A funny sort of day here in Frampton! Quite a bit of clearing up from last week-like cleaning the awning and trying to dry it out. Many other little odd jobs as well A delightful two hour cycle ride up and down the hills around Stroud–not quite the monster climb on today’s Tour! I have currently ridden 3,950 miles for the year so I am on course for my target of 5,000 miles for the year which will be a first for me.

Busy day tomorrow an early start for our monthly bird survey out by the Severn. After a quick cuppa I am off to play cricket against Wales at Abergavenny Cricket Club. Quite excited by this venue as Glamorgan have played games here.

Tired after a long and busy sporting day. I played cricket against Warwickshire and we won for a change! I did a lot of running in the field so the body aches and I also saw us home with the bat.

I rushed home to watch my team win again in the League Cup and we now play Manchester United at home next week. COYH!!!!!!!

I met Jane Fryer the local artist today to look at her illustrations for my new story currently called “Pig the Legend”. There are great and have captured the characters well, you never know I might put one in a future blog to whet your appetite! Still not sure about the title so watch this space! Jane did the illustrations for “Don’t Look At Me Like That”.

I promised you news of a Frampton visitor. Below is a picture I took on my phone of the Great White Egret in one of our village ponds. For those of you who are not sure about Egrets-the Little Egret is the one most of us will see across the country. They starting arriving into Britain about 30 or 40 years ago . Cattle Egrets common in Africa have started to breed in the South West – there are currently a few around the WWT in Slimbridge. Great Whites are now turning up in the South West I have seen four in the area over the last year. So for one to turn up on a village pond of all places is quite something! Apologies for picture quality but it was taken on my phone while sitting on my bike!  

The title is just an excuse for me to put a couple of pictures into the blog that  I took when we were away! I said we were near Morecambe Bay however we moved inland to around the Forest of Bowland a beautiful part of the world, another one of our favourite places to visit. On the drive there we stopped at the Ribblehead Viaduct on the famous Settle to Carlisle Railway. Luckily a train  crossed over while we were there. Many years ago when our lads were quite small and our David had a love of trains we did push the boat out and took them on the train. You don’t get that good a view of the viaduct from the train!

Tomorrow I promise I will blog about stories (should have some news as well). I will also mention  an unexpected but welcome visitor to Frampton! 

I mentioned we camped in Silverdale. We have been going to this area for many years because it is ideally placed for visiting one of our favourite bird reserves Leighton Moss. We always park up and use our bikes to get around. Sadly because of the world we live in only four hides were open. The day we went to the two hides near Morecambe Bay (one of them is named after a famous Hatter Eric Morecambe) we did get a right soaking! The pictures below are typical of the Bay. One is the view across to Grange Over Sands (we cycled back the 20+ miles  from there one day-we caught the train out!) The other is one of the many Curlews on the extensive miles and miles of mud. More pictures to follow in future  blogs over the next few days.

Must mention the football today. What a start to the season for the Mighty Hatters. As there can’t be any crowds for some time I am able to watch the games on the internet and we won with a real cracker today!

Apologies for no blog for over a week! We have been away “Up North” in our wonderful camper van Cedric. We stayed at our favourite campsite in Silverdale and it is true that lots of people are doing a staycation because the campsite was full and this when the schools went back. Weather was mixed but the break did us the power of good.

Will blog more about our adventures over the weekend-hopefully with one or two pictures.

I had a lovely morning with young Esther we were bird watching out by the River. I misjudged the tide times so the tide was already up when we arrived which was a pity. However we saw a Wheatear stopping off on it’s Autumn Migration. We got very excited when we thought we saw an Osprey in the distance, we decided to get closer for a better view. We eventually identified it as a Buzzard although it was almost white in colour. We also saw some Avocets flying towards Slimbridge.

After much difficulty my final story for the Library Service I managed to get successfully transferred. Sometimes it has been an endurance test! Later this month I am aim to do some thinking on about how I adapt on the Story Telling front because it does appear unlikely that there will be much opportunity for pub/village hall type gigs and schools have enough on their plate at the moment! Just had a December gig with the Two Severn Bores cancelled. Wick Court where I have my regular Story Teller in Residence slot is currently dormant and unlikely to see children till next summer.  So watch this space for developments!

You can probably tell from yesterday’s blog I enjoyed playing cricket yesterday!

Cricket report! Went up to near Stourbridge today and arrived at a delightful ground with a church in one corner, Hagley Hall on another side and a Deer Park! The location had echoes of country house cricket. Actually found the middle of the bat today but ran out of partners. Thoroughly enjoyed my time in the field with stops and catches and a diving save on the boundary. We lost on the last ball of the game!

I have been working on an old poem today I wrote a few years ago on an Arthurian theme. You never know if I feel confident I might put it on here. Still need some tidying up. I love the Arthurian legends and often play around with them both in my Story Telling and my writing. This was all prompted by listening to Maddy Prior’s CD “Arthur“ I think it is one of the better musical efforts on the theme.

Also working on a old story on a totally different theme that I never finished even though I started it about four years ago. Not quite sure where this one will go.

Playing cricket tomorrow and for the first time for a while I am confident that we might not have the weather to contend with!

Yesterday I wrote a brief blog about our delightful ride around the River. I posted a picture of us at the Telford Bridge just outside Gloucester. Three more pictures to prove we did the ride. One is the Wye from Brockweir Bridge, the boys on Brockweir Bridge and finally us getting excited on the old Severn Bridge because we are on the homeward run only another 27 miles to go! The body feels surprisingly OK today!