Hello December!

Stroll in the Sun

Whilst Mrs BW was getting ready to go to Macclesfield with me, I took off to the Goyt for an hour. The sun was shining and there was a chill wind blowing. The grey, dull weather of recent days had gone. Perfect to get rid of the cobwebs and feeling of sluggishness that I get after a few days off.

The stream in the bottom of the valley meanders along making it look as if some large monster or giant has taken great chunks out of the landscape.

I like the geometry of this photo, the old railway track is gradually being reclaimed, but the whole landscape is littered with the remains of mans influence.

The sheep are back. For a year or so there have been very few sheep here but this morning I noticed that the valley was full of them again.

All too soon I went back to the car and back to collect Mrs BW for a spot of retail therapy and some lunch. Glad I went for the stroll first though.

A Good Read

The smallest Bird Watcher has been off school for a few days (slightly scuppering the plans that Mrs BW and I had for my few days off, but never mind) with man flu. He is not the worlds greatest reader, preferring to be read to or to listen to audio tapes. Yesterday,he started one of the books* he got for his birthday as his PSP gave him a headache. When Mrs BW went into see how he was this morning and I heard her say "Munch why have you started the book from the back?" It turned out that he enjoyed the book so much that he stayed up reading into the early hours and has almost finished it. We were both really pleased. We won't force either of them to read but its thrilling when they do and get so much pleasure out of it.

The Book was Born to Run by Michael Morpago.

I don't like ......Morris Dancing

I am not very fond of Morris Dancers or Morris dancing. In fact I will cross the road to avoid them. The sight of grown men tripping around each other dressed in fancy clothes waving hankies in the air does nothing for me. I once had the unnerving experience of finding myself in Bellingham for a night with Malcolm, my good friend, occasional walking companion, and drinking partner, being followed from pub to pub by the Hexam Morris Dancers. I called it harassment, Malcolm, I seemed to remember said that he thought it was rather uplifting to see such a tradition being continued and hoped that they would follow us to the next pub. They did, which seemed to please him.

Recently I was rather disappointed when chatting to a female friend of mine to find that not only did she enjoy watching Morris Dancers, but she also actively sought out their company, and indeed was hoping soon to perform with a troupe (Is that what you call a load of Morris Dancers? A Nerd would be better I would have thought.) "Its so traditional" she said with a wistful look in her eyes.

So that is it is it! Australians have being good at sports as a tradition, the Welsh have male voice choirs, the French have being good at cooking, the Italians have style and fashion and we the English have Morris Dancing. Henry V must be turning in his grave. Imagine faced with the mass ranks of heavily armed French knights at Agincourt, if we had confronted them not with Long Bowmen but with Morris Dancers, fancily dressed hanky wavers. (I'm glad I got that right) The French would have died laughing. Which I suppose would be marginally better than dieing with an arrow from a long bow sticking in your guts or being trampled under foot by your fleeing compatriots.

So who the hell was Morris? Apparently it comes from the Spanish Morisco and is a type of Moorish dance. So its origins are not even English but continental. Which figures when you think about it. Our Patron Saint St George is not English, so why on earth should one of our traditional dances.

How to spend a day off.

Having a few days off work so what better way to spend it than doing some DIY. Mrs BW and I decided that the grandly named study had deteriorated into a dumping ground for unanswered letters. bills and assorted filing, and it was time to sort it out. I was dispatched to our local DIY store, a place of unbounded confusion to someone of my sensibilities, with instructions to come back with suitable storage and desking. Meanwhile back at base Mrs BW would make a start on the piles of paperwork.

Having wondered around the store for a bit I settled on a bookcase with handy cupboard below and a corner desk. It took me a while to realise that it was self service and that hanging around looking lost and simple would not get me any sympathy nor attention. So I eventually located the boxes that allegedly contained the bits for the pieces that I wanted and realised that they were too bulky to carry without the aid of a trolley.

What is it with Trolley manufacturers? The one I had was impossible to steer unladen. Once I had the boxes loaded onto it I had more chance of steering a super tanker with a paddle than getting the bloody thing to go where I wanted it to. The result was that I took the long way round. When I arrived at the checkout I spotted that one of the boxes had the words 1 box of 2. It turned out that box 2 had not been delivered so the corner desk had to be unloaded. I arrived home desk less so to speak.

Remarkably Mrs BW and I managed to get the bookcase and cupboard up without falling out. It was a great team effort, she reading the instructions (well it makes her happy) and me running about carrying things and bashing things in. In no time at all it was up and we were on the way to being organised. It won't last but we shall enjoy it while it does. Who knows we may even get round to paying a few bills.

Recycled Justice

Some mean spirited little shit of a citizen unable to cope with the new recycling instructions that our wonderful and noble council have introduced, decided that, rather than sort their rubbish into things that can be recycled and things that can't be recycled, they would not bother. Further they then obviously filled their bin up and decided that they would have to dump their surplus into someone else's bin. They choose our next door neighbours. They chose to put the surplus bags into the bin set aside for recycled things only. Their bag contained non recycled things. The eagle eyed bin men spotted this and removed the offending bags and left a sticker on our neighbours bin that their anti social and criminal behaviour had been noted and that if they did it again they would lose all their rights as citizens of this wonderful borough and be sent to prison for life or something like that anyway. Now you see the people that could not be bothered to sort their stuff out into the appropriate piles were not only lazy they were also thick. Amongst the mixed up rubbish they left discarded envelopes with their address on it. They only live a few streets away. The council have been informed. The council have done nothing, nor have they as yet removed the bags of rubbish. A notice has been issued and a form filled in and in the universe of the shinny suited clipboard wielding men equilibrium has been reached and cannot be disturbed. It matters not that an injustice has been perpetrated. After all what is one innocent family wrongly accused in the greater scheme of things.

Great Britain?

We have a football team that can't beat anybody, an Inland Revenue that can't keep our personal details safe, a legal system that keeps on sending innocent people to prison, a police service that shoots innocent Brazilians and tasar's comatose diabetics, a Government that keeps on taking away our freedoms and a postal service that cannot distinguish Close from Road. We live in a cold, crowded, dirty, and windy little island. Apart from that we have nothing to complain about really. And its Friday. What more can you want. I'm off to the pub!

If you look closely you can just about see it!

At last I have managed to persuade my camera phone to download my photos of the stag that we saw a couple of weeks ago. Its there honestly. Not sure why I bothered really.

The Law is an Ass

I think I heard this right. A mother has been sentenced to two weeks in prison because her teenage daughter refuses to go to school. The judge felt it would act as a warning to other families and encourage their teenagers to attend classes a little more often.

He obviously has not got children or they are not teenagers yet. So any self respecting teenager now has the perfect weapon to use against mum and dad. "If you don't let me do what I want then I will stop attending school and you will go to prison! Ha I think I've got you there."

Who thought that little law up? And more importantly what were they thinking of at the time?

I can't help thinking that "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad".

The Open Road

I had to go to Whaley Bridge today, and I have to say that though I like Whaley what I really look forward to is the drive back. The A 5004 "Long Hill" is in my humble view one of the best roads in Derbyshire, especially if you go from Whaley to Buxton. This afternoon it was special. It was just getting dark, the sky was grey and overcast and the clouds low and menacing. To your right the valley falls away towards the dark strip of water that is Fernlee Resevoir. The water is dark and looks deep and dangerous. Today it reflected the oranges and browns of the woods that lie on the other side of the valley. To the right the hillside climbs steeply above the road. As you get nearer to Buxton and the road gains height, the hillside becomes streaked with snow and looks bleak and forbidding. This is a miniature mountain road. It sweeps and curves its way with a few little straights that allow the impatient motorist to overtake and allow the idlers and "captain slows" such as me to poodle along admiring the view. This afternoon the weather was perfect. The low clouds hanging over the hill tops made them seem higher and wilder than they really are. I wished I had a camera but even then I don't think I would have done it justice, sometimes you just have to be there.

Comfort Reading

When you are feeling unwell and down in the dumps, sometimes you crave comfort food, like chocolate or thick soups with crusty bread. I grave comfort reading. When I was struck down with Man Flu last week, I huddled amongst the bed clothes and managed to find the strength to reread some of some my old favourites. I settled on John Mortimer's "Rumple and the Penge Bungalow Murders" and P G Wodehouse's "Code of the Woosters". Lovely! A few hours of harmless well written fun, keeping the nasty real world at bay for a bit at least.

Winter Wonderland?

We had the first snowfall of the winter today (actually its still snowing). It had been forecast, which I guess makes it all the more remarkable that it actually snowed!

I could tell by the light seeping through the curtains that it had snowed when I woke this morning, that and the fact that both the Munch and the Weasel were excitedly shouting out that "its snowing, mum, dad its snowing!".

The Munch has kept his fingers crossed all day that the school bus will be cancelled tomorrow morning. Unfortunately for him we have not had enough to close the schools, even with the over zealous health and safety regimes that most schools seem to operate under. But I guess he can but hope.

Remarkable Water

If you read the advertising on the back of a bottle of Buxton mineral water it boasts about the 5000 year journey the water has made since it fell as rain on the Limestone plateau, to be filtered by gritstone, shale, and more limestone before finally emerging in the bottling plant in Buxton to be put in bottles for our pleasure. It is a remarkable story because the water goes off after 5001 years. I know this because I bought a bottle that said consume before Nov 2008. Quite extraordinary when you think about it. Its just a race against time.

Trains.....

Coming back from London today I had the misfortune to travel with Virgin Trains. It was standing room only, which was bad enough, but the on board train attendants or what ever their called, insisted on making inane announcements. The one that irritated me the most was;

"Will passengers wishing to go to the toilet please make sure that they read the instructions on how use the toilet before they use it."

What do they expect us to do to it? Maybe there were a lot of stupid people on board, but unless you have been living in an isolated part of the world or maybe the rural parts of France, you will be hard pushed not to recognise the toilet and secondly have a pretty good idea how to use it.

Then just as the train pulled away from Stafford (its first stop) and things had thinned out a little bit, and there was a chance that I could go and get a drink from the on board shop they announced that it was closed. The Beardy one has a lot to answer for, smug git.

Thought for The day

Only the British could have a statute outside their parliament of a man who did his level best to destroy it and stamped on the Levellers and their ideas about democracy.

Mr Birdwatcher is unwell

Cruelly struck down with Man Flu, I have had to take to my bed. What a pathetic sight I must make as I lie beneath the covers bravely listening to radio 4 and taking occasional sips of the healing drinks that Mrs BW brings to me. The fledglings have been quiet, bless them ,only Moonshine seems oblivious to my plight. I can hear him now going round on his wheel. It always seems to be much louder when you have to lie there listening to it. I think I ought to have a bell installed so that if I want something I can jangle it to attract Mrs BW's attention. It is easy to be forgotten as you lie here hour after hour. Um not sure that she would agree though...............

All a bit of a Puzzle really

I believe Mrs BW's handbag exists both in our universe and in a parallel one. It is never where she last put it and when she needs it is never there. Then having searched the whole house from top to bottom, twice! It reappears in the spot that she claimed she last left it. My theory for what its worth is that there is another Mrs BW, slightly different of course, in another universe, but for reasons that scientists with much larger brains than I, have yet to work out, they share the same handbag. So when Mrs BW in our universe is not using her handbag off it pops to make itself available for Mrs BW in the parallel universe to use.

This explains why she says things like " My lipstick has disappeared again" and " I am sure I had a ten pound note in my purse".

Its not much of defense I grant you, but I never touched her lipstick.

Checkout Chaos.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon and still I had not had lunch. So driven by hunger and a shortage of time I dashed into Tesco's before my final meeting of the day to grab a sandwich and a healthy bag of crisps. The place was swarming with people. Either there had been rumour that the end of the world was nigh, or Christmas eve had come early or three o'clock is the shopping hour in Glossop. Whatever it was, Tesco's was full of people shopping. It also seemed that all the checkout staff had decided that three o'clock was a good time for a break. The result was chaos at the checkouts. With time being of the essence I decided to use the self service checkouts. Well I mean how difficult could it be? I am a reasonably intelligent sort of bloke. I can, when absolutely necessary read and follow instructions. The first thing that struck me as odd was that as soon as I put my purchases onto the thingy that reads the bar code, an assistant appeared by my side and asked me if I wanted help. I mean that was very nice of her, but it rather defeated the point I would have thought. I politely declined and gave her a smile that was meant to convey to her that I knew what I was doing and in fact I was going to amaze her with my proficiency to such an extent that I would probably be signed up to do nationwide tours of Tesco stores and demonstrate to the masses just how easy it was to use their self service checkouts. She probably thought I was a demented half wit who just smiled like that because I couldn't help it. I turned back to get on with the task. She stayed where she was, ready to help. Well the first thing that went wrong was the the bar code thingy would not read the bar code. I tried to straighten the packaging out, to make it easier for the stupid machine but only succeeded in tearing it so that half the bar code was unreadable. I looked at the instructions. You could enter the bar code in manually or try and find your purchase from a list. I chose the later option. It did not seem to have sandwiches on it. A trickle of sweat ran down my back. I felt the hovering presence of the assistant beside me. I abandoned the sandwiches and grabbed the crisps. I mean how hard could this be for fucks sake. I have got a degree and a responsible job surely I could manage to put a few purchases through the self service checkout. The bar code thingy actually read the crisps and there was a satisfying bleep. A small victory but there was still the packet of sandwiches. I waved them pathetically at the bar code reading thingy. It was not having it. By now there were two assistants watching my lack of progress. One of them stepped forward relieved me of the sandwiches and with a smug I told you so smile entered the numbers. The machine bleeped happily. All I had to do was to pay and make a dignified exit. Neither was easy under the circumstances.

A really pleasant Surprise

We decided to go for a bit of pre lunch walk in the Goyt today, or in my case a bit of a limp. Because of my incapacity we did not do anything strenuous just sticking to the railway track. The fledglings rushed on ahead leaving Mrs BW and I deep in conversation. Suddenly the Weasel came rushing back. "Quick Quick there is a stag just round the corner." We hurried quietly around the bend and sure enough about twenty metres below the track was a fully grown Stag. It was a magnificent sight. It seemed unconcerned by us watching it. It slowly moved off down the hillside disappearing from sight after about fifteen minutes. Of course I had not brought the camera. The Weasel took a few with her camera phone and I will try and down load them at some point. Mrs BW and I have seen hinds before in the Goyt, there is a herd that hangs around Macclesfield forest but this was the first Stag that we had seen in Derbyshire. It was a magnificent sight and made the day.

Its a hard life.........

Let me introduce to you to Yoyo and JC. Yoyo is the white one with brown bits. Yoyo was named after Adebayo Adedayo one of Bath Rugbys' legendary wingers and JC after the genius and puller off of miracle kicks Jonathan Callard. Its rare to see them like this, asleep. Normally their out and about (not). If its sunny and warm, a rare and infrequent combination up here in Buxton, despite global warming, they like to lie under the bushes by the bird feeders. Perhaps they like looking at birds, who knows. They haven't met Moonshine yet. Probably not a great idea to introduce them, after all they are sensitive and easily scared and he has got massive testicles. They are a much loved part of the BW household, even if they serve no useful purpose, other than to keep me company when Mrs BW and the fledglings go off on their adventures.

From Whence I Speak

This is the untidy corner of Birdwatcher Terraces where I occasionally post things to my Blog as requested by Fiwa through her excellent Do you Speak Fiwa-ese? blog. I say occasionally because when Mrs B is in writing mode I have to squat amongst the debris in the living room. We really ought to decorate it or tidy it up or something, but you know how it is. There is always something more important to spent your time / money on.

I don't Believe it!

In Buxton we have a Morrison's, a Waitrose, a Marks and Spencer's (but I suppose everyone has one of those) and an Aldi. Recently Tesco's have opened an "open 24 hours" (actually closed between 2300 and 2400 hours sorry for the inconvenience) mini store to go next to their shiny new petrol station. Sainsbury's have take over the old Kwik Save and are opening one of their micro mini supermarkets. Now according to a glossy leaflet that was poked through the letter box of the Birdwatcher residence, we are to have a full blown macro sized Sainsbury's Supermarket. What do they think we do all day? Eat? Welcome to the homogeneous high street.

A Woman scorned.

I went into the spare room last night, that we at Birdwatcher Towers grandly refer to sometimes as the "TV room", and found the Munch (smallest BW) on the sofa bed with Moonshine (his hamster with the enormous testicles). I have nothing against Moonshine, indeed I have a soft spot for him and he often entertains me on my late night vigils at the computer desk by going round and round for me on his very noisy wheel. I draw the line at him running around our upholstery though. And for good reason.

Before the joyful day when I met Mrs BW, I spent six years living with a woman who not satisfied with the Birdwatcher as company and amusement on long dark winter evenings felt the need to surround herself with small furry animals. She had a hamster called Larry* that she used to let run around the house. I would come home from work and find that all the doors leading off the hall (all two of them) would be closed and the cry, "don't come in Larry's running around" would be what greeted me. I would have to wait in the hall or go upstairs until f***ing Larry had finished running around, and I was allowed the run of our house. There was a funny side. The hamster would run up and down the bottom of the French windows, presumably trying to find a way out. The cat (banished to the outside for obvious reasons) would periodically throw itself with some violence against the outside of the window in an effort to get in at Larry. How tempted was I to form a temporary alliance with the cat and help it in its quest!

The relationship finally came off the rails and I came back one Sunday night, from a satisfying weekend in Bath, and noticed that the cat had gone. Then realised that the girlfriend had gone to and taken most of her clothes. She kindly let me know about a week later by phone just in case I hadn't managed to work it out for myself. I did the decent thing and let her keep the cat and settled into a comfortable life of work, chess, pub and occasional weekend trips to Bath (to watch the rugby)

It was a couple of weeks later, I was rooting though the wardrobe trying to find a decent pair of trousers. I noticed that there were piles of material on the floor. I investigated further. There were teeth marks and signs of chewing on all my best pairs. Someone had let Larry "run around" my wardrobe, and the little bastard had chewed the bottoms of my trouser legs. I have heard about chaps having their suits and shirts cut up into pieces by wives and girlfriends seeking revenge but setting a small furry rodent to do the damage struck me as a bit below the belt, especially as I had not done anything above or below the belt to justify it.

So Moonshine had better watch out. The first sign of chewed trouser leg and there will be trouble.

* She got Larry as a sort of third choice. First on her list was a Spider. A big one. She even took me down to the pet shop to show me. Me that goes faint and panics at an ordinary house spider. The man picked it up and asked me if I wanted to stroke it. He guessed right from my body language that I didn't. Then it was a snake. I think I bought the bloody hamster for her in the end. In fact I agreed that she could have two, more if she wanted. Women! Too devious by half.

I'm an Idiot!

I decided that it was time I had a new radio. There is nothing wrong with the old one by my bedside except that it is a bit limited being an analogue. I may have mentioned before that I often listen to the radio in bed and indeed dose off to sleep listening to the World Service. There is nothing wrong with Radio 4 or for that matter the World Service but BBC 7 has all those fantasic reruns of those old favourites such as the "Burkiss Way to dynamic living", repeats of "I'm Sorry I haven't a clue", "Hancocks half hour", "Kings Street Junior" (I used to fantise about Miss Lewis, pre Mrs BW days of course) need I go on? In fact I might have to go and have a lie down myself for a bit. Of course you can get it through Sky on the Television, but this means endless battles with the fledglings, which I always lose because they know how to override the remote. So I thought, I will treat my self to a digital radio. My life will be complete. I can go to bed early with a mug of cocoa, plug the ear phones in and bliss, drift off to all those old favourites, (the man in black that was a good one). So I bought one. I got it home and could hardly wait to get it out of its box and set up. Then I discovered a bit of a catch, a flaw as it were in my pursuit of this simple pleasure. We don't do digital in Buxton. Its a bit of a digital blackhole. I searched the BBC website and could find no clues as to when digital will be coming my way. I know I should have checked. But I can be impulsive sometimes and I had got so excited about the thought of all those wonderful programmes. At least it gets FM and the reception is good and the earphones are of a better quality than my last ones that used to leak sound and keep Mrs BW awake. And I' sure that by 2009 or 2010 I'll be able to use it. I mean you have to look on the bright side, don't you?

A retraction of Sorts

Having said that I found Top Gear irritating recently, I decided that it was only fair if I watched it this week to see if it had improved. I sat through an hour of the boys taking their second hand cars across various bits of Africa, occasionally patronising some Africans and taking some risks with some of the wildlife. It was actually very funny, though mainly because Clarkson and May both messed up and made mistakes and Hammond for once had the upper hand for most of the show. But I did so want Clarkson to be in the VW at the end *.

This means of course that either I am inconsistent in my views from day to day or I have managed to reverse the ageing process and am retreating from Mr Grumpy back to the carefree days of my Youth. I suspect that it is the former as the only things that are retreating at the moment is my hairline, and my liquidity. Never mind its Tuesday tomorrow.

* Apparently the boys all hate VW beetles and if their own cars failed to make it then they would have to drive the VW that followed them the whole way. I think there was a joke in there somewhere because the VW kept up with them and as far as one can tell didn't get stuck, break down or float away in a river.

Sunday Morning Stroll

Mrs BW had just finished a short story that she had been working on for a while, so by way of celebration we popped into the Goyt for a gentle Sunday stroll. The weather was lovely, almost spring like and Goyt Lane car park was fairly busy. Even so there were not many people about. The Goyt seems to absorb them, so that it never feels really crowded. We set off along the old disused railway track and chatted about this and that, but mostly about the fledglings to be honest. (They had declined the offer to come with us. The Weasel was absorbed in doing something to her hair whilst the Munch was immersed in his latest PSP game. Walking is boring as far as they are concerned, and walking with your parents, in public, so that you might be seen by someone you know, is apparently only one down from catching them (your parents)"at it", what ever "it" may be.) So if we could not have them with us, we talked about them, about the little irritating things that they do, and some of their more unappealing habits. We built up quite a list and I think we both felt better for it. And all around us the Goyt slumbered, silent and golden brown in its autumnal colours, the perfect backdrop for a Sunday morning stroll.

Another nail in the coffin.

I must be getting old, or grumpy or even more boring, but I find Top Gear irritating. If you strip away that flash exterior, peel off those go faster racing stripes and the obsession with horse power, torque and nought to sixty statistics then all you are left with is a bunch of little boys fiddling with themselves and getting all excited about cars. There was a time when I found the programme amusing and at times funny. Now I think they are flogging a dead horse. Perhaps they have realised this with the sudden rush of autobiographies and books that they have come out with. I have a secret wish that when Clarkson asks the audience "who would like to see the lap" (Of the star in the reasonably priced car) They would groan and say no thanks and walk out of the studio. They won't of course because they have paid to be there and they are all equally excited about cars.



Maybe its my age. I quite expect to wake up next week and find that what I need to make my life complete is pair of jeans with an elasticated waist, and that a trip to the garden centre would be an entertaining way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I have told Mrs BW that if I do, she is liberty to shoot me.

Season of Mist and Mellow fruitfulness

I was early for my appointment, so popped up the road and parked in the car park just off Goyt Lane. It was misty and foggy and the air was damp but I could smell the bracken and the clean earthy smell of the moors. In spite of the grey skies, I felt my spirits lift.



The little bit of the brown hillside that was visible through the fog was tinged with golds and oranges. Though I miss the curlews and look forward to their return in the spring, the autumnal colours and the silence make up for their absence. Its a wonderful place to sit and to empty your mind of all the stuff that clutters it up. Things seem to slot into place, worries and troubles drift away.



I sat for a few minutes and collected my thoughts. I was ready to face the day. Even the fact that some selfish bastard had dumped a load of rubbish by the side of the road could not dampen my mood.

What does my car say about me?

I may have mentioned that I have what the fledglings refer to as the most embarrassing car in the world. Its a bit harsh to describe an L Reg Toyota Carina that has seen better days and had more caring and understanding owners and has done, well a lot of miles, as the most embarrassing car in the world but I can see their point.

I am not that bothered about it. It gets me to work and out and about and occasionally takes us on long trips fully laden with teenagers and other stuff that Mrs BW insists on taking on holiday with us. It rarely complains and apart from the kids rarely attracts any sort of comment. Until...

I was at a clients one day last week. I parked my car in the car park at the front of the building, next to the Mercs and BMWs. The main man greeted me at reception and once we had got the initial greetings over he told me that he had just had a visit from some bloke trying to persuade him to sign up to some Management Consultancy deal (scam!)

"You should have seen the car he got into, a bloody Y reg Mondeo. What on earth makes him think I am going to take advice about my business from a bloke in a Y reg Mondeo."

I had no choice but to agree with him and even tutted for good measure. He gazed out into the car park. He could not miss the WMEC standing out like a sore thumb. He looked back at me and I could see that he had made the connection.

"Well at least your advice is free" he said.