If you look back through my blogs during  the winter you may of noticed  I mentioned rain a fair few times! (Well it did rain a lot and I got a good few soakings on my bike!) I think we have all been fortunate that throughout lockdown the weather has been so good. However, the garden was getting thirsty. I spend some of the afternoon clearing the gutter that feeds one of our water butts to ensure that it refills a bit! Today’s rain is useful! I do hope it doesn’t portend rain when later hopefully some cricket resumes!

Picture at the bottom follows on from yesterday’s Pennine Way story of some young handsome bloke-doing a not particularly clever thing standing on Hadrian’s Wall (my excuse for this act  was that it was 1976 and attitudes were different then!)

Yesterdays answers for highest mountains

a) England-Scafell Pike     b) Scotland- Ben Nevis   c) Wales-Snowdon  d) N. Ireland-Slieve Donard   e) Republic of Ireland – Carrauntoohill

Today’s Quiz is all on rain

a) What was the first bird Noah sent out after the rain stopped (be careful)   b) Which planet in the solar system does it constantly rain acid?  c) The Golden Rain is the common name of which tree?   d) “The Rain in Spain” comes from which musical?   e) who made the classic  Purple Rain released in 1984?

Allegedly!!!! Title refers to my fifty-five mile socially distanced ride today with fellow ex Headteacher Martin! Mind you might think fifty-five miles in this heat that we might need our sanity tested. Although I kept drinking regularly I did feel quite dehydrated at the end. it was a marvellous ride down many lanes and byways of Gloucestershire (and South Glos).

Talking about feeling dehydrated reminds me of when I walked the Pennine Way. It was the summer of 1976 and for those of you too young to know it was a red-hot summer with a infamous drought. I walked for three weeks carrying my wet weather gear and only used on the last day when the drought broke! Wainwright the walker’s bible kept talking about rain! I can still remember vividly climbing the path by Malham Cove at 8.30 in the morning the temperature  was already in the mid 80s. That adventure is the only time I had to call the Mountain Rescue out.

I was walking the Pennine Way on my own and I met up with Rob and his sister Dot and a few others. On this day it had been  a real up and down day in the heat. When going over the top of Fountains Fell Rob collapsed. Someone had to decide what to do. As a young man in his first year of teaching I looked round at everyone and decided it had to be me! No mobile phones in those days! So we made Rob comfortable and plied him with water. I asked the others to stay with him and Dot while I would go for help, A look at the map for nearest road and farm house to decide where to go! Despite taking the lead I made one silly decision-I set off with my rucksack on my back instead of leaving it with the others! I set off at a jog descending quickly. As the rucksack bobbed up and down a few things fell out including my cutlery. I eventually reached the road and started to jog to the farm house a good distance away. I heard a car behind me so flagged it down dramatically by waving my arms and standing in the middle of the road like they do in films. A rather mature couple stopped and looked at me with alarm – I must of looked a rather unsavoury man dripping in sweat. This next bit might of become embellished with time! In a decisive Laurence Olivier voice.

“Take me to the nearest phone! There has been an accident!”

They did- we stuffed my rucksack in and set off. When I arrived at this isolated farm I could see telephone wires -phew! I asked them to wait in case no one was in. There was and I was soon ushered into the phone (there were always fixed to one point in those days). 999 was dialled.

“What service do you require Ambulance, Fire or Police?”

“Er, er er I need Mountain Rescue!)

“That will be the police.”

I managed to give details and more importantly grid reference. I then waited outside the farm expecting to be picked up. I wasn’t!  Later I heard sirens and could see blue lights in the distance  so when at last I trudged towards the action I could see a stretcher party coming down. Everything was OK and Rob was suffering from heat exhaustion. The Doctor told him to drink plenty and eat crisps!  So a happy ending except I didn’t have any cutlery any more! The picture below is at the end of the walk with Rob and Dot (apologies for the quality).

Yesterday’s Answers on Beer

a) The difference between beer and ale is really the fermentation process but you could say Beer uses Hops.  b)  Campaign For Real Ale   c) The Czech  Republic drink the most beer d) Biggest Beer Festival is the Oktoberfest in Munich  e) The Sumerians were the first brewers of beer.

Today’s Question is all on Mountains/Hills following the theme of the blog

Name the highest mountains in all four countries of the United Kingdom and the highest in the Republic of Ireland 

Just been listening to the Martin Simpson song of the title and it always catches me out! So thought we would use it for today’s blog.

This wonderful weather would be great for cricket both playing and watching. So it today was tinged with sadness when we were offered a refund on our Test Match tickets for this month.

To cheer me up I collected a mini-keg of Uley Bitter today and currently enjoying quaffing my thirst! As a public service I also collected three more for other people! You have to get your priorities right!

I am currently enjoying reading Cannery Row for Book Club next week. I last read it as a young man (I know it was a very,very, very long time ago!)

Yesterday’s answer to throwing the cricket ball was 140 yards and 2 feet! You can have 5 yards either way!

Today’s quiz is all on beer!

a) What does beer contain that traditionally ale does not?    b) What does CAMRA stand for?  c) Which country is supposed to drink more beer per person?    d) Which city is the world’s biggest beer festival held?  e) Which ancient civilisation is set to be the first to make beer?

Those of us fortunate to have gardens have probably spent more time in them than ever before. We are certainly grateful for our garden and we are also fortunate that we can walk into the countryside. I obviously notice the birds that pass overhead or turn up in the garden. Well today was a first I was cutting the grass and I heard a cuckoo close by. I looked up to see the cuckoo fly above my head and lower than roof height. I have seen four or five cuckoos this Spring but to see one over my garden is priceless! Another first was a four nights ago when we were woken in the early hours of the morning by an incredibly loud call of a Little Owl (I think he was in our Quince Tree at the front of the house so fairly close!) I can’t recall hearing one in the garden before. The picture below is of one I took in the nearby churchyard (maybe it was this one!)

The good news my number one critic has given me a positive response on the story I have just finished. So now it is full ahead with tidying up etc.

Any Gloucestershire  teachers reading this just to say I am offering my services for free this summer for me to come and in and Story Tell outside to the children -I am suggesting playground or somewhere suitable where everyone can be spaced out safely and I can avoid coming into the building..

Regular readers will know I don’t set quiz questions on a Sunday but there is one tonight which you can have a guess on it was supposed in last night’s blog!

Yesterday’s cricket answers

a) Leicestershire play at Grace Road    b) Stumps are 9 inches wide (22.86 cm) and 28 inches tall (71.12 cm)   c) WG’s initials are William Gilbert    d) Stumps are commonly made of Ash

Todays’ question is on throwing the cricket ball –Robert Percival in 1882 according to Wisden has the record for throwing the cricket ball how far did he throw it (Imperial measurements) I will give you some leeway!

A ramble through all our yesterdays!!!

Recently a few of us from my school days (when I was a pupil) have been in touch and have been sharing old photos. It prompted a long lost memory of the first time I went to international cricket without an adult I went with two others to the Oval (I was 14) to see the first three days of an Ashes Test. I find it quite amazing now-that we clambered onto a train in Hitchin in the early morning (North Herts) and went off to London not coming home till late at night. We organised everything ourselves. The cricket was memorable for the political fall out. South African born cape coloured Basil D’Oliveira  scored a hundred but he was not picked by the cricket establishment for the subsequent tour of Apartheid South Africa (he later was brought into cover an injury and the tour was cancelled.) It was a political awakening for me (I never would buy anything South African for 12 long years till Apartheid ended); but that Test match saw something else for me that is the stuff of boyhood dreams and it doesn’t seem believable in this day and age.

At the end of play on the third day the three of us decided to wait outside the player’s entrance in the hope of autographs (selfies were along way off). A couple of Aussies came out and we got their autographs followed by  one England bowler David Brown then dream time! England player Derek Underwood came out and asked for four volunteers (there were quite a few of us milling outside) to help him carry some autographed cricket bats from the England dressing room! Luckily three of the four volunteers he picked were three grubby urchins from Hitchin (when I saw my face later in a mirror my face was covered in dirt). Derek asked not to ask for autographs as we entered the inner sanctum. Players who spoke to us were Colin Cowdrey, Colin Milburn and Basil D’Oliveira  these names might not mean anything to many of you reading this but to us…………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Then Alan Knott burst out of the shower (no safe guarding procedures then!)  How many people can say they have been in the England Dressing Room!!!!! When cricket was on TV and Derek Underwood appeared my Mum would always say ” There’s our Bill’s friend!”

Yesterday’s Quiz

a)  Basil is the herb in Pesto   b) A Tayberry is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry   c) Hollandaise Sauce is made from Egg, lemon juice and melted butter   d) Red Onions originated in Italy  e) Paella gets the name from the shallow pan it is cooked in.

Today’s Quiz  are on a cricket theme

a) Who play at Grace Road?     b) How wide is the cricket wicket formed by three wooden stumps (and how tall)?   c)  What do the initials in W.G,.Grace  stand for?  d) What wood are cricket stumps made from?

Lovely ride social distanced ride today ending up with a Winstone ice cream on Rodborough Common. A real treat!

Longer blog tomorrow!

Yesterday’s answers on woods and trees

a) quinine comes from bark   b) Orangutan   c) Macaw is largest parrot  d) Epiphytes live on other plants but don’t damage them   e) Gabriel Oak is the Thomas Hardy character

Today’s Quiz thought it should be on food as I mentioned ice-cream

a) Which herb is in pesto?  b) What food is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry?    c) What are the two main ingredients of a Hollandaise sauce?  d) In which country do red onions originate?  e) How does paella get its name?

A Paul Weller song for today in acknowledgement of our delightful walk this morning in the woods up by Selsey Common. It was good to be out of the sun while doing a decent walk. There are some wonderful Beech Trees up there. (one picture of the wood below) I recalled that in  my first job we took the whole school on a nature walk through those same woods. In those days there was much more freedom to do things like that in education and it was great fun! I know from speaking to past pupils I meet these days  they always remember fondly events like these.

I was surprised to hear that my football team have just reappointed our ex-manager today. Although in the current situation it is difficult to think about sport it doesn’t really seem that important. Having said that, I do miss it as I do pubs and mixing with friends and family.

Quiz answers  from yesterday.

a) Charlie’s grand parent’s are Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George,   b) The clock would sometimes strike 13 in Tom’s Midnight Garden  c) Smaug is the dragon in the Hobbit    d) Captain Ahab from Moby Dick    e) Captain Smollett captained the Hispaniola

Today’s Quiz following my walk is on woods and forests!

a) 20% of all drugs contain extracts of rainforest plants. From what does the malaria drug quinine derive?   b)  Which is the largest of the tree dwelling apes, whose name means “forest man”?   c) What is the largest parrot in a rainforest?   d) What type of plants are epiphytes?  e) What main Thomas Hardy character is named after a tree?

Decided to make this a public health information service. Please don’t drive if you are unsure about your eye sight!!!!!!!

Enough of that! Seriously I hope everyone is well and enjoying this wonderful weather (not so wonderful for the garden). I got up at the crack of dawn  to go for a long bike ride, when I looked out of the kitchen window I looked at the fence and look what was there (two pictures below)! Although picture quality isn’t great because it was taken through the window. Clare took a much better one a few years ago after a woodpigeon was killed by another female! At the moment we are also getting good views of a Great Spotted Woodpecker on the feeders-I suspect young are nearby.

My new story is now with my number 1 critic to give me her thoughts (fingers crossed).

Yesterday’s answers

a) Postman Pat’s surname was Clifton    b) The three tunnels in the Great Escape were Tom, Dick and Harry    c) The Daleks were created by Davros in Doctor Who -or you could have Terry Nation  who was the writer.

Today’s Quiz all from famous stories

a) Name the Grandparents in Charlie and Chocolate Factory   b) What was unusual about the Grandfather Clock in Tom’s Midnight Garden?   c) what is the name of the dragon in the Hobbit?   d)  Who is the sea captain in Moby Dick?    e) What is the name of the Captain of the Hispaniola in Treasure Island? 

Apologies but this is a rant tonight! Everyone  I know have adhered to the lock down rules over the last 8 weeks often at great cost. But after hearing a succession of appeasers over the last three days for Mr Cummings my blood is boiling! It certainly is one law for one! How do they expect anyone to play by the rules now! Even the Daily Mail is angry about it!

Lovely letter I read in today’s paper probably sums up  “Asking Boris Johnson to sack Cummings is like asking Emu to sack Rod Hull!”

That’s it on that front!

Quiz answers on baby animals

a) bat-pup  b) pigeon-squab  c) kangaroo-Joey d) rabbit –kitten  e) peacock-peachick  f) owl-owlet  g) hare-leveret  h) Llama-Cria   I) Platypus-Puggle (that is my favourite)  j) eagle-eaglet

Today’s quiz on film and TV  only three questions tonight because it is late!

a) What was Postman Pat’s surname?  b)  What were the names of the three tunnels in the Great Escape?   c) Who created the Daleks?  

How about that title for today. It is a Loudon Wainwright the third song (I wanted an animal song for today) and remembered this one from my misspent youth! I saw him perform a couple of times at Hitchin Folk Club.

I decided on an animal theme because today we found a young Blue Tit that had fallen out of a nest box. Have seen plenty of young birds this Spring in the garden we already have had young Starlings, Blackbirds, Jackdaws, Greenfinches and Robins being fed. Around the village they have been many goslings, ducklings and cygnets on the canal and lakes. So guess what the theme for the quiz will be today!

My time is taken up  working my way through my story before someone else can read it!

Today’s quiz is all on the names of young animals. Can you name the young animals of the following.(there are a couple of hard ones!)

a) Bat  b) Pigeon  c) Kangaroo  d)  Rabbit  e)  Peacock   f) Owl  g) Hare  h)  Llama         I) Platypus    J) Eagle