R has been very brave and has cut down a tree which has been obscuring my view for the last year with his new battery powered electric chainsaw. I felt a bit bad about it but it was going to have to go before it got even bigger and risked falling over in a storm […]

I just had an email from Cats’ Protection wanting me to email my MP about extending a law for having a specific law about dog theft to also include cats. I am not going to do this for a number of reasons. a) This is a useless piece of legislation for a load of reasons. […]

At least three martens have been in the garden over the last 24 hours. First during the night there was what looked like a mature female and a much smaller male (perhaps a yearling). The reason I say “male” is that it was definitely trying to mount the female (with no success I will say). […]

Out on our walk yesterday R and I heard several woodpeckers. There are at least two herons visiting our pond. Down the side of the roads the daffodils are starting coming up, there are catkins on the trees and buds on the honeysuckle. So we are well on the way towards spring – though according […]

When I was a child my favourite food was my mother’s casserole. It was essentially a beef stew with carrots and onions, topped with potatoes and slow cooked in the oven. My only problem with it as a child was that I could never get enough – for some reason Mum never made enough for […]

There was an article on the BBC website this morning about adolescent male killer whales being dependent on their mothers until well into adulthood. I liked the quote about how “if a man’s mother cooked dinner for him every night he would never leave home”. At the risk of sounding contentious I can think of […]

Days are getting a bit longer and commensurately our solar generation is improving. As of 5pm we’ve made more than 9kwh and it is still not quite finished for the day. Having said this, it was moderately sunny today as against yesterday when it was really really dreich and we made nearly nothing. This means […]

I read an article yesterday which simply amazed me. The original Winnie-the-Pooh book is now in the public domain in spite of the efforts of the Disney Corporation to keep control of it. “The house at Pooh Corner” and associated content, including Tigger will not come out of copyright until 2026. But Disney still own […]

R and I took the decision when we got the girls that they would have free range of the garden during daylight hours – but the flap would be closed when it got dark. This is partially because we are nervous about their interactions with badgers and martens, but the main reason is that the […]

Saphy just loves J. He has been over here for a few days and she has been sitting on his knee a lot. When she is not coorying up to him she is sitting on my craft bench or on her special cushion gazing at him adoringly. I think R is a bit upset because […]