A bit of whirlwind sort of week! A quick resume of my activities!

Wednesday: Regular bird watching session with young people from South London at Wick Court. It was cold with a bitter wind! Pleased to see a bullfinch for the second successive week. I was asked some great questions on birds!

Thursday: An early start (meant had to scrape the windscreen!) and off to our family in Bishop’s Cleeve for childcare! Looking after our two delightful grandsons all day. (Knees feel it after lots of playing on the floor!) I rushed back to do my regular story telling at Wick Court and then out for our team quiz- we won! Exhausted when I got home!

Friday: Another early start for me! Off to Brockworth Primary for a story telling. I did the Boudicca Revolt to Year 4 classes and hence today’s blog title! I even managed a ride this afternoon.

Taking it easy tonight!

Yes folks I have come back from a two hour cricket net with an aching body! Fancy doing this in November! I am going back to India in February to play cricket and today’s net you could call a bonding session  as it was with the squad for India!

Following the net we have just finished a Two Severn Bores workshop developing ideas for our next project Merlin!  Dan is working on songs and music while I am working on stories. I have just finished a version of the boy Merlin faced with the threat of execution by King Vortigern. We have a booking in Bristol in April so hope to have something ready towards the end of January.

Awful weather yesterday across the country – it was bad enough here but not as dire as elsewhere especially South Wales.

This picture above is from my brother’s upstairs window in Nantgarw in South Wales looking out on the road! Luckily they kept water out of the houses by collectively digging a trench to divert the water. We found our road into the village under water that was just about passable.

At least today has been quieter and thankfully dry (although it is now raining as I write). We went looking for starling murmurations at dusk We only saw a 1,000 or so birds and they went down as groups and not as one mass. A couple of poor pictures below of the birds and one of a leafless tree (I love tree shapes and their silhouettes make interesting pictures.)

My goodness what an awful couple of days with wind and rain! Certainly won’t be getting on a bike today! However, the good news we are expecting a visit from our two grandsons later (and their parents!)

Yesterday I did travel up to watch the not so (at the moment) Mighty Hatters. Despite the weather we had one of our best drives up for a while. The football was as dismal as the weather, my team are certainly lacking confidence at the moment. Still at least we won (the referee didn’t help). We now face two difficult away games this week- I will have everything firmly crossed!!

This we just got back from ill be a fairly short blog today! We have just got back from a talk at our Village Society. These are monthly on a wide range of subjects. Talking of cultural things I didn’t mention last week at the Film Society we saw a stunning French film Anatomy of Fall – brilliant acting and direction.

Tomorrow I am off to watch the Mighty Hatters – actually a Saturday 3.00 kick off- only our second home game to kick off at a sensible time! Fingers crossed!!!

A bitterly cold day at Wick Court yesterday with young people from Gosport. At least the sun was shining and we had some good spots. I went back tonight for my regular story telling gig.

I have been busy writing this week trying to finish the story I am telling at the pub. Hopefully I will finish it in the next few days.

Hoping to get a ride in tomorrow!

I am not talking about the snow today! I spotted our first blackcap this winter on the feeders. I am sure the birds we see on the feeders are the continental birds that come here for the winter that are almost becoming a different species to the birds that are here in the summer. Occasionally catch a glimpse of one in the summer and hear them often. The pictures below I took this morning (yes I know I have posted pictures of blackcaps in my garden before!) I will try and take some better shots during the winter months!!!

Well after all that rain last month we have certainly had some today! I did manage to get in a ride before it came! Looking at the forecast it looks like we are getting a cold blast tomorrow so will need to find my winter gear!!

Finally below is a poster (click on the link below!) for our now traditional Beer and Books Christmas Entertainment. This year we are at the Ship at Framilode. Please join us – I will keep reminding you readers!

Ship 5th

Not from storytelling!!! We have been looking after our granddaughter Ellen for the weekend. As well as the family dog. We are jiggered!!! Great fun and a privilege but hard being on the go all the time!!! She plays lots of make believe games and we are expected to participate fully!

Not such a busy week ahead on the story telling front but busy with some varied gigs coming up. Will list them this week.

I took the young people from South London bird watching at Wick Court yesterday. The sunshine after many grey days was welcome. Despite only having two groups go out instead of usually three we saw 29 species. That equalled the record set last week! We were delighted to see a deceit of nearly two hundred lapwings. The other pleasant surprise was seeing our first bullfinches for five years at Wick Court.

I have just come back from story telling for this group.

Even managed to do my tax return today that has been hanging over me!

Book Club last night we discussed The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven– an interesting discussion. A different world!

I am busy constructing a telling of a well known mythological story for our pub entertainment next term.

The pictures below are not mine.