A surreal experience today Story Telling on line with Baguley Hall Primary School in Wythenshawe. As a Story Teller I feed off my audience and will adjust my telling in full flow as I gauge reaction. With young people I will often make the story interactive and it is not so easy on a computer but we all did our best today. I am hoping to more next term with schools because I can’t see live performances any time soon-so my normal flurry of Story Telling around World Book Day is likely to be online!

In my mid break I went for a walk with my binoculars and camera up to Splatt Bridge pictures at the end are I couple I took. I do take other pictures than just birds but that seems to be what I take most of the time in the present circumstances!  I did take hundreds of pictures of my delightful Grandson yesterday.

Thought you might like the blur of the Kingfisher (I did take several on the wire as well but thought the blur was more interesting), The Kestrel was just sitting almost asking for me to take it’s picture and I like the Fieldfare (there are many around at the moment along with the Redwings)

Yesterday’s Grandparent’s Quiz (another quiz around the end of the week.)

a) President Obama was raised by his grandparents  from the age of 10  b) Grandpa Joe went into the Chocolate Factory (more about that tomorrow) c) Victoria had 42 grandchildren  d) My Grandfather’s Clock stopped short never to go again  e) Clive Dunn sang Grandad

Short blog today as we have had a busy day travelling up to see our Grandson hence the title! We were even allowed to have a cuddle with Owen which we were not expecting! Wonderful!

Tomorrow I am Story Telling online during the day.

Quiz questions with a link to Grandparents

a) Which Post War American President was raised by a grandparent?   b) Who went with Charlie into the Chocolate factory?  c) How many Grandchildren did Queen Victoria have?  d) “It stopped short never to go again” comes from what song?  e) Who sang Grandad?

Should of been the title of the blog last night referring to yesterday’s superb performance by the Hatters. However today it could be Hats On it is so wet perhaps I should of put Soggy Sunday!

Have been busy relearning a couple of Christmas Stories for a virtual telling this week. Always find it slightly amusing to relearn a story I wrote but I only tell my Christmas Angels at this time of year! maybe I will get around to getting this story published although I may need to write another one to go with it.

I will try and think of a subject for a quiz tomorrow. We hope to see Owen David Church in the flesh tomorrow (sadly from a distance) so fingers crossed.

Apologies that the blog “Christmas Lights” which I wrote yesterday I forgot to publish yesterday so it has only just been published. So today’s blog or is this the second blog of the day will be a brief one!

It has been a job day including gathering up leaves from our front garden so the back feels it now! This afternoon was a social bird watch looking over to the River Severn-kept bumping into friends so there was more talking than birding! Funniest moment was my friend Gordon and I got very excited because in the far distance we spotted not one but three Green-winged Teal a bird that only rarely appears in Gloucestershire. We got very excited until we got suspicious that the birds looked like they had bright breeding colours in December and were not moving! sadly they were decoy ducks because sadly we have a lot of shooting of wild fowl in this area.

For the first time ever we put up our lights in the apple tree at the start of December- normally we wait until schools break up. It takes some time as you unravel the lights and then have to climb the ladder several times as I thread it through. When finished it looks simple but effective. So some early light to cheer us all up is working well at the start of December. Then disaster struck! Someone who will remember nameless managed to pull the lead out of the sealed plug so it was beyond repair! So on impulse we went and brought up the last decent string of lights at B and Q. Now it was a matter of getting the original string down; climbing up and down, up and down, up and down for what seems to be a 100 times!!! New string is then carefully unravelled and arranged in the tree-more ladder climbing! It looks comically as you thread 500 small lights through many branches. Finally we are pleased with our efforts and we symbolically switched on-great stuff! Satisfied we turned it all off to wait for darkness, well so we thought. We didn’t notice that we managed to shear through the lead when pulling down the garage door. When we went to switch on and we baffled to discover  NO LIGHTS again! Eventually we worked out what had happened. I was ready to ride off into the sunset but I was tired from my continuous ladder climbing!

Finally after purchasing a connector and insulation tape plus much jiggery-pokery we managed to reconnect the lead and as I write we once again have delightful lights twinkling outside. I have to admit I couldn’t face climbing up into the tree yet again and threading through all those lights.  Feel like calling ourselves Botch It/ Botch It!!!

We had an enjoyable evening last night at Book Club sharing a wide range of cartoons we had each chosen. I do like it when we do these different type of Book Club Evenings and I am always in awe of the breadth of imagination of my fellow Bookies!

Yesterday’s Cartoon Quiz answers

a) Woodstock is the little yellow bird from Peanuts  b) Bambi was the film and it came out in 1942  c) Nick Park created Wallace and Gromit   d) Benny is the blue cat from Top Cat  e) Clifton is Postman Pat’s surname.

My Book Club meeting in December is usually an interesting extravaganza  in the Three Horseshoes in Frampton it is old fashioned entertainment with a mix of music, poems and of course a story from the Story Traveller. I always enjoy the challenge of finding a new Christmas Story to tell. However because of circumstances we will stuck behind our computer screens for yet another virtual Book Club. This month instead of discussing a book we are all sharing a cartoon that means something to us. Looking forward to see each other’s choices.

After much head scratching I will share my choice with you. I did of course consider the political cartoonist Steve Bell who is quick to cut through the duplicity of politicians but with our current incompetent political leadership it is far to easy for him! Although his If cartoons about the Falklands War and the jingoism that surrounded it were brilliant and almost got my vote.  However my childhood  came flooding back to me after listening to a recent play on Radio 4 about Charles Schulz agonising over to include an ethnic face in his Peanuts Cartoon Strip. It was moving listening to the reaction of African American GIs in Vietnam to that first strip with Franklin in. As children we used to squabble over who could read Peanuts first! I remember the paper one day being ripped as we grabbled and fought over it. So it is Peanuts Nostalgia for me tonight -I have researched quite a bit about Schulz.

Guess what my quiz is today!

My Grandson is called Owen David Church and all is well and he looks gorgeous!

Quiz on Cartoons and Animations

a) What is the name of the little yellow bird who is Snoopy’s companion ?  b) What famous cartoon film would you see the characters Thumper, Faline and Flower? For a bonus what year did the film come out?  c) Who is the creator of Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit?  d) Which blue cat is TC’s right hand man in Top Cat? e) What is Postman Pat’s last name?

Sorry no time today-will update tomorrow. sorry folks!

Coot! A new species for our garden today! It was on our front garden and then got itself under the netting on the pond see the picture below. It left our house and walked up the road. I did go out this afternoon Bird Watching looking at the river from the canal bank. Did see five Pink-footed Geese (maybe from Greenland) as well as two Goosanders and a Greenshank. There is also a picture of a Redwing I keep trying to photograph them not a brilliant one but will keep trying through the Winter.

Hope to do an update about our Grandson tomorrow!

A development on future story telling audiences for me today which does makes this a self indulgent post. We became Grandparents today to a lovely bonny baby boy born to Peter and Nicola. Don’t usually mention family in my blog but it a special moment. Fantastic!!! No name yet! Celebration Drink tonight!!!!

Yesterday’s Quiz answers on Wind

a) Sirocco blows from the Sahara  b) The Chinook is mainly associated with Canada c) The Mistral blows from Southern France into the North Mediterranean d) Mandolin Wind was song by Rod Stewart e) The Keeper of the Winds was Aeolus mentioned in the Odyssey

Don’t think I have had this Jimi Hendrix song before as my blog title. Chose it because we have had cold winds the last couple of days  so I thought a song with wind. Guess what the quiz will be!

The football  didn’t go according to  plan and I thought we were unlucky and we are certainly  matching Championship teams who spend significantly more on players and wages than the mighty Hatters.

Quiz on Wind

a)Where does the Sirocco Wind blow from? b) Where does the Chinook Wind blow?  c) What is the name of the wind that blows from Southern France into the Northern Mediterranean  d)Who sang Mandolin Wind? e) Who was the Keeper of the Winds in Greek Mythology?