22/05/2010 by Aileen.

I should be going for a long walk up in the Wolds with my OU friends, but a boil in a rather embarrassing place means I can’t walk, stand, sit or lie down. In the end I had to go the doctor and he put me on antibiotics.

I like to think how healthy I am. I haven’t had a cold since we moved to Yorkshire over 6 years ago, and I don’t get headaches or anything. Just suspicious lumps that turn out to be innocuous.

Oh, and I don’t really have bunions. I just thought it sounded a good heading. My feet are in really good shape and I put that down to wearing Dr Scholl clogs for most of my teens, twenties and probably thirties. Even now I wont wear heels if I can get away with it.

It’s the Christening next week, so I suppose I’ll have to dress up.

In the meantime, Chris and Nigel (friends from the 60s) are coming for a couple of days on Monday. It’s their first time here, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m going to cook and freeze a nice meal, so I can chat to them. We may have a barbecue, and we may go out for the day on Tuesday and have a meal out. Sorted. (Apart from my messy house. Chris is so organised and neat.)

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20/05/2010 by Aileen.

I forgot to say I’ll miss David, but I suppose that goes without saying. At Creative Writing we sit in a square, and David always sat at the top right hand corner. He would grin slyly at everyone seeing inuendoes (clean usually) in everything. Well, like a family we have in-jokes. Women drivers, taxi drivers, Xanthia, all subjects of past writings.

I didn’t want to go to Creative Writing last week as I thought it would be so sad, but I needn’t have worried. Sheila, who always sat next to David and was a special friend of his, moved into his place, so we wouldn’t have to look at his empty seat.

There were a few absentees as well. Christine was at a funeral, and Jim had taken his wife for a hospital appointment. (See, we’re all old codgers) But Mary had brought her sister along for the morning as her sister was visiting from Surrey.

That’s what’s so nice about the group. It’s so open and friendly. John has been along. On Friday, Terry, who used to come but did’t rejoin this term as he was on a long cruise,  popped in to ask if anyone wanted a lift to the funeral. The week before Pauline, who doesn’t come any more as she is ill, managed to pop in an see us, and so did someone else, but I’m b***ed if I can remember who!

Next term we might have to relocate to the Adult Ed Centre, as they have a vacant room, but I can’t see it being as friendlya venue as the Methodist Hall.

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20/05/2010 by Aileen.

I haven’t written for a while, as I wanted to write about David, yet at the same time didn’t want to start, as I won’t be able to do him justice.

He was one of my Creative Writing friends. He seemed to be a vey healthy  77 year old, but he had a heart attack, followed by another two (I think) and then died in hospital.

He always had a twinkle in his eye and had a delicious sense of humour. His writing was so elegant. He used to say he had no imagination, and invariably, whatever Stella set us to do, he would write a political piece. He would have made an excellent journalist, and we were always telling him to send off his writing for publication.

In the last few months, though, he had been writing more imaginative stuff. Almost as though he was rounding off his personality.

In a Creative Writing group you get to hear very personal things. We all trust one another and know one another well. That’s why I call David a friend. When he wrote about his family his love and devotion to them shone through. He used to tell us anecdotes during the coffee break too.

At his funeral we heard more of his escapades, as is brother and two sons-in-law spoke. He was very much loved. (David means ‘the beloved’)

The funeral was a humanistic one, and as a Christian I found it a bit sad. (Although the service leader was very upbeat, smiling a lot and saying David hadn’t gone, he lived on i our memories) So, when we have all died and no one remembers him any more he’ll be gone then, I suppose.

Anyway, I missed biblical readings and singing, and the hope of everlasting life. I like to think that David was trying to say,’I was wrong, there is something’ and doing his darndest to let us know. He would enjoy the joke being on him.

Now I’ve started writing again I’ll probably log on later with an update on my life. See ya.

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11/05/2010 by Aileen.

but only for a minute or two. I’m off to lunch in Bainton with the WI. Ooer, get me. I’m a lady who lunches. Never thought the WI would suit me - I think on the whole groups should be mixed sex - but the people are so nice. And the talks are so interesting.

Lots has happened this week, incuding the unexpected death of one of the lovely Creative Writing friends I have,  but Ill have to write about it later.

In the meantime, one of the mallards (not the front garden one) has had eleven ducklings. Here they are.

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05/05/2010 by Aileen.

We went to a new venue for Birding today. An organic farm. From the car park we saw two deer, and on setting off along the (small) River Hull I saw a trout leaping out of the water. Not sure who else saw it, as I didn’t hear any oohs and aahs, but I’ve never seen anything like it before.

We also had really good close-up views of hares. But the main focus of the morning was the heronry. Herons nest high up in trees, a bit like rooks do. I don’t think I’ll put a photo up as the ones I took showed twigs across the herons’ bodies. But it was a really interesting thing to see. I can’t make up my mind over whether herons are clumsy or graceful.

At the end of the morning we had homemade grub from the farm shop/café. We sat in a circle in the sun, and it was the warmest day we’ve had so far.  Really enjoyable.

Monday evening was enjoyable too, but it was freezing. Only four Viewfinders turned up for the Fish Trail in Hull Old Town.

http://www.realyorkshire.co.uk/thedms.aspx?dms=13&venue=2171675&feature=2

In the end we didn’t actually follow the fish trail, but wandered around snapping anything that took our fancy. Hull was a really prosperous place years ago, and there are some wonderful old buildings, but it was bombed badly in the war, and ugly new places intersperse the Victorian ones. Not just Victorian, there are some much older buildings. Can’t think of their dates, but OLD.

I’ll put up a photo of an old church reflected in the glass of a modern building, and the same church reflected in the window of a pub.

While I’m at it I’ll put up a couple more photos from the Dawn Walk, as people were saying nice things about the ones on Michael’s blog.

http://www.eybirdwatching.blogspot.com/

Here come the photos.

Hares on the organic farm

 Reflections - the old in the new.

More from the Dawn Chorus walk.

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02/05/2010 by Aileen.

Oh dear. Weeks ago ( I don’t do calendars) I noticed a female mallard sniffing  investigating a patch in our front garden border. A while later I discovered she was sitting on a nest. I kept an eye on her without getting too close, and in the end I was worried that she was dead. She didn’t seem to move and her eye was very dull looking. Then one day she had turned 180 degrees (horizontally) so I knew she was alive.

One day when I checked, she had gone, and the nest was empty. I thought ‘phantom pregnancy’. I checked a couple of days later, and she was back! I threw some peanuts down, and left.

Then, yesterday when I checked, I heard a peep peep peeping, and I saw a duckling. I rushed in for my camera, but when I got back I only saw the female, and left. An hour or two later I checked again, and there were two little ducklings ‘peeping’ out at me. But when I got my camera there was only the mum on view.

Today I checked again, and the nest was empty but I saw a few whole eggs and some egg shells. See the photo below. I don’t know what has happened.

I’m hoping she took the two ducklings down to the water. It will be a longish journey for them. They’ll have to get out of our garden and across the lane. They can’t access the canal straight ahead of us as there’s a little brick wall, so they’ll have to waddle up or down a bit until the reach grass, and then they can cross to the water.

I dunno. I’ll update you all when I know a bit more.

see ya.

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01/05/2010 by Aileen.

Oh I’ve had a lovely day. Michael (Birding leader) arranged a Dawn Chorus walk. I set the alarm for 4.15 and woke at 3.55, so lay there waiting for the alarm. The time seemed to stretch more than 20 minutes, so I checked the time. Oops. It was 4.35. I had 15 minutes to get up and meet the others at the venue (luckily it was only 2 miles away)

We shared cars to a nearby place, and had a wonderful time. It was really cold at first, but by the end the sun was up, and it was a beautiful day. We saw a cuckoo, garden warbler, and g.s. woodpecker as well as the usual suspects. There was also another bird which will have to be nameless in case egg collectors get to hear about it.

Anyway, here are a few photos.

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