Birdithology

Debbie has become a bird watcher! It makes the local dog-walking more interesting: we saw a nuthatch, goldfinches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins, song thrushes, starlings, crows, blackbirds, collared doves and wood pigeons in the park yesterday, and today we had a trip out to the coast and saw a redshank, oyster catchers, and a whole bunch of assorted other unidentifiable birds... we'll have to get the book out! Can anyone tell Debbie what these are? Is that a linnet or a twite or a garden warbler or what? And are those snow buntings? [PS: thanks to Dave Emley for the identification: they are snow buntings but that's a stonechat.]

Here are a couple of easier-to-recognise little birdles from Brereton country park, where we stopped off en-route to the Wirral today (a nuthatch and a robin, or I'm no birdologist at all!).

New Year 2008 - Ice Skating

I've never been in 2008 before and I've never been ice skating before, so that's two firsts today! Liz and Roger asked us if we wanted to go ice skating at Trentham Gardens on New Year's morning, so that's what we we did. The picture on the left shows you what the rink looked like from the other side of the lake. It was fun. No fingers got sliced off, there was no blood on the ice, and there were moments (just brief ones) where everything was under control.

It was harder than roller skating. Liz was quite good; I managed to stay upright some of the time; Debbie put fear into the hearts of novice onlookers awaiting their turn. "Is it really that hard?" asked one trembling woman as Debbie worked her way around the railings. When she realised you could skate and dance at the same time, Debbie started to get the hang of it and by the time they threw us off the rink we were by no means the worst skaters in the place!

Gust would have loved it, but we didn't think they'd rent him skates so he missed out. For him the best things about this time of year are that he gets both of us at home most of the time, there are lots of walks, and we have big "Christmas" dinners five or six times over Christmas and New Year. I've made a concerted effort not to do any work (well, not much) over Christmas and to relax a bit. A little bit of woodwork and house reorganisation; a bit of reading; lots of time out with Gus and up at the yard with Meg. Here's a picture of me and Debbie out walking Gus.

Meg's bad foot now seems to be all better, but I had one of my worst ever trips to the dentist on 26th December, and I've now got a series of root canal appointments through the New Year period for the toothache that was causing problems over Christmas. Oh well; there go some more nerves that nobody will be able to get on again! Speaking of which, I've also now been referred to a neurology specialist about the hard-to-shift headaches that I've been getting, so finding out what a neurologist does will be another first for 2008!