The Bald Birder

19 September 2021 A wren’s nest similar to the one I found in the Hawthorne. A year ago, give or take a week or so, I was cutting back some Hawthorne in the back garden. A little earlier than I perhaps should have done but the leaves were starting to curl over brown on the edges and the days were certainly getting cooler. Deeply entwined amongst the criss-cross of branches I came across a…

12 September 2021 The nights are drawing in and the opportunity to ring bells after work is something I sense we will be looking forward to each week. Our village church has rung bells for many hundreds of years and as I walk through the tower doors, we pass a gallery of portraits of the vicars past and not so past. I have often heard bells ringing across towns and villages, including St Mary’s…

I am ashamed, it has been months since I decided to restart posting. The decision to continue writing was based on a number of reasons; one being that it helped me strike a balance in my life. A balance between work and the all too consuming day-to-day hubbub of life, and the things that matter the most and make me happier. Alas, I have failed at the first hurdle with chores and hubbub preventing…

31 May – 06 June The sun is warming the windows and walls and there is a cacophony of birdsong outside. Without the use of any app or website I can clearly make out at least one blackbird, rooks a robin and a song thrush. Over the past year or so I have become much better at recognising bird song, an aspect of bird identification that I had always been weak, which is a sign of how I have attuned…

Saturday 20 March 2021 This is the end. The last post of my year-long blog and I feel a little mixed about it; celebratory, satisfied, accomplished, even melancholy. But there is often pleasure in the end of things, and I am focusing on that. The last mouthful from a Sunday roast, the end of the working week, the end of a long car journey or satisfying walk. The final whistle of a football match…

Friday 19 March “It is not yet spring. Spring is being dreamed and the dream is more wonderful and more blessed than ever was spring. What the hour of waking will bring forth is not known, catch at the dreams as they hover.” Edward Thomas, In Pursuit of Spring What a beautiful day. The sun has been bleaching the bluest of skies, with only the occasional candyfloss cloud drifting by on the cool…

Thursday 18 March Started today with another run before work. It does get the day started with an early sense of accomplishment. As I ran down the lane, a male pheasent bestowed in his emerging colourful  regalia ran across my path. Just as, in the opposite direction and directly above the pheasent, a magpie glided across and between the Pollard trees. These trees, lining the full length of the…

Wednesday 17 March Dad went to see Mum yesterday at the care home. He rang me in the evening and I pictured him with a glass of red wine in his hand as he spoke to me. He explained how Mum’s new room was really nice, how he preferred it to the other one, the carpet the decor and the en suite. The view was nicer too. It’s very touching how Dad talks as/for Mum – he knows what she would say and…

Tuesday 15 March Adora took this picture yesterday on her walk with Mabel. It’s stunning. I went for a run this morning, 6 am. As well as being particularly proud of myself, I am also really pleased that I have started to take on this exercise routine at this time of year. The morning is obviously brightening, like me it’s ‘getting up’ a little earlier now too. And of course as the sun rises it…

Monday 15 March Six days away from the start of spring, Saturday 20th March, and the end of my year long blog. I can’t help but smile and think of how fitting that is. In a year as tumultuous and, at times desperate, that it should so fittingly end with the start of the season of hope and rebirth. Hope will be in the air and on everyone’s minds. Looking on with the sun on their backs. As has…

Sunday 14 March This time next week my time will be up. Three hundred and sixty five days of this blog and we find ourselves right back where we were. Restricted in our movement, meaning we can only travel for essential reasons and we can only exercise once a day outdoors and only within our own household bubble. A whole year. But I am grateful that no one in our immediate families have suffered…

Saturday 13 March I have noticed over this last year, that Saturday for me is day of emotional release. During the week I store up different experiences, which create different emotions and, whilst we are locked-down, there is little to no opportunity to let it go. It’s not all negative stuff of course, but it easier to celebrate the positives when your couped up. So, this morning I lay in till…

I felt absolutely shattered today. I don’t think it’s due to any one thing, just an accumulation of stresses and strains, at work and elsewhere. It happens, and is probably to be expected, under the current circumstances. But it’s Friday and I drove home this evening with a car boot full of Aldi’s finest groceries and some comforting tunes playing on the radio. Home made curry and two days of…

I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning and do my run. No mean feet, it was wildly windy and grey and angry looking. As I scanned the skies I noticed gulls and crows edging and banking into the gusts. Then diving into them, oncoming, beak first, before spinning one-hundred and eighty degrees and shooting, arrow-like, in the opposite direction. Then I came to the end of the mostly…

Wednesday 10 March The days seem to be whizzing by at the moment and I am struck by an increasingly regular thought. One which has increased as I have gotten older and even more so, I feel, since all of this Coronavirus lockdown thing has been happening. I appreciate that each day is a gift and say that to the kids and adults how ask me how I am, and how I am so positive and optimistic…

Tuesday 09 March It’s hardly a marathon but it’s a start.. So, I did it! This morning I honestly surprised myself by plucking myself out of bed at 6am and put on my jogging gear fumbled with my trainers. Then, creeping downstairs, past the dog, I made my way through of the front door and walked out into the dull but steadily lightening outdoors. …and I am looking forward to the mornings…