bird feeders – derrickjknight

Waiting For A Table

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Today, Jackie drove us to Frances’s home in Wroughton, near Swindon and back.

We sat and talked in her garden, where

her trug and its contents had clearly been put to good use.

Prospect Hospice where Chris died two years ago, has a Bluebell Walk which is undergoing a cleaning process at the moment. This is a paved path funded by the purchase of bricks and stones bearing the names of people who spent there last days in this peaceful final care home.

Our sister-in-law drove us there to show us Chris’s paver. She and the family had gone for the tasteful, simple, option.

Back at The Mountings Frances gave us a welcome lunch of pasties and chips.

Afterwards, in the garden, I watched sparrows on the bird feeders, which tended to become a little crowded.

As in all the best restaurants, it was necessary to queue for a table;

then the more fortunate visitors had one to themselves.

This evening Jackie and I dined on her excellent chilli con carne with rice and peas, followed by vanilla ice cream. I drank more of the Fleurie and Jackie didn’t.

40+ MPH

Unless I am seeking good light for photography, I am fairly impervious to the weather. Not so the head gardener. Jackie is usually very even tempered. Except when we have a heavy wind (or another driver is ‘up [her] bottom’ on the road). Then she wanders around the house muttering imprecations, before dashing out into the garden bringing her own whirlwind to lay down anything that the weather hasn’t yet dislodged, and picking up hanging baskets that have succumbed. The tall ecclesiastical candlesticks used as planters are particularly vulnerable.

Today’s gusts ran at 40+ MPH.

We needed to buy some more bird food. Now that the crows have found it, replenishment is required more often. The small birds who made it to the swinging containers this morning were disappointed as must have been Eric and the larger pigeons as they scrabbled around underneath for droppings.

When Jackie bought the feed this morning, and loads for us and our Easter guests, her full trolley was blown across the car park as she began to decant the contents into the car. A kind young gentleman wheeled it back to her.

Later, the sun emerged and the wind speed increased. The blue tits and other small birds were happy to perch on their now filled swinging feeders, and a young dove felt safe enough to leave its rooftop camouflage to feast on suet balls.

This evening we enjoyed the usual excellent meal at Lal Quilla in Lymington. They were quite full, which is probably why we didn’t have the usual chat with the chef. We both had well filled, juicy, prawn puri starters with fresh salad, drank draught Kingfisher, and shared a perfect parata. My main course was delicious king prawn naga with special fried rice; Jackie’s was excellent chicken biriani.

Sharing A Meal

When we arrived in Downton on 31st March last year, clumps of large leaves were present in the front garden. Following our policy of giving unrecognised plants time to make themselves known, we refrained from disturbing them. These produced nothing more until now. We don’t know what they are. Does anyone? The holly leaf in the first picture gives the scale of the small blue flowers that have poked their heads out. The next two offer enlargements as an aid to identification. The fresh foliage is much smaller than it will be in the summer.

Today I took a slightly longer and more gainly hobble around the garden than yesterday. Other new arrivals are different varieties of primula, and the first of the numerous alliums which will crop up everywhere as the year goes on. These latter are very welcome in the beds, but far too many of them pierce the gravel and brick paths. As the weather warms up their heady aroma is nowhere near as appetising as that of the frying onions that tempt you to stop at a hot dog stall. Indeed, when we first savoured it we thought there must be a problem with our septic tank.

Among the new daffodils are tiny tete-a-tetes.

A single layer of bricks that, last week, Aaron placed at the end of the back drive in order to deter offending vehicles, has survived unscathed.

During our lunch we watched others enjoying theirs. Through the kitchen window I was able to photograph the avian diners.

First, a pair of greenfinches sat opposite each other, as did Jackie and I.

When I reached the window, one flew off, leaving its less timid mate in sole possession.

It is not usual at the moment for different species to share a meal, but our then unaccompanied visitor seemed content to accommodate a blue tit.

Once this little creature hopped down to a lower perch,

The more cautious greenfinch joined the party, the couple remaining on the alert to repel any more boarders, but allowing their companion to continue lunching.

Finally, the smaller bird having had its fill and flown off, the braver greenfinch took its place on the lower berth, whilst its mate emulated the cow in the hedge.

My egg and bacon wasn’t too congealed by the end of this little interlude.

This evening, for our dinner, Jackie produced her classic cottage pie, cauliflower, carrots, and brussels sprouts, followed by a juicy raspberry crumble. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Heritage de Calvet Cotes du Rhone Villages 2013.

P.S. Jackie thought the plant was possibly borage, and Vicki Haynes confirmed it. This enabled my lady to do further internet research, establishing it as a perennial borage, boraginaceae trachystemon orientalis. In UK it is termed Oriental Borage. In Turkey the plant is eaten as a vegetable.

A Dusting Of Snow

Hampshire, this morning, enjoyed its first what the BBC News called ‘a dusting of snow’. Unfortunately, although Jackie and I are both feeling a little better today, I am still not well enough to get dressed and go outside. I aimed my camera through the glass of the kitchen window. Small birds can be seen picking their way along the white coating.

The various avian visitors to the bird feeders normally disappear rapidly at the first sign of anyone inside, but this morning, either out of the goodness of their hearts, or from a desperate need to find food among the falling snowflakes, great and long-tailed tits swung on the peanut container, apparently oblivious of my presence.

Jackie and I both had a late breakfast of toast and croissants and mid-afternoon boiled eggs and soldiers. These soldiers, for anyone who does not know this practice, are strips of buttered bread that can be dipped into the egg. Jackie prepared something for herself later, but I, sated, had gone back to bed by then.

Have I Simply Gone Mad?

A robin and a blue tit saw off a nuthatch from the bird station. Really it was the robin who did the business, the tit being like the little kid who eggs on the bully to snatch some of the glory. The robin then stood guard, looking threatening, while the tit, knowing he didn’t belong in the same space as the toughie, head deferentially bowed, waited his turn. Modern technology found a wonderful new way to send me ballistic this morning. We received a phone call from the handyman who is to fix a few things in the flat. One item was not on his list. Since, without the agent’s say so he could not fix it, unless we contacted them we would need to continue flushing the lavatory with a piece of string which gets soggy if you drop it in the water. Rob, the handyman, asked us to call the agent. That was when the fun started. After dialling the number I was asked by a machine to enter my password. Well, how do you do that on a mobile phone? I also had an e-mail telling me the device would not receive messages because the password was incorrect. Thinking this may have been to do with my having reset my e-mail password on the BT account, I followed the directions given to do that. I was not allowed to do it that way, so I tried another. The new password was rejected, and the phone locked. Now, my mobile phone is on an O2 account, as my regular readers will already know. The home phone, in Jackie’s name, is a BT account. So you will be able to imagine my surprise, and mild expletives, when I got the same password request on the home phone. My expletives became even milder when Jackie got the same response on her pay as you go T-mobile. Eventually, I received a call from the home phone on my mobile. Jackie had now discovered that that had begun to work without the machine’s interference, as had her mobile. I could now receive calls, but access nothing else on my locked phone. There are seventeen apartments in this building. During this fiasco our entry buzzer was activated. Hoping it was our Rob, Jackie answered the door to a deliveryman who was trying to access number 15. Ours was one of only two buzzers he had managed to get to work. Rob arrived in good time. He was unable to access the loo until I got out of the bath. My ablutions had been delayed by the shenanigans. Whilst soaking comfortably I contemplated ‘Murder In The Lounge’, posted on 25th August last year. That story was about a cat fight. What I didn’t mention then was that the people next door were out when I returned the perpetrator’s collar, so I put that through the letterbox and left an answer phone message. My neighbours did not receive the message, and what is more, their entry phone did not take messages. Nevertheless, as I pressed the buzzer, a machine from inside the hall asked me to leave a message. So I did, and when I heard nothing more from my neighbours whose cat, after all, had left my sitting room looking like a pile of feathers after a predator had made a kill, I thought that rather churlish of them. So, did that buzzer short circuit with the telephone, or was the timing pure coincidence? And, if that was possible, could the deliveryman, trying all the buzzers in turn, have managed the same thing? It was, after all, only after he left that Jackie managed to use the phone. Or have I simply gone mad? Never mind, I thought, the birch on the lawn now sports fresh green leaves, and the sun casts its rays through our huge mullioned windows. There was, however, nothing remotely amusing or cheerful about the way the rest of the morning was spent. I was rash enough to telephone O2 about the locked phone. First of all the advisor suggested the earlier problem must have been related to the number we were trying to ring. That made sense to me. She then took me through the very lengthy process of unlocking my mobile. I had to enter, ten times, the password that kept showing up as incorrect. She could then reset it for me, but all the information carried by my phone would be wiped. I did this, and watched all my contact information; e-mails; saved messages; texts; and anything else I haven’t thought of, represented by a black line progressing across the screen. Twice. When she reset it, the password I had been using all along worked. Perhaps I have gone mad. This is exactly why I have always been reluctant to keep all information in my mobile phone’s memory. But I’ve often been a bit lazy in this respect. So, if you ever want to hear from me again, please send me an e-mail with your contact details. If I don’t receive any of these, I will know where I stand, and I just don’t know what I’ll do with myself. After lunch, with all this buzzing in my head, Jackie drove us to Elizabeth’s, where she continued planting bulbs and seeds and I cut the grass. This was slightly problematic in that I couldn’t get the mower going again. I was just about to throw in the towel, when, realising that would only clog up the works even more, I remembered Elizabeth’s technique, displayed on 20th, of pushing the machine along, jerking it up and down. A few yards of shoving what looked like a giant snail with hiccups did the trick. We were pleased to see the early, red, rhododendron has benefited from the bracken compost and the removal of diseased buds last summer. Before I could put my mind to this, I gleaned some family phone numbers from my sister and inserted them into my mobile. If you are a family member do not assume I now have all your details. Danni cooked a superb roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings for the four of us. Pudding was apple and blackcurrant pie. Danni and I drank McGuigan Estate shiraz 2012; Jackie drank Hoegaarden; and Elizabeth drank water.

Best Before

Seated with our coffees in the arbour this morning, Jackie and I noticed that the area around the bird bath was alive with tits and other birds. They were in and out of the bath, but mostly flitting and swooping from shrub to tree. We thought this must be because it is a seed season.

This prompted us to drive out to In-Excess in Ringwood. We had noticed this on our recent trip to Helen and Bill’s. Here we found a first-rate garden centre very reasonably priced. We had gone for squirrel-proof bird feeders and birdseed. We found them. Take Jackie to a garden centre and she fills the car up with plants. I thought I was bad enough with bookshops. Today was no exception. We came back with more than enough to fill the new bed.

Before returning, we had lunch in the centre’s tea rooms. All the staff here were very friendly and helpful. They even guided us through the maze that led to the hidden loos. The young woman who brought Jackie’s baked potato and my Full English breakfast made us feel that it was a real pleasure for her. There was ample room for a gentleman in a wheelchair to manoeuvre himself to a table and settle himself comfortably for his meal.

One of the bags of birdseed we had bought was specifically designed for robins. Our robin, clearly preferring fresh food, stayed with the woodlice and slugs disturbed by our tidying up the remaining unused sections of brick pillar. Another swooped from tree to tree from another direction, landed on the feeder and flew away. Maybe he thought the swinging container a bit unstable. Maybe our presence put him off. Maybe he feared being seen off by the robin who has claimed this as his territory. We hung two feeders on the pergola, and two on the tree by the pond. Later, our own robin, now sporting a fine adult red breast, took possession of his new feeder and gratefully chomped away.

Jackie spent the afternoon planting our new acquisitions, especially those for the bed I created yesterday. While she did this I began a print-out of my blog posts which I intend to bind and present to Mum for her 90th. birthday in October.

This evening Jackie presented us with more left-overs soup; shepherd’s pie; and, in my case, bread and butter pudding, in the ladies’, lemon souffle. Elizabeth and I drank Namaqua 2011, and Jackie, Hoegaarden.

During conversation, we spoke of best before and sell-by dates. Knowing that the provenders are bound to be on the conservative side, I tend to rather dismiss these precautions, preferring to rely on my nose. I did this in 2006 in Newark, when I found a jar of Indian chutney at the back of a kitchen cupboard. This had been shipped over to this country. I could tell that because even the script on the original label was unintelligible to me. Pasted across this was a sticker in English proclaiming a best before date of 1999. ‘Well’, I thought, ‘it’s pickle after all’. I used it. It was hot and strong and delicious. The wife of a friend of Matthew’s, on the other hand, would not entertain anything unless it was well within the recommended time scale. Shopping with Mat one day, she refused to buy an avocado, because it did not carry a sell-by date.