally, we sat in a bird hide and hunched forward to look at blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches, robins, tree creepers and robins about their avian business. I don't think I'd seen treecreepers, which are small brownish things with white fronts, which methodically creep up trees, starting from the bottom, in search of insects. The long tailed tits were I think also new to me. Lovely pinkish colouration. Eventually tore ourselves away from this curiously wonderful interlude. Home to a spot of packing, and getting myself sorted out. Writing this before seeing a documentary about another of my heroes... Brian Eno. Yippee. Below the afternoon also gave Lorraine the opportunity to hug trees. A shot of winter trees, ...

A sleeper in the woods A beautiful spring day today. Lorraine drove us to Woods Mill, a nearby piece of wet woodland that is used as a nature trail for school kids in Sussex. Great to be out and about. The sun very warm. At one point I just sat on a bench with Lorraine and we did the sound meditation, which always works very well for me. What you do is simply listen to the nearest noise and then the ones further away until you are at your aural horizon. If you are sitting among singing birds this an added pleasure. It is a very fast way to take your consciousness away from yourself and gets you centred quickly. I've been yearning for the spring this year. And there was evidence of it everywhere today: daffodils, primroses, late snowdrops, and a few shy wood anemones. Also catkins on trees. We stumbled across a pair of mating toads too, and peered into the twitching ponds. I love this kind of thing, and so does Lorraine. There are also ruins there, which are unmarked and are just ly...