More birds

There are four birds in this picture (taken from my kitchen window today). The tree is a moribund Rivers Plum tree, and the tangle of vegetation is a Clematis that will in due course produce a mass of white flowers. The first prize to the person who can find and identify the four birds is a whole day in my company. The second prize is two days in my company. Pray to God you don't come third!

Mile of Pennies

Did I ever tell you about the Mile of Pennies, a money-raising charity stunt that took place in my natal Shropshire village of Hadley in about 1947? The idea was to create, literally, a mile of pennies on the pavement (sidewalk), people putting their pennies down and feeling good. We urchins were fascinated. A MILE of money at our feet, and we couldn't touch it! Ah, but wait. Un truc!
In the old money there were 12 pennies to a shilling, and there were intermediate coins worth threepence (the bronze "thrup'ny bit") and sixpence (the silver "tanner"), and of course the silver shilling at twelvepence. If someone put down, say, a tanner, they left six spaces representing six pennies before the next coin was laid. So, voila le truc: Deggy and Philip and me walked along the line of pennies, and every time we saw, say, a threepenny bit or a tanner or a shilling, we would put down a penny and surreptitiously pick up the coin of greater value.
But of course we were not surreptitious enough, and we were caught in flagrante delicto. A very indignant lady - the kind known to scousers as "her with the tin tits and the iron arse", ie large, corseted and vicious - grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and took me to my house, where she declared my crime to my father. I fully expected him to beat six kinds of sh.... out of me, but, to my surprise and my relief, he told the Battleship that is was HER fault for putting temptation in my way, and that she should get off his property before he set the gerbils on her.
Good old dad.
I glowed.
Then he clipped me round the ear.
And I glowed some more.

A light-hearted piece

Her Majesty's Government is very anxious for me to make a contribution to saving the planet. They have a scheme called EAGA (don't ask me what the letters stand for, but you can be sure that E is for Energy), whereby you can receive a grant of £300 towards the cost of any approved scheme that will improve the energy efficiency of your property. So, seeing that I am having a new Central Heating Boiler installed, I phoned EAGA and explained my situation. A very pleasant-sounding young woman called Deirdre, or it might have been Sandra, said yes, no problem, and she would initiate the procedure forthwith. Today, two prompt days later, EAGA has sent me four energy-saving light bulbs. Free. Free, it says, because I am over seventy. It seems that all you have to do is to show Deirdre, or WHFNI as I prefer to call her, a stick and she will cheerfully get hold of the wrong end of it.
They are nice bulbs, even though I can't use them because they do not fit inside my various lampshades. But I can hardly believe that they are worth £75 each. In fact they are very nice bulbs, a pleasing elongated shape that makes me think I could post them back to EAGA with a suggestion as to where they could stick them.

The front garden

The garden in front of the house also has its useful plants:
Pyrocantha, produces bird food in the form of red berries;
Hebe, formerly known as Veronica, great for insects and as cover for small birds;
Ceanothus, aka Californian Lilac, pretty when in bloom, purple-blue flowers attractive to butterflies, moths and other insects;
Penstemon, bell-shaped red flowers, great for bees and other insects;
Exotic grass, pretty feathery seedheads;
Buddleia, aka Butterfly Plant, amazing spikes of purple flowers, irresisitible to insects.
Forsythia (below) : short-lived but spectacular intense yellow flowers. This shrub was planted some thirty years ago and is now rather straggly, like its owner, but still manages a good show most years.

A sort of sunset

I have rabbited on before about the amazing skyscapes we enjoy in the Fens. The other evening, this late evening sky caught my eye. Not exactly beautiful, not exactly dramatic, but in its way, as striking as any I have seen. The blue of the clouds is genuine, not camera cheating.

Take a seat!

I bought this bench seat about five years ago, and my son Jeremy and his son Joseph helped me to assemble it. Since then it has festered through all kinds of weather. So, about a month ago, I completely dismantled it and set about "restoring" it. And here it is, restored. I know it's crap, but at least I have given it a new lease of life. Something I wouldn't mind myself.

Damn them!

I just, metaphorically speaking, threw a brick at my TV set. Well, I switched it off with a curse on my lips. It was occasioned by yet another of those items telling me what else is likely to kill me if I don't stop it RIGHT NOW. In this case, it was SALT. When it's not being salt, it's SUGAR, when it's not being SUGAR, it's RED MEAT, when it's not red meat, it's BACON SANDWICHES, when it's not ............. well, you get the picture.
Damn these people, damn them all. I had a phonecall last night from one of my dearest friends. She has a brain tumour and nine months to live. She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, she has always been very physically active. So, you bloody experts, tell me please what she has done wrong to end up with a brain tumour. Today I had an email telling me that one of the finest birding people I have ever known has passed away, after three months fighting prostate cancer. He was a very healthy active individual, always on the go, a good man of moderate habits. So, you bloody jeremiahs, tell me what he did wrong to end up this way.
Damn them all. And damn the media, who are never happier than when they are giving us another scare story.
Hey, mes potes, it IS Friday, my grump day!