The title might give a false impression that it is calm here at the moment. Spent this morning helping with cutting back our magnificent walnut tree. Needed doing otherwise we would have disgruntled neighbours with their light being blocked!

I am off to Wick Court tomorrow after the summer break to take young people birding.

Looking forward to Book Club tomorrow night- it is my choice “The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster. A book I remember reading to my class as a young primary teacher. I often recommended it as book for young people (or not so young people to read. Juster was obviously influenced by Alice in Wonderland with a similar off the wall humour and imagination. Re-reading after many years was a real treat and left me with a lovely warm glow! Will be interesting to see what my fellow bookies think!

Not only have I quite a bit of Story telling coming up but we also have Gloucester History Festival to look forward to and a Seth Lakeman gig on Sunday.

We had a stroll to Splatt Bridge today. I was hoping to take some pictures of birds. I saw a lovely long-tailed tit on the wire with perfect light but as soon as I got my camera out it flew off! Still a lovely robin singing instead (see below)! A not so good picture of a starling in the garden as well!

I am enjoying watching this Test Match which is a decent contest!

My goodness it has rained the last couple of days or so! I had cleared out quite a bit of stuff from our pond and with the heavy rain it has just about full again! Our garden is full of birds at the moment – charms of goldfinches, and trembling of finches, plenty of great tits and blue tits and many others!

I had to alter my bike ride this morning because the tops were surprisingly foggy and I didn’t have my lights!

My ego was boosted no end on Sunday when Clare and I had a cycle ride and had stopped for coffee at a farm in Arlingham. When I was at the till the young girl serving asked me the question for today’s title! “Are you a writer?“ It almost up there with the time in a London restaurant I was asked “Are you Bill Church?” (that was teacher who had visited Wick Court with his school) You can tell these moments are rarities!

I am only commenting on this now because the other side of this has occurred this week. The publisher of Pig the Legend has sent me back the remaining copies! So I have quite a few books here now. So anyone who wants a copy (if you haven’t got one) can contact me-PLEASE!!!!! On the positive side I only have two copies of Don’t Look At Me Like That!” (there are still 20 + copies of this book at Wick Court)

Well my boys (picture above) lost yesterday in our semi-final. I of course lost a vital toss and we had to bat in difficult conditions. Surrey’s fielding was excellent and they had us in all kinds of trouble. When we came to bowl conditions were very different but we dropped four catches. having said that the best team won. It was my last game as captain.

I was surprised at the end when I was presented by my team mates with a framed photo – it is from last year’s Vase win. I was very touched. Pictures below. (note my muddy whites- I do still dive all over the place)

With that title I am not talking about meteorite showers but the grey skies we have had on and off over the last few hours! Tomorrow is our cricket cup semi-final and we don’t want our opponents from Surrey to have a wasted journey. I think the forecast is beginning to be more optimistic. Up the Glos!

My Story Telling picks up next week. I am at the Great Barn Festival near Faringdon next weekend and I have my usual gigs at Wick Court starting. Later in September I am Story Telling at a Care Home in Cheltenham. 

A busy few days for me! A disappointing trip on Friday night for yet another stupid kick off time- sadly TV doesn’t care about the supporters who actually go to the games. The not so Mighty Hatters are low on confidence but still bemused on how we lost the game – it is all about taking your chances!

I turned out for my cricket club yesterday – at least the opposition had a couple of veteran players yesterday (still 15 years my junior!). There was an amazing innings by John Rees one of our players who reached his hundred when our team score was on 118! He was hitting sixes all over the place! Don’t think I have ever played in a game where someone has scored a hundred out of such a small total.  Now counting down to my Seniors semi-final on Tuesday. Any support will be welcome we start at 12.00 at Frocester Cricket Club. We are hoping the weather is ok!

Had a lovely morning out by the River Severn doing the monthly bird survey. I was chuffed to spot the leucistic marsh harrier which is a striking and very  unusual bird (picture below but I didn’t take it) 

Some of the highlights of the survey were 50+ curlew, numerous whitethroats, lesser whitethroat, peregrine, 3 kestrels, redstart (my first this year), great white egret, 5 yellow wagtails and a surprise snipe (early for this species). The weather for once was perfect!

A couple of pictures of birds (Hobby and Redstart) we saw below that have been in the blog before (again not my pictures).

I said I had a better train tale (still struggling with the compensation claim!) On Monday we had a traditional August Bank Holiday family event. My late Sister’s family and my Brother’s family and mine all meet at Heath Park Cardiff to ride on a plethora of mini trains.  18 adults and 10 children had a great time (so did the children!)- One picture below -can you spot The Story Traveller (wearing a crumpled hat).

Yesterday I took my Gloucestershire Over 60s cricket team with some trepidation to Wales to play the number 1 seeds in the knockout competition . As captain my main job was to win the toss because there was so dampness on the pitch and rain possibly later. Of course I lost it! However my team battled an awkward pitch to score 176. We thought it might be a par score. When Wales went in the game fluctuated with each team having moments. It started to rain so my brilliant bowlers had a wet ball to contend with a wet ball. Duckworth Lewis looked like coming into play- we were ahead then behind as one batsmen started to hit sixes and it looked like we were heading for defeat. My superb bowlers struck back and ended up winning by 13 runs! We were cock a hoop and we now face a semi-final at home to Surrey next week! My team pictured below!

Having watched a poor game of football I made my way to Preston Railway Station in good time to catch the train. Train was on time and I was hopeful of a reasonable journey home. I embarked and waited for the train to depart. I waited….. waited ……waited and waited!!!! For 55 minutes!!! No driver! Apparently cows were on the line near Milton Keynes which meant our driver was delayed to drive us from Preston!!!!When he eventually was on our train we had to wait another 15 minutes before he was able to drive! Started to get anxious because my connection from Birmingham left at 9.12 and was the last train I could catch! I was relieved that I eventually got to my connection with  4 minutes to spare! I am now trying to plough through a compensation claim!

Have a better train tale for next blog!