Well what a contrast most of April without rain and as a result Gloucestershire have surprisingly got through four county championship games with little disruption and then today! What a deluge it has been ! I was childishly excited about playing cricket tomorrow and now I fully expect it to be called off! Looking on the bright side our pond has been replenished.

I have been busy on a couple of projects. I have been writing a bit for the village newsletter about my book (the village shop is going to sell copies for me).

I have also started playing around with some ideas for poems on garden birds. This was all came from watching a lone starling on our feeder this morning. As a child  a starling was one bird I recognised because they were so common in the garden .I can also vividly remember when I first came to Gloucestershire to seeing great flocks of them in the garden where I lived. Now in our garden they are occasional visitors although we are fortunate in the Winter to see spectacular murmurations in Frampton.

If I have time I may do a quiz tomorrow.

The title refers to my day yesterday. I was slightly under the weather so spent quite a bit of Saturday taking it easy. I think it was a combination of exhaustion ( my own fault Thursday I did an early morning Bird Survey and 40 mile bike ride -idiot that I am), second jab and my awful cold soaking on Friday.  So I put Saturday down to a lost day, because I didn’t do anything! Although I did manage to watch the football which fizzled out into a draw! OK today!

I am watching the weather forecast carefully because I am hoping to play my first game of cricket on Tuesday a friendly against Somerset. Believe it or not I have been trying to break in a new pair of cricket boots as well, I did have a dilemma should I buy a new pair at my age!

Talking about cricket what a fantastic win by Gloucestershire today, they have made a great start to the season.

Saw my first Common Terns of the year today. There are wonderful acrobatic birds to watch and one of the evocative sounds we get here in the summer is the screaming birds flying over our house. We have had an early morning Cuckoo calling the last couple of mornings at the crack of dawn.

Big shock to the system today. I cycled into Stroud for cheese (usually do this every two or three weeks) and ended up with real soaking with hail and rain. All my clothes were dripping! I was shivering when I got back! It has been some time since this happened! The best bit was there was no rain at home in fact no rain within five miles from home.

A good start to the weekend!

Well I did warn you dear reader that birds would feature today. I have had two wonderful bird watching sessions this week and see some brilliant birds. Also had a forty mile ride over the tops today with a pal that involved much climbing.

I won’t list everything but here are a few highlights of the week. First Hobby of the year that flew close by. First Swifts which seemed early! Heard my first Cuckoo. Many migrant waders and plenty of migrant warblers. A marvellous displaying Black-tailed Godwit. Marsh Harrier and a real surprise a male Goshawk. Couple of other birds I saw below

Lesser Whitethroat

Reed Bunting

A shock to actually see rain today, forgotten what that was like! My goodness we needed it, the garden was really thirsty! I was pleased that our water butts have filled up! I was relieved I delayed my cycle ride for tomorrow! I have had a good day writing instead.

Just to warn you about tomorrow’s blog. I have saved up my bird watching update because I out on a survey tomorrow. Already have some great sightings this week.

Thanks for the feedback I have had about the PIg the Legend book cover – if you missed it click on the link in yesterday’s blog-it did work!

Pleased that I had my second jab yesterday, just the sore arm today.

We have just watched a magical performance of Spell Songs at the Natural History Museum if you have read Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane with the wonderful Jackie Morris paintings you must watch it. The music is beautiful and haunting. You can try the Natural History Museum web site or Youtube. It is available for the next month.

Watching it made you realise how much we miss by not seeing live performance.

Finally and I have my fingers crossed if you click on the link below you may get a picture of my new book cover if it doesn’t work I will try again tomorrow!

Church_Revied (1)

I did mention in a previous blog our Peruvian Holiday and talked about the Nasca LInes. Well today I will mention the Andes and altitude! Our trip was well designed so we could gradually acclimatise to the altitude. I remember arriving in the city of Arequipa at over 9,000 feet and finding myself breathless as I walked up the stairs to our hotel room. People chew coca leaves in the Andes to help with altitude sickness of course coca is what cocaine is made from. It was openly on sale in of all places including the cathedral! I did manage to buy a few leaves as we were due to go much higher.

Our next elevated stop was Lake Titicaca at 12,500 feet where I encountered a really stonking headache that was altitude related. I was given a cup of steaming herb infused liquid. Miraculously my head cleared quickly, to this day I’m not sure what was in that mug! There is are a couple of pictures from Lake Titicaca below and one of me with the mountains behind. Later I will write about the Inca Trail where I confess I chewed one or two leaves!

We had another walk on Rodborough late afternoon today. Beautiful although there was cold wind you felt in exposed places. So there are a few pictures below of Cowslips. They always make me quite nostalgic of my early days in Gloucestershire when on my solitary walks over the hills and commons I really first noticed them. Having said that many motorways now seem to be adorned with them on the embankments.

Enjoyed watching my football team recover from 2-0 down to win. Especially pleasing it was against one of the local ish teams Bristol City.  We don’t usually do that well at Ashton Gate.

Talk about packing things into a day, I am currently sitting exhausted as I write this shortish blog!

I woke early and unable to go back to sleep so I went out for a dawn bird watch. I thought early on I had made a mistake as I hardly saw anything. A fox then galloped past a reed warbler started singing, common terns were sighted. I walked to another part of the sailing lake to see little gulls (lovely birds), common sandpipers, swallows, whitethroat (3 or 4). To round it off I heard a grasshopper warbler reeling  just up from my house (a real treat)

We then drove up to Maidenhead to see my delightful grandson at a pub lunch! He is now 4 and half months. What a treat! We also had about 40 minutes solo!

Yesterday’s Quiz answers (you can tell I worked in primary schools)

a) The Gruffalo was illustrated by Axel Scheffler    b) Elmer was a patchwork coloured elephant  c) Spot was the Eric Hill’s creation  d) Flat Stanley was posted to America  (A book I read to the first class I taught!)  e) E.H. Shephard illustrated Winnie the Pooh

A lovely ride today with two pals and we stopped at Winstones Ice Cream Factory on Rodborough Common for an obligatory ice cream. If you don’t live in Gloucestershire you don’t know what you are missing!

I did meet with Dan last night (the other half of Two Severn Bores) to exchange ideas about our next project. Plenty to think about and we are both going away to see how our writing develops.

In other news I have approved the cover for the book. I aim to put it into a blog in the near future.

A couple of Spring pictures from our garden-our Bramley and Crab Apple below!

Today’s Quiz is on picture books and illustrations (well I have mentioned my book cover).

a) Who illustrated the Gruffalo?  b) What is different about Elmer the Elephant?   c) What is the name of Eric Hill’s dog in many of his books?   d) What is the name of the book by Jeff Brown about a boy who gets squashed and gets sent to America?  e) Who illustrated Winnie the Pooh books?