There now follows an entire chronologically reversed sequence of fluffy-wuffy puppy-wuppy photographs of our latest family acquisition, complete with suitably inane syrupy comments entirely designed to make you want to puke!
Sometimes, if a wildlife related situation demands it, I make Tess hang back while I move ahead quietly (about 50m in this case). She's quite happy to do that, but doesn't take her eyes off me for a single moment as I am more likely to tell her what to do next using hand signals than by using my voice or a whistle.
Working together day in and day out for more than a year and a half has resulted in Tess and me being able to virtually "read" each other's minds....Here she's thinking "When's he going to put that bleepin' camera down and sort out some bleepin' lunch, the silly old bleeper!".
Waiting for instructions.
In the Scent Cone....Here, Tess has caught Maddy's scent and swims off to find her on the opposite side of this water course where she is lying on the ground well out of sight pretending to be a casualty. I think it's probably fair to say that Labradors really do come into their own whenever and wherever water is involved.
Wearing her new summer working harness.
Tess's leg is still a little sore after her airborne collision with a rock face the other day, so I'm giving her a more low impact-orientated exercise routine at the moment that includes loads of swimming....Not that half her day isn't spent in water anyway!
Back to work.
Yet another American Signal Crayfish that Tess discovered on dry land (this time in a patch of nettles) as it was steadfastly making its way in the rain towards some distant water course, the nearest being almost a hundred metres away! Note the bright red undersides of the claws....A diagnostic feature of this particularly aggressive species. Incidentally, it would have been against the law for me to have helped it on its way by placing it in any river system, so it was a question of bagging it and eventually placing it in the freezer at home in order to kill it before disposing of it well away from the nearest water.
On the same day that Tess found the Signal Crayfish photographed above, she drew my attention to this one that had been left half eaten almost certainly by one of the local Otters....A conclusion I could draw in view of the fact that, not only is this a typical example of Otter-type finicky eating, but because it had also been discarded on a rock beside a Cotswold river that is frequently used as a feeding station by at least one of the Otters inhabiting that particular area.
Tess seemed to like the smell of scented Mayweed and would have rolled happily amongst acres of the pretty little flowers for ages had I let her....Still, it was an unusual (not to say, refreshing) deviation from her more preferred attempts to roll in sun-dried cow dung, fresh rabbit droppings or dead Fox kill! Labradors....Don't you just love 'em?
"Can I go in? Can I? Please....Look I've found the scummiest part of the lake to swim in....You know I like the scummy bits the best....They're really er....scummy!"
Water margin work....Just the ticket on a warm sunny day.
Some people are apparently greatly irritated by the sheer number of photographs of Tess that I keep insisting on putting on my websites....Well, tough! I don't do it for them, I do it for me and for the huge numbers of dog-lovers worldwide whose only reason for visiting my sites at all is to find out if Tess is safe and well, what she's been doing of late and what she's currently up to.
A shady corner.
Having a bit of fuss made.
I didn't notice them at the time, but what do you suppose those tiny white blobs strung out in a line might be? It wasn't something on the camera lens and I'm pretty sure it's not a trick of the light. Something strung out on a spider's web maybe?
Yes....and this is where it entered the water.
Marsh Marigolds and Dog.
Playing
Working in the very heart of the forest where there are no man-made trails and only the sounds of the forest itself are to be heard.
May, 2010
Springwatch
Resting in the sunshine.
Relaxing in the garden at home (11th May, 2010).
Waiting to be commanded to enter the water and swim across the lake.
Swim training....Tess's favourite activity. Here she practises responding to being told (and/or signalled) to swim to the left, the right, straight ahead or, as in this case, to about face and return to me.
Waiting for instructions from the far side of a river.
Ground-scenting.
Ranger work....Gathering a bio-sample from the middle of a large pond.
Here, Tess can be seen air-scenting the wind blowing across the cliff-tops having just responded to entering a casualty's "scent cone". A scent cone is the roughly cone-shaped area of scent that emanates from a casualty and which a wilderness search and rescue dog must learn to react positively to (despite probably having passed through it at some distance from its source) and by then moving towards increasing concentrations of it using an ever-narrowing zig-zag pattern.
No matter where a casualty may have fallen or come to grief, a wilderness SAR dog must be prepared (and determined) to reach them, even if the handler is temporarily unable to do so until further help arrives. It's a well-known fact that the mere arrival of the SAR dog alone provides a massive boost to the morale of a casualty and drastically improves their chances of survival even though they may otherwise have been very close to death.
Training under strict supervision in as many kinds of environment as possible ultimately reduces the "surprise" factor of the many and varied dangers that a wilderness SAR dog will probably encounter during a rescue....A rescue which may well take place on a warm summer's day amidst the gently rolling hills of the Cotswolds escarpment or just as easily unfold half way up a Welsh mountain in the zero visibility of a vicious blizzard or on a North Cornish cliff-top in the middle of a raging winter storm.
Occasionally, Tess will find herself unable to climb a couple of metres out of, for example, a small rocky gully and so she has been trained to grip a rope between her teeth so that she can be hauled out quickly and safely....Provided of course, that she doesn't choose to bark at that precise moment! For longer or more dangerous ascents and/or descents, perhaps from a helicopter, she can be strapped to me by way of a special harness or can be raised or lowered in the same harness independently as the situation demands.
The joy of the wind in her face and the feel of her ears flapping in the wind.
Tess keeps watch through a window of my motor-home as the rain clouds move inland and I prepare our meals at the end of another long, tiring day. Then its just a question of getting my paperwork done before I jump into bed for an evening of watching mostly old black and white movies on my DVD player while Tess snores happily beside me.
Always inquisitive.....
....Always eager to please.
I watch her sometimes when it's quite obvious that she's consciously trying to work out her next best move.
The last time Tess was working in this area, about six months ago, she electrocuted herself on an electric fence. It was pouring with rain, she was soaking wet and it must have really hurt. Not surprisingly, this time she gave the fence, which was on the other side of this narrow river, a very wide berth.
No recent Otter activity here.
Keeping cool
Back to the car at the end of the day.
The shade of the woods is most welcome on warmer days.
Lunchbreak
Above and the two photographs below....A newly discovered Badger sett with entrances spread over a wider than usual area. It was a major asset to have Tess on hand to help locate them all. Normally, this would take at least a morning if I was working by myself, but it took Tess less than half an hour to find them all with me following after her mapping the area, making notes and taking photographs.
I shall be taking Maddy on a night-time badger-watching excursion soon and I had initially planned to focus on a sett in an altogether different county, but this one is more remote and slightly better suited as far as the surrounding terrain is concerned for us to operate with the absolute minimum of disturbance to the Badgers. Maddy also wants to try filming them using some of our NVE equipment, but I need to find out more about these particular animals on my own before I take anyone else along with me complete with a load of camera gear.
Almost certainly this was the most recently excavated of all the sett entrances, complete with its own freshly dug mound of earth piled just outside.
Resting in the shade
Working the banks of a small river in Herefordshire well known to us. In fact the riverbanks are very steep all along this section of water margin and it's often necessary for me to reach down towards Tess with a long enough stick so that she can grab hold of it with her teeth and I can help her scramble out. On this particular occasion, we were searching for Otter sign, but she could just as easily have been searching for signs of a missing person under a riverbank overhang or amongst dense vegetation during a search and rescue operation.
Otter tracks, showing not one paw print, but two with the print of the hind foot superimposed directly on top (though slightly to the left side) of the much longer one created by the fore (the fifth digital pad print is just about visible though it doesn't always show). This happens when the animal is walking and, therefore probably in a fairly relaxed state of mind. The spread of paw prints when the animal is either galloping or bounding occur in an altogether different formation. Tess drew my attention to these and I suspect that they were made by a medium-sized bitch Otter that we had not encountered before.
Launch!
I'd say that for every single example of Otter sign we come across, there's an average of twenty miles-worth of routine searching in between. However, not all of the sign we find is necessarily close to water as Otters are often prepared to travel across open farmland during their predominantly night-time wanderings, sometimes passing quite close to human habitation if needs must. In this picture, Tess locates what she believes to be the point at which an Otter re-entered the water after a trek of more than three hundred yards across wide open meadowland. She then lost the scent entirely, only to suddenly stumble across the tracks shown two pictures above this one about thirty yards further on. We could just as easily have gone the other way however and missed them altogether. Nevertheless, it was a good day Otter-wise with Tess helping me to map more than half a mile of their movements.
Mountain Goat Syndrome (or MGS). Here, Tess is retrieving an object that I asked a passing rambler to conceal somewhere out of sight along the trail about twenty minutes ahead of us.
Working the rivers
Otter spraint comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, but nearly always contains a wide selection of fish remains, including scales, teeth, assorted bones and fin membranes. Sometimes Otters will also kill and eagerly devour frogs, mice and voles, as well as water birds, such as Moorhen and Coot or the young of Grebe or duck and so it's not uncommon to find feathers and shards of bone from such birds plus assorted amphibian and mammal bones and even pieces of skull in spraint as well.
This particular example meanwhile, contained many scales, a few fish bones and vertebrae, but little else. It was fairly fresh however, no more than twelve hours old and had been deposited on a moss-covered rock close to an old sluice probably as a territory marker (or even as an "I'm here and definitely available" sign to any passing bitch) by the big dog Otter I'm currently trying to keep a watch over.
Oddly, excreting my own "spraint" in various prominent places back when I was a single man rarely seemed to work when it came to attracting the opposite sex and I was eventually forced to soak it in liberal quantities of "Hai Karate" aftershave before it finally achieved the desired effect....Of course, I might be wrong, but I do suspect that the combined odour of my own "spraint" and the massively popular (at the time) "Hai Karate" aftershave range of the 1970s didn't go entirely unnoticed in the world of men's sweaty bits and that the subsequent smell that I personally chose to call "Hai Poo", eventually went on to inspire several later so-called "pongs for men", including the new and much-lauded "Lynx" range. Yet, did I ever get the full recognition I so obviously deserved....or so much as a penny in royalties? Did I cr*p!
After drawing my attention to the spraint just visible on the left-hand side of the moss-covered rock in the very bottom left of the picture, Tess continued to follow the Otter's scent up river. Sadly however, she lost track of it this time less than twenty metres further on. Still, it's another piece of the jig-saw and it all helps to build a better three-dimensional picture of this particular animal's movements, general behaviour patterns and day to day habits.
Oh....and there's no point in getting all uppity and territorial about what I'm doing if you're something to do with any kind of environment or conservation agency because I've experienced this kind of thing before where I given important information about the whereabouts of something special to some office-orientated, fat-a*sed seat-shiner with a personal reputation to enhance and then the next thing you know, those very details have appeared in the agency's stupid quarterly magazine or even in the local rag and if that happens here, then I might as well just pin a notice to every tree in the neighbourhood advertising the whereabouts of all the Otter sign I've discovered so far to every pig-ignorant, moronic Otter-hater out there....Not to mention the other bunch of self-serving personal reputation enhancers, the professional wildlife photographer brigade, every one of whom I've ever had dealings with is just desperate to get that "perfect" picture, the prize-winning one that's good enough to grace the cover of BBC Wildlife magazine! Invasive tw*ts!
So forget it, as far as I'm concerned, I might as well be disliked by all of you....and just bear in mind also, that anything I've added to my websites concerning Otters so far or that I might choose to add in the future by way of text as well as photographs, is just as likely to be a deliberate red-herring as it is the truth! The only important thing here is the welfare of the Otters and not your grant status or your stupid fr*ckin' reputations....and don't ever try leaning on me again unless you think you can manage what the IRA and the Busos Tacticos never could! Besides, I'm a certified crazy guy (it's official and the main reason I have sudden, inexplicable outbursts like this) with absolutely no concern for my own safety or welfare....though that last bit is a Royal Marine thing!
"Is it time for lunch yet?"
Air-scenting practise....One way of encouraging Tess to keep her head up and her nose away from the ground in order to "scent" the air more effectively and use her eyes more efficiently, is to place or hang items (in this case a blue rubber tuggy-toy) well off the floor. This time, we've hung the toy from a branch about five feet off the ground, expecting her to, not only find it, but also to figure out how to retrieve it....
....Which she soon does!
Nineteen Months old on the 1st April....
....and we waited patiently first thing in the morning as my wife readied herself before joining with Tess and me to face the adventures that lay ahead of us that day.
We wait to say a quick hello to Fred and Freda.
Unfortunately, people come to grief in all manner of places and Tess needs to be as familiar as possible with all of them (places that is, not people).
More air-scenting practise....Here, a pair of children's mittens have been hidden well out of sight on top of an old tree stump, but Tess, having worked a zig-zag-type search pattern, has crossed their scent cone, causing her nose to what they call "pop" and thus enabling her to home in on....
....the mittens which, in this particular case, were not easy to access because of wet moss on the tree stump which made getting any kind of purchase difficult. However, giving up isn't an option for the average SAR dog....
....So success! Whereupon Tess immediately brings her new-found "treasure" to me in exchange for some much-deserved praise. I guess that, as far as she's concerned, it's all some kind of complicated, yet hugely enjoyable game, but we practise these SAR-related exercises on and off all day, every day. She never tires of them though, no matter how difficult or challenging I try to make them plus it all serves to help the two of us bond as a team to the point that I'm absolutely convinced she borders on the telepathic sometimes.
I'm a firm believer that, in order to get the best possible results when training any kind of an animal, there needs to be a strong element of fun injected into whatever it is you're trying to accomplish with them. I also believe that confidence-building is the key to overcoming almost any obstacle they may encounter along the way, either physically or mentally. A dog, for example, should be able to thoroughly "enjoy" whatever challenge you might give it by developing its sense of self-worth and that's best done by constantly presenting it with achievable goals...Simple stuff at first, but getting more and more adventurous, complicated and challenging as time passes and as the dog develops that all-important self-confidence.
Physical strength, agility and overall fitness are equally important and go hand in hand with confidence-building....each one depending on the others.
It would be much easier (and quicker) to take hold of the handle attached to Tess's harness and lift her over the stile myself, but that's not going to help her much in the long term when she's required to work independently sometimes and at some distance away from me or to think for herself in dense fog or low cloud with only my howler whistle to guide and/or instruct her. The need to develop her own problem-solving capabilities is extremely important therefore, even for things as seemingly basic as getting over a difficult stile, under a barbed-wire fence, through a thick bramble hedge or across a spating river.
Up....
....and over!
"...and thou shall not fear me for I intend thee no harm"
Tess will rarely accept reward-type treats of the edible variety when she's out and about working and that's probably because she'll have been running around so much that she'll be well and truly out of breath and will simply sick them up again. However, because I've always trained any animal in my care using methods that reward appropriate behaviour rather than negative ones that punish inappropriate behaviour, I had to develop some way of letting her know that she's done particularly well and that I'm pleased with her.
Well, as far as Tess is concerned, there's nothing she likes more than to be tickled in that very special spot just under her right ear. It makes her go all ecstatic and helpless, but failing that, all I have to do is throw a stick or one of her tuggy toys for her to fetch and she's as happy as Larry!
Some days are slightly more demanding than others!
"Hi!"
Whether it concerns the ranger work she does or any of the SAR stuff, developing Tess's confidence to be at ease in all situations and equally as sure-footed is vitally important, especially in those situations involving heights and/or water.
One particularly tricky aspect of Tess's training has been to make her understand when it's perfectly ok for her to break the skyline for purposes of general observation and when it's most definitely not ok with regards to things like the importance of remaining unobserved herself, but she's gradually got the hang of it over the past weeks and months....and much more quickly than I initially expected her to.
Always check things out from the bridges wherever possible.
The more time that Tess and I spend studying and mapping the gradual spread of Otter activity across the South-West, the less surprised I become about certain aspects of their behaviour....Here, Tess has led me to what turned out to be a highly probable temporary lie-up for the big dog Otter we've been focussing more and more of our attention on just lately. I guess a pile of old tyres is as good a place as any (perhaps better than most) to rest up, but it's not exactly the first place I'd have thought to look for evidence of Otter activity. Unfortunately however, we're not the only ones who seem to be aware of this particular animal and I've now dismantled or destroyed a whole variety of traps intended to either catch it or kill it. As a result, I've now put in a request for some rather "specialist" help from an altogether different kind of organisation to hopefully catch the perpetrator in the act plus it's good training for them.
Watching and waiting patiently as I get us ready for another early morning trek.
"Now, where are they?"
Reaching all those difficult to get to places.
An Otter may have as many as three or four different holts plus several lie-ups dotted across its often very large territory. Tess became very excited when she discovered this holt today (15th March, 2010), about fifteen feet up an embankment above a small stream in the middle of an isolated wood, although judging by the degraded condition of a small quantity of spraint nearby, my guess is that it hadn't been used for at least two weeks. It is however, the second such holt she's discovered in the area in the last fortnight and we're gradually beginning to build up a much clearer picture of the range and activities of what I believe, in this instance, is a fairly large solitary dog Otter.
The scent of an Otter is not something that dogs are likely to pick up on without very specific training, but Tess has had that training and it has paid dividends almost from the outset as we continue to plot the movements, daily activities and population numbers of good old ultra-elusive Lutra lutra across no less than five counties and particularly in the Cotswolds where, judging by the significant increase in spraint-sign, sprainting places, tracks, track-ways, slides, lie-ups, fish and wildfowl remains, reed twists and glimpsed sightings by delighted locals and concerned fishermen, the overall population figures appear to be growing steadily, though predominantly out of the South-West.
Here, Tess pulls up an improvised wire water-snare that is designed and intended for catching Otters and preventing them from getting to the riverbank until, exhausted, they finally drown. She found two that day and one the day before, whilst an old-fashioned type bar-trap was the find of the month in February.
It's a fact that Otters will not be attracted to dead or lifeless-seeming bait of any kind, meaning that cage-type traps nearly always prove ineffective. However, Man is a truly cunning and ruthless animal when push comes to shove and he's forever thinking up new and more sinister ways of dealing out death and destruction upon any helpless creature he perceives to be even remotely threatening in any way. New and increasingly sinister traps are therefore the order of the day.
Killing Otters or even trapping them alive with the intention of moving them on to pastures new and away from the local Trout farm is totally illegal, but because snare and bar traps are both designed to kill Otters, the person who sets them may not feel obliged to return to check for any possible kills for weeks at a time making any kind of stake-out of the area on our part both inhibitive and time-consuming and, therefore, virtually pointless.
Higher and higher, to places where only the farm tractors go
"My joy is to work, to work is my joy!"
A scent trail leads into the water
Working the water-margins
Back in February, 2010, I noticed some kind of a sack half submerged a few metres from the bank of this lake situated on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border and sent Tess to investigate. I called for her to drag it towards me which she did. My suspicions were confirmed when I cut the knotted sack open with my knife and discovered three drowned kittens inside.
This sort of thing was commonplace with both kittens and puppies when I was a boy, but it tends to be much rarer now that there are so many animal rescue centres dotted around the country. Sadly however, the person who drowned these kittens, simply couldn't be bothered to even dump them on a rescue centre doorstep in the middle of the night, yet he or she must have walked at least a mile across open countryside with the sack containing the terrified kittens on his or her back in order to throw them in the lake so I don't understand the way people's minds work (or fail to work) sometimes....Plus, if I'd have caught them doing it, I'd have put them in the bl**dy sack and thrown them in the lake to see how they'd have liked it!
Meanwhile, I think it would be inappropriate for me to upload any of the subsequent photographs that I took of the dead kittens onto my websites if only because they'd been in the water for some days and many people would find such images extremely upsetting. As for the kittens themselves, I carried them back to my vehicle in the sack and used my old entrenching tool to bury them where nothing will be able to dig them up.
Another job done, Tess runs to me knowing she'll get lots of praise.
Tess checks a boulder she discovered some time ago that's frequently used for sprainting purposes by what I strongly suspect is a large, night-ranging dog Otter. Meanwhile, similar boulders found close to or beneath bridges like this one are much-favoured by Otters for sprainting, though they also use other features often found close to bridges, such as sand-bars and mud-spits as well as various types of rocky out-croppings.
Here, Tess scents for Otter sign, but as Spring slides inexorably into Summer, we will be forced to curb our water-margin activities considerably due to the many species of birds and other animals who choose to nest and raise their families there.
Leap of faith or, more accurately, water confidence training....Not that Tess has ever shown so much as a moment's reluctance as far as any kind of water environment is concerned, she still has to learn to behave appropriately however, both in and around it, including whether or not she's allowed to go in in the first place, how best to enter a lake, river, stream or pond and learning to obey a direct command to get out when she's told to.
Filthy muddy as usual, but....
....a quick dip in a nearby stream and she's allowed back in the car!
I hide lots of these rubber rings all over the place and Tess has to find them. It can take a while sometimes, but she hasn't failed yet....and that includes the ones I regularly secrete under snow, in puddles, in mud, on top of walls and fences or even down rabbit holes.
Hiding things well off the ground is very important for encouraging Tess to air-scent as well as ground-scent. It also teaches her to look up regularly, use her eyes more effectively and not just depend on her nose. Here, she's working and training in an old and very large abandoned fruit orchard in the Evesham Vale where Maddy had gone ahead to hide a dozen objects for us to find.
In this picture, a ring has been hooked on a branch well off the ground at the edge of a fallow field on arable farmland. It was sleeting heavily and the wind was very strong at the time, but Tess managed to find all the hidden objects nonetheless, including two dropped into an icy shallow stream.
Training and playing on the river-valley mudflats
Just an old stick-in-the-mud
Lunchtime again and time for a game of fetch the stick....A kind of Canine equivalent of working hard and playing harder!
"Er....How about a hand here?"
Out and about in late February with my Son, Daughter and Wife
A break during training
Working in the woods
Working and training high in the hills
Scenting along a small stream
The same small stream as in the above picture, but further up the hill
Eighteen months old on the 1st March, 2010.
The Family Pile
Smiling.
My Uncle Chris used to insist that animals are like people, in that their eyes are the windows to their souls. He would often say this to the local vicar who was adamant that only people have souls and that animals most certainly do not, but then, that's religion for you....A bunch of stuff made up, not by God I think, but by predominantly inadequate, insecure and profoundly ignorant individuals as a way of controlling the world around them, thus enabling themselves to establish and maintain positions of power, influence and authority over the rest of humanity.
Yet, surely God can't just be about rules, blind obedience, control and a whole list of vengeful punishment criteria for all the wayward sinners amongst us (ie everybody) because if He, She or It is nothing more than that, then God can go crap in a bucket as far as I'm concerned....or at least step aside for the guy who suggested that our time on Earth needs to be more about understanding and the germination of enlightenment through the celebration of our differences than about dogma, doctrine and bible-reading seminars!
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, if God is ever going to have any kind of real significance and meaning in my life other than to heap large piles of cr*p on it at fairly regular intervals, then He/She/It needs to seriously consider making Himself/Herself/Itself a good deal more manifest in every one of us as human beings and the sooner He/She/It does so the better off we'll all be!
As far as I can see, humans have become so disconnected from the rest of the Natural World of late that the only possible explanation I can come up with is that God finally grew so despairing of us as a species that He/She/It must have slammed the door and left the building years ago....just before heading down the pub for a Pukka pie and a right royal skinful!
As for animals not having souls....Of course they do, but I don't think it's theirs we need to worry about!
Following a Scent Trail
Snow Games....Tess loves to tobogganoggan downhill in the snow on her tummy. First, she pushes her rubber ring ahead of her with her nose, then draws her back paws underneath her body and launches herself forward, sliding about half a metre in one go. Sometimes she'll try lying flat on her tummy while attempting to "walk" forwards using just her back paws. She can slide several metres that way and always reminds me of an Otter I once saw playing in the snow on a sloping riverbank close to my Gran's old Tudor cottage on the River Wye when I was a boy....
"Why don't you give it a try?"
The Otter habitat mapping continues and a ranger dog's work is never done, but have you any idea how many miles of irrigation ditch, brook, stream and river there are in the Cotswolds alone? Well, Tess has....and that includes both banks!
There's no doubt about it, working for a living gives a dog like Tess an almost tangible sense of self-worth and meaning in her life and I'm absolutely convinced that she'd hate to have all that taken away from her, even though her job can be extremely tough going at times. It would be like asking a sheepdog to stop herding sheep all day or for a guide dog to hang up its harness. It's what they do, what they expect, what they understand, what they're good at and, above all, what they enjoy.
This and the following two pictures show Tess picking up on the scent of an Otter...
"C'mon, c'mon....You haven't taken a picture of me for nearly ten minutes!"
She always seems to enjoy the sensation of standing with her feet in cold running water and will stand like it for ages if I let her.
I worked out that Tess' tail wags an average of fifty times a minute when we're out and about. That works out at around 3,000 times per hour....but say 2,500 times to allow for when she's sitting on it. So, if we're out for, say, eight hours (it's usually more), then she probably wags her tail somewhere in the region of....er, a lot of times in total!
The 1st February and now seventeen months old.
Off the leash while Tess plays her beloved lunchtime game of chasing after things that I throw for her....In this case, a stick.
Watching and waiting....
....Waiting and watching
Taking a Break
More "search and find" practise in the snow. Tess has picked up the scent and approaches the beanie hat I buried in the snow earlier on.
....Found it!
An exercise oft repeated....followed by a treat as a reward each time she's successful.
Probably as a result of the awful Haiti disaster, I was asked today if Tess and I would ever be involved in things like earthquake-related rescues abroad. Well, the thing is, we both have a very long way to go as far as learning the ropes in this line of work is concerned and we barely qualify at kindergarten level compared to the fully experienced SAR dog teams in organisations such as International Rescue, Rapid UK or any Mountain Rescue group you care to mention.
Those guys with their brilliant dogs are what it's all about, while Tess and I continue to work, quite rightly for the time being, at a very basic level. After all, Tess is still only sixteen months old and hasn't even reached her optimum age of eighteen months yet to even begin training....Plus, it's important to remember that I'm in my sixties and there are much younger, fitter dog handlers who would probably perform under extreme conditions much more efficiently, effectively and for longer than me (and that's not an easy thing for an ex-recce marine to admit believe me)!
Meanwhile, as I watch the horrific images coming out of Haiti on the TV each evening, I wish more than anything that Tess and I could be there to help, even just a little bit, but by going out there, we'd be taking up space on an aircraft (albeit military) that would otherwise be given to an infinitely more experienced team and that wouldn't be right. With time fast running out for those still trapped under tons of rubble and debris, it's experience they need out there far more than mere enthusiasm. As for those teams already on their way from the UK, I wish them all the luck in the world....They really ARE the very best at what they do!
Barely more than a metre from these Mallard, Tess shows some interest, but absolutely no inclination whatsoever to enter the water in order to pursue the birds who probably sense her non-aggression and remain unperturbed by her presence.
One good thing about the snow is that at least it gives Tess and me opportunity to put in plenty of snow-related SAR practise. Here, she's searching for various items of clothing I'd previously hidden in the snow on an exposed hillside. Her success rate at this is about 75%, but should improve with practise. Things were made generally more difficult that day however, by a brisk and bitingly cold north-easterly wind that suddenly blew up out of nowhere, carrying with it clouds of fine, powdery ground snow which stung the face and soon began building up into small drifts.
There's always time for a game of "fetch the stick" when we have our lunch break.
"Did I put it in here?"
"Er....No! So where is it then?"
Above and below....1st January, 2010 and Tess is sixteen months old....and still lying down exactly as she did when she was a puppy.
Dummies These things float in water and are called "Dummies". They are used, for the most part, as an aid in training gun-dogs to retrieve dead game-birds. However, they are also very useful when it comes to training SAR dogs to search for and locate casualties and/or any personal items a casualty may have discarded or lost and which may provide vital clues as to their whereabouts.
I have several of these things in various sizes and colours and I spend literally hours hiding them in almost every kind of location imaginable, including in and around still and fast-running water, up trees and under bushes, behind or on top of walls, half-way down rabbit, fox or badger holes, in amongst nettles and brambles, half burried under spoil or rocks or even inside old barns, outhouses and animal pens so that Tess can practse finding them. It may sound like an easy thing for a dog to do, but learning to use its eyes, ears and sense of smell as effectively as possible in a search-type pattern and while working in the immediate vicinity of the handler takes an enormous amount of practise, particularly as SAR dogs depend so heavily upon their ability to air-scent as well as ground-scent.
Anyway, Tess absolutely loves this sort of training more than any other and sees the entire process as one huge game, even though she's often required to perform for hours in the most challenging of conditions and in all weathers. In fact, from a rescue perspective, the worse the conditions are, then the more useful the training becomes. Mind you, there were a couple of days to begin with when I would shout "Find the dummy Tess!" and she would run straight to me, so don't ever try to tell me that dogs don't have a sense of humour!
Scramble Here, Tess has caught the scent of a dummy I've hidden near the top of a very steep and slippery embankment located in the middle of a large wood on a very windy November day and during a particularly heavy rainstorm.
Nearly there....
....Got it!
"Again! Again!" "Sorry Tess, you've found that one. Now you've got to find the next!"
The Braveheart's Water Challenge I'd like to see the d*ckheads on "I'm Desperate to be a Celebrity, Please Notice Me" do half the things during the course of their entire dumb-a*se tropically warm series that Tess does during one single, very cold, invariably wet and howlingly windy November morning!
Here, she faces a very different challenge to the woodland tests....ie to retrieve a green, camouflaged dummy (circled) from the other side of a near freezing, fast-flowing and very rain-swollen river, but not before having first located the dummy by scent and then working out for herself that she needs to dive in far enough up-current so as not to be swept past her objective long before she's able to scramble out the other side.
Again, it's another training exercise that, as a typical Labrador, Tess truly relishes repeating over and over again and which is a testament to her tremendous ability as a fearless swimmer developed during the many hours of practise she's had over the last year in her capacity as a ranger's dog.
"Got it! Now to get back with it!" Then it's a run back to the vehicle for a good towelling down, a quick snack, a drink and a chance to warm up with the heater on full blast while we move on to somewhere else for the afternoon's training session!
At the End of Another Long and Very Demanding Day of Training....Basically Knackered, but Very Happy!
"Nope, I don't think he's on that side either"
"Hang on a minute....There's no such blinkin' person as Humpty-Dumpty is there!"
A Walk on Bredon Hill
"....and what healing lies in these few miles
The resilience of landscape
The diagnosis of light
The cut of wind and sun
And the homeopathic glimpse of wrens"
from John Gilham's "A View from the Hills"
Night Training All those night-time meanderings Tess has had with me over the past year are really beginning to pay off as far as some of the other stuff we're involved with these days is concerned.
"If you want the stick, then come and get it old man!" Don't worry, It's not all work for her. I do make sure that Tess gets ample opportunity to play during the course of her day. After all, at fourteen months, she's still a child really.
Too much hanging around sometimes for her liking.
Air-Scenting They Call It ....A dog's ability to pick up a scent carried on the wind and trace it back to its source....and it looks as though Tess has definitely picked up the smell of something pretty special, but where could it be coming from?
....Is it from over there?
....Or just here maybe?
Or perhaps it's coming from down there?
....Or along here?
....It isn't you is it?
....but then, she thinks she's definitely on to something....
....Or is she?
Yep, she's getting closer and closer all the time until....
....At last! There it is....My veggie burgher and chips at the beachside cafe at Kennack Sands on the Lizard Peninsular....and yes, I did share the chips with her. After all, we'd both walked a very long way that day.
Accomplished Now at Not Quite Breaking the Skyline, Tess Moves Slowly Ahead of Me to Check Beyond the Ridge.
At Thirteen Months, Tess is a Bit of a Shorty Really Standing just 23" at the shoulder, Tess is a little shorter than the typical 24"-27" which is more usual for a Labrador bitch. However, her slightly smaller size is often an advantage in the kind of work she does, allowing her easier access to some very difficult places. She's also incredibly fit and physically strong due to the fact that she's out all day every day with me and, whereas I will walk anything on average between ten and twenty-five miles per day, Tess will cover much greater distances in real terms as she walks and runs hither and thither.
I decided to set up and test the PIR trip for the automatic camera on the living-room floor the other day....and guess who just happened to wander by! I don't think she altogether trusted it either and was probably just waiting for it to make its move before she pounced!
"....'s funny, I could have sworn there was somewhere to swim here a couple of weeks ago?"
Finder Tess has developed a real ability to find all sorts of creepy-crawlies in all kinds of places. She learnt early on that I was interested in finding such things and it soon became a bit of a game for her to help me do so. I've always encouraged her and it pleases her to please me. Meanwhile, her sight, hearing and especially her sense of smell are incredibly acute and it was probably a combination of all three that enabled her to find this Dor Beetle (circled) half hidden amongst leaf litter in a North Cornwall woodland and which I would otherwise never have noticed. Dor Beetle Normally to be found in or around cow dung or even burrowing under it, you might get an airborne one of these scarab-type beetles attracted to your lights at night. As a boy, I remember them being called Lousy Watchmen because they always seemed to be infested with mites....and this one, the one that Tess found, was no different (see below).
Relaxing in My Motor-Home After a Long Day.
Another Motor-Home Shot. I must admit that I'm a little bit worried about Tess. I suspect that our unfortunate and often persistent run-ins with certain rather nasty individuals during the last few months has left her feeling more than a little anxious about being approached by strangers. In fact, she gets very protective of me and will sometimes bark at people (usually men) who attempt to come near me, especially if they're carrying any kind of a stick, such as a walking stick or perhaps a shotgun. It's obvious that she doesn't entirely trust their intentions and likes them to know how she feels. Strangely, she rarely does it when she's out with just my Wife and/or Daughter. The thing is though, people are taken aback when a Labrador suddenly barks at them for no apparent reason and I don't usually have the time to explain why she's doing it. It's also difficult, in a way, to admonish her because I know she's simply trying to protect me. Nevertheless, I have to nip such behaviour in the bud sooner rather than later and trust that no-one else chooses to be aggressive towards us in the near future.
Tess aged eleven months and one week. I've been spending an average of three nights per week for the last six weeks out in the dark, dark woods or huddled close-to against an unseasonally chill wind in some ancient village or town churchyard while armed with nothing more than my trusty NVE, my red-light torch and my Bat detector....Bats detecting, the primary purpose of thereby. I'll admit, it does tend to be lonely and sometimes spooky work (the latter if only because you do get to see and/or hear some very odd things during the wee small hours when you're out and about in the darkest corners and recesses of the English countryside), but, daft as it may sound, I do actually quite like being out at night all by my lonesome and always have. This year however, I've been taking Tess along on a few such outings....not just because she's good company and someone useful to moan at when it suddenly decides to hiss down with rain for two or three hours at a time or when I fall headlong into the only muddy puddle for miles around after tripping over some stupid, half hidden tree root in the dark or even when, during one of those all too frequent occasions that Nature suddenly calls, I inevitably manage to pee all over my boots....No, it's more a case that she has an annoying tendency to howl relentlessly if I so much as attempt to leave the house at night without taking her with me!
Sometimes it just rains all day long....and we get very, very, VERY wet!
Tess in the Garden
Tess can't always come with me and occasionally has to wait in the car....Mostly she sleeps. However, she'll have to come with me when the weather's warm no matter what because I wont leave her in the car where the temperature could easily reach 50 or 60 degrees Celsius within ten or fifteen minutes! I got into serious trouble a few years ago when I came across a car parked alongside the Whiteway between Withington and Cirencester. It was a very hot summer's day and there was no sign of the owner. Two Retrievers were in the back and looked to be in a bad way. They didn't even appear to have any water! I waited a few minutes, but there was still no sign of the owner and when I accounted for the fact that, from the moment I'd first spotted the car, at least twenty minutes had passed and that I had no idea how long the animals had already been inside the vehicle before I got there, I decided to smash one of the rear windows! I always carry a few metres of para-cord with me and used that to tie the dogs to a gate in the shade of a nearby tree and then gave them a drink of water each from my canteen before the owner eventually turned up about fifteen minutes later. Needless to say, he went ballistic, pausing only to call for the police on his mobile phone, claiming that he'd only left the dogs for ten minutes at most. When the police arrived, I got a right royal telling-off from them, mostly for breaking the window, but also for kicking the guy in the knee when he'd eventually taken a swing at me and which resulted in him claiming he wasn't able to drive home! Basically, it was his word against mine as to what exactly had happened and when he tried to insist that I should be arrested for criminal damage and common assault, the coppers convinced him that it probably wasn't a good idea to try and press charges, given the likely public reaction to the fact that he'd left his dogs in the car at all on such a hot day and the likelihood that the RSPCA might subsequently be tempted to take an interest. Mind you, be warned because I'll do exactly the same thing to your car as well if you're thoughtless and stupid enough to leave a dog in it on a hot day!
Watching and Waiting....
Tess sits patiently in the doorway of my motor-home during her first (and entirely successful) trip away in it.
During a long and very warm day working in the Cotswold Hills
Enjoying a well-earned break in the sunshine
Tess and Poppy....Best of Friends
Hopefully, well on the road to a good recovery plus some special Canine therapy to help things along.
"Never Mind the Photo, Just Throw the Bleepin' Stick!"
Never Happier Than When She's Swimming
Making a Splash Labradors were bred to be as much at home in the water as on dry land. I therefore let her swim as often as possible....Not surprisingly, she needs absolutely no encouragement, no matter what the weather is like and should a time ever arise that we may need to rescue an injured Duck, Goose or Swan (or even a drowning child), then I know she will be more than up to the job!
Watching Wildfowl Learning to be in close proximity to any species of wild or domesticated animal without wanting to chase after or bark at them is a very important part of Tess's training during her first year and I thus ensure that she is introduced to as wide a variety of species as possible on an almost daily basis while still on the lead is part of the process.
Tess at Home I Aged nearly seven months.
Tess at Home II Aged nearly seven months.
The Spirit of Adventure Tess is learning to be a ranger's dog at an incredibly fast rate and, although it will probably be three or four years before she'll be as capable as Leah, my last dog, she has all the necessary qualities she'll need to get her there. She's intelligent, quick-minded, physically and mentally strong, resilient and, most importantly of all, she absolutely loves being out of doors in any habitat and in all weathers doing ranger stuff all day!
Tess was six months old on 1st March This picture was taken on a beautifully sunny, Spring-like day on the 4th March as we spent about eight hours pottering around some lakes a few miles from home.
Snowdog....Five Months Old Today "I don't know what it is or where it came from, but it's grrreat! Do you know if they possibly do a slightly warmer version though?"
When Labradors Attack!
Away with the Birds She likes to sit in the little corner chair next to the living-room window and watch the birds on the feeders outside just a couple of metres away. It's something she'll do for ages at a time...just watching them come and go. Like me, I think she finds it quite fascinating and relaxing in a funny sort of way.
A Long Winter Walk and the Short-Eared Owls
About ten miles done and heading home
The walk today (8th January) had three main purposes...firstly to give me opportunity to add to my total count of Short-Eared Owls for this year. They arrive in the Cotswolds mostly from Scotland or Northern Europe to spend the Winter months here before returning to their various homelands in the Spring. Short-Ears prefer to hunt in daylight hours, thus making it easier to spot them perched on some high vantage point or silently quartering the fields in search of Voles or Wood Mice. They are very territorial, so there is little chance of counting the same bird twice.
In fact, I saw two more today, making a total of eleven already so far this season and an improvement on the nine of last year, the eight of the year before and the seven before that!
We crossed a ford at one point and guess who just HAD to sit in it, despite the water being close to freezing!
I run into lots of birders who come to the Cotswolds from all over the country on the off-chance of seeing a Short-Eared Owl and I have an anecdote concerning one particularly rude birder who, having failed after two full days of trying to see an Owl of his own, refused to believe that I see so many....but that’s a story for another time. The thing is, if he’d been reasonable and polite from the outset, I could have taken him to see a Short-Ear less than a mile from where we were and who I could have guaranteed would be there, but hey, he was the expert and I wasn’t going to argue!
Kn*ckered at the end of it all and in her favouritist place in the world....Remember, Tess is only eighteen weeks old AND she did a nine mile walk the day before!
Secondly, I wanted to take Tess within a quarter of a mile of a Pheasant shoot later this afternoon to help acclimatise her to the sound of gunfire. The people I took her close to were “real”countrymen, fully licensed and totally expert at what they do. However,we (rangers) deal with a great many so-called hunters who haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. Most of them arrive down from the City with hugely expensive Shotguns and a serious deficit in the IQ department. These people are dangerous to themselves, to each other, to livestockand to ordinary members of the public. More often than not they needclose monitoring....or to at least be aware that people like us mightbe in the vicinity.
Two hours later and still not a peep out of her! I think maybe she's earned a day off tomorrow.
Thirdly, as the search for short-Eared Owls covers a huge swathe of farmland up here in the Cotswolds, I felt it was an excellent opportunity for Tess to show her mettle and notch up maybe a dozen miles. She’s done loads of six and seven milers and a nine yesterday, but this would be at least twelve across what I always refer to as the “real” Cotswolds and about as far from the touristy, “calendar"image as you’re likely to get!
We were high up and in the clouds most of the time where the air temperature hovered below the zero mark and ice crystals formed on my coat. She did it though and with some left in the tank I think (remember she’s only eighteen weeks old)! She toughed it out and it was a joy to see her constant enthusiasm for being out of doors no matter what the weather was like and despite being a long way from home and without access to a vehicle if we’d needed one....but then I’d have wrapped her up in my coat and carried her home if she’d got into any difficulty, even though she weighs over 13kg these days! She’s my dog you see and I’d be prepared to do whatever it takes to help her out, just like she’d do for me!
Christmas Santa Horror! Caught firmly in the Jaws of Doom, Father Christmas turns to me and begs for help, but following the wildlife photographer's policy of non-interference in such matters, I ignore his pleas and simply carry on pressing the shutter regardless!
Sixteen Weeks Old Today (22nd December) and Still Pooped After Yesterday's Nine Miler! That was seven miles on Saturday followed by nine yesterday. Tomorrow she'll get a break though...We'll only be doing about six. Eventually of course, she'll be doing ten or twelve a day on average.
First Time in the Snow Tess's initial excitement at the sight of all that icy white stuff spread across the garden like a thick layer of icing sugar soon turned to a vague sense of disappointment the moment she realised that it wasn't all that good for eating!
Fifteen Weeks Old You ladies, you're always having to powder your noses! (Photos taken on Monday, 15th December when Tess was exactly fifteen weeks old)
"I Suppose You Think That's Funny!" While our daughter spent the day with her best friend at the massive "Clothes Show Live" event at the Birmingham NEC, my wife and I decided to take Tess on a walk covering the countryside and estate area to the west of the village.
The sun shone in a dazzlingly clear blue sky, though it was quite chilly and the frost never really disappeared from some of the more shaded places.
Inquisitivityness....ness My Daughter is doing Philosophy as one of her chosen A level subjects at school and, once a week, members of her study group take it in turns to supply a cake of some sort....sharing for the purposes of.
It was her turn this week and so she made some chocolate buns and put them in a plastic bucket thing....transportation for the ease of.
It's just as well she did decide to put them in something reasonably substantial because a certain person (who shall remain nameless for legal reasons), would have scrammed the lot while she was upstairs getting ready for school!
Tess was fourteen weeks old today by the way.
A Slightly Sterner Test (3rd December, 2008)
"What d'yuh say we do it again!"
I decided today (4th December), to give Tess a slightly sterner walking test. The weather has been very odd...some rain, a little sleet, the occasional snow flurry, lots of dark storm clouds, white fluffy ones too, periods of clear blue skies accompanied by a harsh, almost abrasive winter sunlight....but there has always been the wind as well,a bitingly cold, predatory wind stalking its prey high amongst the hills and valleys here in the very heart of the picturesque Cotswolds where we choose to make our home.
A forbidding horizon appeared to await us!
My Daughter came with us. In fact, she had Tess on the lead while I plodded along about ten metres behind, poking about in the hedgerows,taking pictures and making work-related notes, managing as always, to be a general pain in the butt on any walk!
Across the fields and over the hills
It was only a four or five mile wander around the margins of the fields and lakes adjacent to our village, but it was more than enough to tell me what I needed to know about Tess’s attitude to a slightly longer haul, especially in such utterly cold and totally muddy conditions!
Snow flurries alternating with rain showers, blue skies and sunshine....but always a cold, biting wind.
Well, you can see from the following twenty-seven photographs(including this one) that she absolutely loved every moment of it! She’s a real Labrador in every sense of the word. She has a huge enthusiasm for anything and everything she undertakes, an insatiable curiosity, a gritty determination to keep going and going, an indomitable spirit and a great big brave heart! Thirteen weeks old and she covered five miles of extremely wet, filthy muddy terrain in constantly changing weather conditions on a day where temperatures were cold enough to freeze a pile of iron cannonballs off a brass retaining monkey, as though she was born to do nothing else!
There seemed to be no such thing for Tess as going AROUND puddles!
Basically, she was brilliant....and she even finished it all off by suddenly launching herself into one of the lakes and breaking the thin covering of ice herself so that she could go for a paddle up to her ears....Though that was a bit too much even for her and I ended up having to put one extremely soggy (and smelly) Labrador doggy inside my own coat next to my more than ample chest in order to warm her up again for the last one hundred metres back to our house!
Time for a dip!
The smaller lake
The Larger Lake
Finally, home in time for a little pampering!
Tess's Very First Proper Walk (30th November, 2008) (As recounted in the following eight pictures)
Setting of in the car with the old tail wagometer going into overdrive at a staggering warp factor ten!
Ok, so my son didn't exactly arrive prepared for a walk through the muddy Cotswolds countryside and had to borrow a pair of my old wellies (one size too big), an old wax jacket belonging to his Mum (two sizes too small) and one of his sister's woolly hats...but who cares? He really enjoyed the type of walk that he can't really go on any more now that he lives in the Big City.
I took us along the banks of little River Eye, home to the highest concentration of Kingfishers anywhere in the South-West of England and where you still have a good chance of seeing a Water Vole or two...or at least hear the "plop" sound made by one as it drops into the water just around the river bend ahead of you.
Tess did really well on the lead, but still has a little basic work to do in order to discourage her from jumping up at people...I dislike it intensely when others allow their dogs to jump up at strangers, demonstrating quite clearly that they have little understanding of how to either correctly train or fully control their animals.
My wife did remarkably well in coping with our little two mile "hike" and especially considering that she'd only come out of hospital three days before!
Incidentally, I would like to make it perfectly clear that, despite thebitter cold, I was NOT one of the "Woolly Hat Brigade", preferringinstead to wear my beloved Tilley!
Note how Tess is already straining to get into the water!
So much to see, so much to smell, so much to investigate and so much to chew...Basically, a Labrador's Paradise!
NB...I apologise for any interference to your vision caused by my Daughter's wellies and would like to assure any viewer adversely affected that there is absolutely no need to adjust your brain!
Didn't they do well...My wife AND Tess that is!
The perfect way to end the day!
Nobility in Demeanour Tess had her final shots yesterday (Monday, 24th November) as well as being micro-chipped and we'll be taking her out for a proper walk at last next Sunday...and the nice thing about it is that my son will be home from university at the weekend and he can look forward to the "big" occasion as well!
Nobility in Thought
Nobility in the Guise of a Pudding
Nobility Without Shame!
Whereas I've praised Tess in the caption to the photo below for being quite bright, getting her head stuck in the stair bannisters was quite a stupid thing to do....and pretty dumb as well....and stupid! Sorry, did I already say "stupid"? Oh well, then what I meant was....REALLY stupid!
Tess is very bright really and has already learned to sit, stay, come, lie down, roll over, fetch, catch something thrown to her and to wait by the back door and cry if she needs to go out. However, she still desperately wants to chew things and, whereas learning the other stuff has been a fun thing to do with a doggy treat as a reward every time she gets it right, the act of NOT chewing something is a negative to her and is, therefore, much more difficult to reward. However, actually chewing almost anything is what she loves to do, but finds herself being told off if it's something she's not supposed to chew!
Basically, a significant mental adjustment has to be made in such cases by both the dog and its owner and this is where young Labradors in particular can prove to be both difficult and destructive in the home unless it's completely nipped in the bud. It also requires constant and persistent behaviour modification training....and a few treats readily to hand at all times.
"It's my Tuggy-Toy....MINE!"
Elvis Lip "I ain't nuthin' budda hound dawg!"
I walked into the living-room from the kitchen and there she was...actually UNDER the rug! I went to get my camera, but she heard me and popped her head out and gave me a look with an expression that, for all the world, reminded me of Long-John Silver in "Treasure Island"!
Starring the wonderful Robert Newton as LJS, I think I'm right in saying that "Treasure Island" was the first non-animated film ever made by Disney studios and I was only talking to two very elderly gentlemen in Falmouth, Cornwall last year who remembered seeing some of the film being shot there way back in 1950....I was only one year old!
Longing....
I hear that President Elect Obama is thinking about getting a puppy for the Whitehouse....Well, it just so happens....
I mean, what more could he want? One careful owner, very low mileage, group 1 insurance, MOT til the end of the year, low maintenance, terms negotiable, but must collect!
....but then someone said that it's a rescue dog that he wants. Oh well....
Ooo...Ooo....I've just remembered....I've got a rescue dog as well....called Sam. He'd be perfect! Mmm....Except he's really old....and smelly....and he can't see all that well any more....and he barks at trees....and loves to be vacuum-cleaned with the Hoover....and his breath's so bad I use him to strip the paint off woodwork! Still, the Obamas could have him for say....a five year trial period just to see how they get on!
Ten weeks old today (10th November) and Tess's coat is beginning to feel like Lab's coat oughta....which means it's nearly ready for turning into a pair of winter mittens as well....Mmm....That is if you're prepared to smell like a wet shaggy old dog every time you go out in the rain!
"Fragile"....A bit like my nerves at that particular moment in time!
You see, we've bought this new welly stand...that's a stand....for wellies. It's my wife's idea. Apparently, it will mean that everyone's wellies can be placed tidily on the new, £35 (!!!) metal stand and they wont congregate in one big pile in the middle of the patio where they tend to remain like some kind of rubber fetishist's mini-roundabout!
Mmm....That's all well and good and I can see the logic, but I know for a fact that after about a week, the welly "roundabout" will gradually re-materialize and the welly stand (see below) will not only sit there unused and devoid of a single welly, but it will be in the way to boot!
Our brand-new and very "fragile" (apparently) wrought-iron welly rack....and no, the flowery ones aren't mine, they're my daughter's. In fact, mine are in the garage up on a shelf because I nearly always prefer to wear walking boots.
As for Tess chewing the cardboard, she very kindly offered to "help" unpack the afore-mentioned welly stand and dispose of all the cardboard....by promptly chewing it to bits and spreading it around the house....Where's the valium when you need it?
The welly stand by the way, is made almost entirely of wrought iron and is probably the least "fragile" thing that's ever been delivered to me!
'ickle Tessy-Wessy now aged nine weeks and two days (taken on 5th November, 2008)
Tess v Squeaky-TurtleTitle Fight
The final round and "Tess the Destroyer" is almost caught unaware by a fiendishly sly flying Ninja-type Turtle attack to her exposed top right nipple!
....but reposts immediately with a dramatic and decisive upper-thrust to Squeaky-Turtle's throaty bits!
With all turtles (Squeaky or otherwise) now firmly vanquished, Tess decides to take her third forty out of the last sixty!
First-Born with Tess (eight weeks old)
A Puppy Comes Home to Stay (20th October, 2008)
Tess the mischief-maker (seven weeks old)
Well, we set off to the breeder to collect the puppy late yesterday afternoon after my Daughter had come home from school. She was all ready and waiting for us when we got there (the puppy that is) and, after a few minutes chatting and sorting out the paperwork, we drove back home in the pouring rain with a slightly soggy doggy on my Daughter's lap.
Home (left) and (right) just how excited is it possible to get over a first pee in the garden?
That was about fourteen hours ago as I type this and "Tess", as we've finally decided to call her, has pretty much settled in already. Meanwhile, I guessed that it would be muggins here who would be getting up to let her out throughout the night (four times in fact) and that it would also be me who'd be cleaning up the mess when I failed to get her out into the garden in time! The good news is that she's already begun to sit by the back door when she wants to go out, the bad news however, is that she's eaten a pair of my glasses....and my bookmark....and chewed a hole in my slipper! No-one else has so far suffered in this way I might add, just me!
Asleep at my feet where she probably feels secure in a strange new environment and (right) playing with Sam.
At the moment, she's curled up in a tight little ball fast asleep at my feet now that my Daughter has had her breakfast and finally set off for school and my wife's having a well-deserved lie-in. Sam, our sole remaining (and quite elderly) rescue dog, seems to have taken the whole puppy thing remarkably well all things considered, but has already put her very firmly in her place which is what needed to happen sooner rather than later and, earlier this morning, he actually approached Tess as though he wanted her to play!
No problems with eating then! We'll be feeding her special "Purina" Beta dog food for large breed puppies for a while yet. It's fairly expensive, but worth it in the long run. It will also be a few weeks before she can go out into the big wide world....or at least until she's had her full course of injections (more expense). As for exercise, we'll make sure she gets plenty in the garden and Sam will help as well by playing with her. Besides, it's not a good idea to go mad exercising Labradors for the first twelve months or so because they can easily develop extremely painful joint problems in later life if you allow them to tear about chasing sticks and balls for too long every day when they're youngsters!
As for naming her Tess, the decision was pretty much made for us when we discovered that her Kennel Club pedigree name is "Temuka Tess" out of "Timothy's Garden Tiger (sire) and Caesarron Bright Gold (dam)....although my suggestions regarding both "Temmy" and "Mooky" as possible alternatives were met with considerable derision!
Totally discomknockerated and out for the count by 2000hrs!
Puppy (12th October, 2008)
My daughter took a whole bunch of photographs of our latest family acquisition to be. She says that she's a "real Cutie-Pie", but I know about these things from terrible experience and I know what they're TRULY capable of and how one tiny ball of irresistible furry cuteness can reduce a grown man to tears in about the same time it takes to turn a chair leg into sawdust and an expensive shag-pile carpet into a pile of pee-sodden rags!
I must have been suffering from some kind of mental aberration (or could it be that someone simply spiked my coffee?), but I found myself bowing to the general consensus when my wife, my son and my daughter discovered (via the internet) that six Labrador puppies were for sale no more than half a mile from where we live.
Cries of "Oh, it must be fate Dad!" or "Surely Dad, it's meant to be!" echoed around the house for an hour before I finally succumbed to the relentless and ever-increasing pressure and agreed that, "Ok then, I guess it can't do any harm if you all just go and have a LOOK at them".
So off they went, the three of them, up the road, skippety-hop, to "have a look".
My God....Look at the size of those feet!
An hour later, back they came, having had a REALLY good look....and also having bought one....a little girl one....and a light-coloured little girl one at that!
So there we are....proof, if it were needed, that no-one in this house ever takes a blind bit of notice of a single word I say!
Oh well, at least I have a few days grace, in that she wont be ready for collection until Monday week....On the other hand, that means a whole week of being forced to listen to "everyone else playing the dreaded "name-game", with offers of "How about Holly Dad?" or "I know Dad, Poppy!" and "Rosy's nice Dad....Dad, how about Rosy Dad....eh? I said Rosy Dad"!
....and so it begins....Apparently, little "Cutie-Pie" had the lace undone and my wife's baseball trainer off her foot and halfway across the garden before anyone could say "home run"!
Mmm....The thing is, neither of my kids have ever lived in a house with a puppy before....let alone a Labrador puppy (Leah and Sam were both grown-up rescue dogs when we first got them and Chloe and Amy before them were already quite old when the kids were born), but I HAVE experienced the puppy phenomenon (many times) and I know know only too well that, although names like "Holly", "Poppy" and "Rosy" might seem like obvious and very attractive choices, it's "Chewy", "Craps", "Widdle" or "Puke" that will actually seem far more appropriate somehow!
Anyway, I dare say that it will come down to me in the end to make the final choice and, as I sit here now, gazing around at our nicely decorated, attractively furnished and generally tidy living-room, I know only too well what it will look like in a couple of weeks time after the furry, but oh-so cute cyclone has had a few days in which to wreak its terrible havoc....I guess that it's a kind of calm before the storm moment!
....There we are....How about "Havoc" for a name or perhaps "Mayhem"? Perfect I reckon....or possibly "T-Rex"....or how about "Attila"....or maybe "Blitzkrieg"?
Pond
Almost completed now, this is the wildlife pond project that my Daughter and I undertook at the start of her school summer holidays this year (2008). It was hard work at times, but a fun thing to do together and although it's not the biggest or best pond in the world, it's OUR pond and we're quite pleased with it. To the right of the picture and beneath a fairly large Conifer tree, is the log-pile which we extended to incorporate the fringes of the pond and to increase insect activity around and about it. Water is pumped from the main pool out and over the back into the "stream" channel, from which it flows via a small (aeration) water-fall back into the main pond. The birds love to drink and bathe in the "stream" while floating Water-Hyacinth and Water-Lettuce provide adequate surface cover for fish and underwater insect larvae and an assortment of Sedges, Rushes, Grasses and other plants offer additional shade, cover and protection at the margins. We've named the little statue Wun Hung Lo by the way....a reference to his buckets!
With the summer holidays looming, my Daughter and I decided that it would be nice to spend time together creating a wildlife pond. Not an ornamental one, designed to impress the neighbours you understand, but a simple and relatively small (and inexpensive) hole in the ground filled with water. It took us a few weeks to complete and we both know it's not going to win "Best Pond in Show" at the Chelsea Flower Thingy but we're actually quite pleased with it.
....and so it began....Using state-of-the-art technology....ie, mostly line-of-sight guesswork and a lot of head-scratching, we first had to mark out the main outline of the pond before I was finally able to sit down with a cup of well-deserved tea to watch my Daughter begin the digging part!
We've made it as wildlife-friendly as possible by adding a fairly broad range of suitable oxygenating deep-water and water-marginal plants and actually incorporating the pond itself with the adjacent log-pile so that there's lots of insect activity. We even installed a pump and filter system and created a little "stream" and water-fall! The birds love it too and I've counted no less than sixteen species drinking and/or bathing in it so far!
I've been criticised severely a few times over the years, mostly by people who insist on wrapping their own children in cotton-wool, for insisting that my kids occasionally get their hands dirty and do stuff like help change a wheel on the car, dig the garden, learn to use various (and dangerous) tools properly to build stuff like fences and garden sheds or, as in this particular case, to dig holes in the ground using pick-axes and shovels. I just happen to think it's important that they have the right mindset when it comes to doing such things (as well as steel toe-capped wellies and sensible eye protection) and that they know how to do them properly....plus it also gives me chance to have yet another cup of tea!
It was hard work at times, particularly where digging the main hole was concerned, as the ground was hard and riddled with very large rocks that needed a pick-axe to shift them, but it was also fun to research all that needed to be done and to plan each step as we came to it. There were a few minor problems, particularly with regard to how best to arrange the plants, but we enjoyed visiting the garden centres to obtain all that we needed and eventually working it all out.
I wasn't keen to have a lot of Goldfish in the pond as they tend to eat everything in sight and undo most of what you're trying to achieve from a wildlife perspective, but my Daughter was very keen to have at least a couple, so we bought three very small ones who she immediately named Ross, Joey and Chandler! They seem to have settled in very well and have already learned to associate her with food and now come to her to be fed (something she's entirely responsible for by the way)..
Obviously, these are very early days and nothing has really established itself, but it's getting there and we're looking forward to seeing it a year from now when it should all start to look much more natural and any wildlife will be more firmly established.
Blue and Purple
Creeping Thistle
Spear Thistle
Hover Fly on Purple Anenome
Another beauty from my Mother-in-Law's early Autumn garden display.
Sneaking up on a Blue-Bottle ain't exactly the easiest thing to do, but if you look carefully, you can actually see the lens of my little Ricoh camera (which I was holding no more than 2cm away from him), reflected in his big shiny bum!
Calibrachoa Cavern
Clematis
Weathervane
This is my daughter's painting of her own eye and I've included it here because I think it's actually quite good....not that I'm biased or anything!
Crocus
Moonlight elbows its way through the clouds as the rain begins to fall.
I know what you're thinking....he was probably drawn to the integral juxtaposition of the primary delineative line-work and the almost geometric incongruity of the main dysfunctional shape elements....well, you'd be wrong....I just like the colours! Besides....look more closely and you'll see that what appears to be a fire extinguisher has actually been converted into a collecting "tin" for the entirely voluntary Boscastle National Coastwatch who just happen to do an absolutely fantastic job monitoring the safety of ordinary members of the public around our coast and who I know would benefit tremendously from any small (or very large) donations you might possibly see fit to wend their way!
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No....it's "The Pollinator"! I've heard of immersing yourself in your work, but....
Blue Hydrangea
Like a sketch in pastels
Gate
A touch of Harebell and of Bluebell, but this beauty is perhaps most like an Ivy-Leaved Bellflower....Altogether though, a bit of a mystery to me!
Blue school door
The Standards and the Falls
Double delight!
Older generation....It's amazing sometimes, the things you can stumble across in the middle of nowhere!
Deep purple
Blue Moon
Blackthorn (Sloe) Berries
Creeping Thistle
Spider's webs are important collectors of moisture....useful to remember in a survival situation
Perennial Cornflower....delicate beyond reason
A "Pride" of Pansies
You can just make out the glow from my campfire in the bottom right-hand corner.
Village skyline
General Diary Stuff
(Continued from the "Brown" Page, but now missing more than a year's worth of entries from the 5th July 2008 - 22nd July 2009)
So There You Are (10th July)
So there you are....It really is that easy when you're finally prepared to swallow your pride and allow outsiders to help.
As for the total cost of the preceding seven day's worth of debacle...I understand that the sum of £3.5m is currently being banded about....not including the basic rental fee for an RAF Tornado jet!
The Moat in Plod's Eye (7th July)
Hundreds of heavily armed police officers trawling the countryside, specialist spotter and sniper teams drafted in from London, helicopters equipped with high-res infra-red search equipment, dozens of police search dogs, armed police units patrolling school playgrounds, local residents compelled to remain indoors....and now they've even brought in armoured cars.!
What in the name of all that's sacred is going on!?!
How much more kudos are the people in charge of this so-called manhunt going to give to a guy who is little more than a socially inadequate, insecure, cowardly, cold-blooded killer? A demented control freak who gives his victims absolutely no chance whatsoever to defend themselves.
Equally inexplicable to me is the fact that Raoul Moat now seems to be on the cusp of becoming some kind of Ned Kelly-type folk hero (at least as far as certain weaker-minded sections of the British public are concerned) and that must surely be down, not just to the massively inappropriate over-reaction of the police, but to the typically irresponsible demands of several of the red-top newspaper editors and the faceless sensation-seeking executive-types who pull the strings at the likes of ITN News. ITN News? A place where ratings are ranked high above the accurate reporting of facts in a dignified and well-considered journalistic style....and for the sole purpose of selling air time to advertisers.
The thing is that Moat has chosen his home turf upon which to play his self-indulgent little game, but he's still an amateur when it comes to using the countryside around him to his best advantage. Sadly however, those currently searching for him are even more disadvantaged than he is and rarely manage to do little more than trudge blindly across fields and crash through the undergrowth hoping that, sooner or later, they'll get lucky!
Well, the Boss has offered, but you know how PC Plod hates losing face. The thing is though, former Gurkhas, Sam and Joe are less than a hundred miles away from that neck of the woods just across the border and they also happen to be the two best trackers in the whole of the UK. Meanwhile, John, our ranger in the North-East, actually covers the whole of Northumberland as part of his job and knows every square inch of it plus he was a Pathfinder out of 16 Air Assault and 2 Para. Ranger Dave B on the other hand, is a former Para as well and one of the most experienced SAR dog handlers in the country....and finally, there's Tess who is actually trained to search for and locate (with an 85% success rate) certain men and women who are infinitely versed in the arts of concealment, escape and evasion.
Right now however, there are far too many people clouding the water with 99% of them totally ignorant in the ways of the countryside. Plus, from what I've seen, they're so busy trying not to shoot each other up the a*se that they're completely failing to see the wood for the trees....literally! All those firearms....and armoured cars for frick's sake! What's that all about?
Basically, our guys wouldn't need any fancy black coveralls, kevlar vests or combat helmets. They wouldn't need (or want) to carry firearms. They wouldn't even feel a need to go scaring half the population of Northumberland sh*tless by flaunting automatic weapons in the faces of highly impressionable kids as they walked them to school. The fact is that none of those things would be necessary because they'd be invisible and Moat just wouldn't see them coming....It's what they do you see and they do it better than anyone.
Oh....and don't worry, they wouldn't attempt to confront or capture Moat once they'd tracked him down either. In fact, they'd be more than happy to call in the police to do the shooty bit with their beloved semi-autos, loud-hailers, tear gas and stun grenades believe me!
"Not by strength by guile" as they say!
Anyway, the Boss says they've got until tomorrow lunchtime to decide if they want us or not or we'll all be re-assigned elsewhere. Can't see it happening though....and then, before you know it, Moat will be celebritised into another Bonnie and Clyde by the sheer magnitude of it all and go on to make millions selling his story to the papers and magazines and/or from the autobiography he'll most assuredly write from his exclusive five-star, three-room, en-suite penthouse apartment in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital....and believe me, there'll be enough idiots out there who'll be only too happy to queue up in the rain all night to buy their very own copy! He can even borrow the silly title I use here. The one I've cross-pollinated from Luke 6:41-42 and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's outstanding classic novel if he likes.
Whatever happened then, to this green and pleasant land? To my beloved England? Once proud and strong....Inviolate. Yet trampled now 'neath the jackboot-heels of Ignorance and Change....Change for the sake of change....Not only that, just who was it exactly, who decided to put the froth-mouthed inmates in charge of this particular asylum?
The Game, the Blame and the Shame (2nd July)
A crisis in English football? Apparently not....and no blame for our poor performances in South Africa seems to have been laid at the feet of Signor Capello either....or at least I guess it wont be while it's likely to cost the FA a cool £12m to get rid of him!
As for Uruguay....have they no shame? Unbelievable cheats! I really feel for Ghana.
On the other hand, well done to plucky little Holland who at least managed to beat mighty Brazil without recourse to cheating in any way whatsoever....Although someone will have to explain to me just how it is that a country with a total population of just over six million people can get their team through to a World Cup semi-final while England with its population of more than fifty million struggled to put three consecutive passes together.
Oh, and I hear that the president of Nigeria has banned his country's team from playing any international football matches for the next two years in some kind of knee-jerk reaction to their dismal performance, while the whole of France has been reduced to a state of total embarrassment, not just by the kindergaten antics of the players and coaching staff, but by the subsequent behaviour of its massively interfering president and its meddling Government. As for the poor old North Korean team, presumably they were simply taken out and shot the moment they arrived back home.
Football? It's all too weird for words these days!
Two Things.... (28th June)
First and most important....I believe that I really do have the answer to the England football team's managerial woes....
Basically, all that the crusty old farts at the FA need to do is write a letter to a primary school not too far from where I live and offer the job of England manager to a teacher there called Rob. Rob is an absolutely brilliant football coach. His ability to transform class after class of ordinary 9, 10 and 11 year-old boys and girls into highly organised, well disciplined and totally motivated (not to mention staggeringly successful) football teams is nothing short of miraculous.
Quite simply, the guy is one of those genius-type teachers who possesses that indefinable ability to get the best out of any child, no matter who they are, where they're from or what subject is being taught. Mind you, even if the FA was actually capable of persuading him to leave the job he loves just to work with bigger and infinitely more spoilt versions of the kids he's always been used to, then all those sad, massively out of date, stick-in-the-mud control freaks currently infesting the FA would have to be prepared to take on board Rob's unique discipline regime....
....and it's a very simple system too....For spitting and/or swearing or for any behaviour deemed by Rob to be inappropriate....Ten minutes on the "Naughty Chair" in full view of all and sundry.
For second offences....A one week ban from training and matches.
For third offences....Banned from footy club for the remainder of the season irrespective of who they are or how important to the team they might be!
All those who train regularly are guaranteed to play in matches each week regardless of ability unless they have fallen foul of the discipline regime....and believe me, EVERYONE is desperate to please the coach and win a place in one of his teams so discipline is rarely an issue.
Meanwhile, Rob doesn't believe in "A" "B" and "C" teams and a kid will play as either a Hawk, a Falcon or an Eagle.
Trust me, Rob would be a breath of fresh air for England....No need for half-time hair-dryer or tea-cup throwing tactics as far as he's concerned. He's ever and always the calm, unshakeable epitome of self-control. A man who exudes self-confidence and who never questions the abilities of his players. He is the archetypal father-figure made manifest and the kind of person who everyone is desperate to please.
More than anything, Rob believes that confidence in any kind of team (sport or otherwise) will spread like an epidemic if given half a chance, but that it must first come from the manager or team leader. His confidence in them is of paramount importance and any tactics that lack dynamism or flexibility are doomed to failure.
Senior footballers to Rob really are like children. He is convinced that they would respond more positively to a kind word than to a rod of iron. Discipline yes, but discipline born out of fairness and common sense. Rob gets the best out of the kids in his charge because he makes the effort to understand them as individuals. He finds the time to listen to their views and organises his teams according to their strengths, their weaknesses and their needs.
Any of you out there who may previously have read on my co.uk site the chapter in "Slices" entitled "PGCE", might remember the advise I was given during my very first day in class at teacher training college....It was the thing about a child being like a handful of jelly. Well, all you have to do here is substitute "child" for "footballer" to understand why Fabio Capello appears to have struggled with so many elements of the England team....
"A footballer is like a handful of jelly, the tighter you squeeze, the more it will slip between your fingers. Yet, with care and skill and dedication, you can mould that jelly into anything you want!"
Or, as Rob would say, respect cannot be commanded Signor Capello, it must be earned and you will never earn the respect of anyone, let alone the spoilt and the pampered, by wielding the rod.
From my own perspective, I would argue that training a dog for example, to do something as infinitely complex and demanding as wilderness search and rescue, ranger work or even the kindergarten equivalents of gundog work or dancing on a stage, demands that the handler gives praise at any and every opportunity. The dog must be constantly made to feel that it has worth. That it is valued. That it is progressing. That life is fair. Praise is the key not punishment and, even when things are not all they could be and the dog is failing repeatedly to understand a complicated series of instructions or simply being disobedient, then the handler must look to his or her own methods for the fault and be flexible enough to change the system as and when necessary.
The simple truth of it is Signor Capello, that the dog will rarely be in the wrong....only the handler and his ego....and the same, I believe, is true of both children and professional footballers!
Oh....and Rob says he'd do the job for just £50,000 a year, based on one year at a time, 90% win or draw guaranteed contracts!
* * *
Second....My manuscript was returned from the publisher today.
"Jack the Lad" is a three hundred and forty page, seven years in the making homage to the humble Jackdaw....a species very close to my heart for various reasons. I included all kinds of detailed observations and relevant information concerning several of the Cotswolds "tribes" as I prefer to call them, as well as dozens of photographs and cartoons not shown on my websites. I added details of my studies of other tribes to be found far beyond the Cotswold escarpment, including those inhabiting territories as diverse as remote coastal cliff tops, quiet village churchyards, idyllic woodland settings, quarries, housing estates, open arable farmland, derelict industrial sites, and even supermarket car parks and busy railway stations.
Corvus monedula is, for me, the undisputed King of Ubiquity. A bird that's clever beyond reason. A bird with an interactive social structure more complexly hierarchical, inherently spiteful and pre-eminently self-serving than anything you'll find even in a Big Brother household. In fact, Jackdaws are more like us in so many ways than....well, us!
Anyway, the manuscript was returned today, together with a very polite letter of rejection explaining by way of a veritable list of reasons, exactly why the publisher considered it to be unsuitable for publication....
"Dear Mr W" the letter began,
"Generally speaking, this is an informative work with a few interesting anecdotes. Many of the photographs make a valuable addition to the project as a whole, though by no means all of them. The cartoons, one or two of which, I admit, are mildly amusing, seem out of place and do nothing to add a much needed gravitas to such an ambitious undertaking.
Your knowledge of Jackdaws meanwhile, though seemingly impressive and well researched does little to promote the subject of birding as a whole. In fact, I am left feeling that perhaps you have a deep and profound dislike for the subject in general and for birders in particular.
Your sense of humour is relentless and often bewildering. Self-deprecation after all, is not an attractive attribute in my opinion and does little here to draw the reader in. Perhaps time spent converting your book to something more closely aligned with a work of reference would be more conducive to getting it published.
As I say, the anecdotes are occasionally interesting and apparently written from the heart. The one as told to you by the Cornish fisherman about the old one-legged Jackdaw and the lobster was particularly funny though hardly more believable than the other story about the Japanese waitress taking you to see Daurian Jackdaws placing walnuts under the wheels of cars queueing at traffic lights on the streets of Kobe. Again, you do little to add credibility to an otherwise worthwhile enterprise.
Basically Mr W, your problem is that you find it difficult to differentiate between writing a serious work of reference and a script for a particularly bad situation comedy which begs the question, who in all honesty, would buy such a book?
Please understand that my comments are intended to be constructive and I hope that you will accept them as such.
Yours....etc"
Oh well, I really did try this time. Incidentally, ALL the anecdotes, including the two mentioned above, are absolutely true....and I didn't even mention the one about the Jackdaw, the golfer and his balls. I was saving that one plus a few others for the sequel!
Sixty-One Down and Nine to Go (25th June)
Happy Birthday to me! I'm sixty-one!
Sixty-one years old all of a sudden, but I can't help thinking it's also sixty-one of my allotted three score and ten used up already, leaving me with just nine to go....if I'm lucky.
Fifty Years Ago Today....
Saturday, 25th June, 1960....It was my eleventh birthday and although I wouldn't begin keeping a proper written diary on a daily basis for a few months just yet, I couldn't resist making the odd note in an old exercise book about anything that caught my attention for any reason. This is what I wrote on that day all those years ago....
"Happy birthday to me! I'm eleven! There was an earthquake in Bejum (Belgium) which might be why Slip (Slipper, my dog) was acting funny last night. A woman in Australia got very fed up with her husband naging (nagging) her about getting too much det (debt) on the never-never so she bought a rifle from her catalog (catalogue) and shot him dead with it! Got £4.00 from Mum and Dad and 10/- from Aunty Bette for my Barry Island holiday fund (holi-DAY in the literal sense as we wouldn't have our first week-long family holiday until the summer of 1963). Going to the Why (Wye) Valley with Uncle Sid tomorrow and Goodrich Castle too". Corky (my pet tortoise) escaped from the garden. Found him eating next door's letice (lettuce)!"
As you can see, I was already a very sad and introverted little boy with many years ahead of me to write increasingly inane rubbish.
Questionnaire (24th June)
I had to go into a town today where a young guy, probably about twenty-two years of age and wielding a clipboard, approached me on the street.
"Hi, I'm Mark", he said. "Have you got a moment to answer a couple of questions about England's performances in the World Cup?"
I opened my mouth to decline his invitation, but he continued at a pace. "First of all, what d'you think is the best thing about us being in the finals of the competition?"
I considered this at length....for about .5 of a second. "It's great that they're there" I replied, "but for me, I prefer it when they're actually playing".
"Why's that?" He held his England supporters pen at the ready. His red and white moulded plastic St George's bowler hat perched jauntily on the back of his head.
"Because the roads are as blissfully empty when they're playing as when I first learned to drive back in the 1960s and the idiot drivers that tend to infest our highways and byways these days are all glued to their TV sets".
Mark thought about this for a moment. "So what you're saying is that you haven't watched any of the matches....Even the England ones?"
"Well, I saw most of the first two, but only the first ten minutes of the Slovakia one"
"You mean Slovenia"
"Do I? I didn't know Slovakia had played Slovenia"
"Eh?" For the first time Mark realised he may well be dealing with a full-blooded idiot of some kind. "Don't you like football then?" He looked almost incredulous.
"Yeah, sure. I coached it for years at youth level"
"So why don't you like the World Cup?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it. I merely answered your question"
"So why didn't you watch yesterday's England match then?" He seemed almost hurt. "Are you Welsh or something?"
"No, but I am half American by birth and I was quite interested in the USA's progress as well as it happens"
"Ah, so you watched the USA match then?" The relief in his face was almost tangible.
"Er, no. I didn't see that one either" Mark frowned. His eyebrows knitted and I could almost imagine a tiny woollen red and white England scarf materialising from his forehead.
"But..."
I began to feel sorry for him. "I was called out on a shout ten minutes into the match" I explained.
"A shout?"
"A search and rescue shout" I pointed to the printed text and logo on my t-shirt which he then seemed to notice for the first time. "I had to drive seventy miles with my dog in order to rescue two fat sisters and their toddlers. They'd gone on a long walk with two of those horrendous mega-buggy things to get away from all the football at home apparently, but had forgotten that if they walked three miles out they'd have to walk three miles back. They couldn't do it and panicked. The trouble was, they hadn't told anyone where they were going and then phoned their mum, but omitted to tell her where they were before their mobile went dead. My dog's employers/sponsors ended up with the shout and I ended up missing the match....Can you get all that on your form?"
"Eh?" Mark suddenly rallied "So what's your prediction for the England Germany match?" I wasn't entirely sure he'd heard a word I said.
"2-1....to England, but they'll come at us like rabid Rottweilers in the first twenty minutes and probably score first, but the old British Bulldog spirit will prevail and we'll rally sufficiently to equalise (Rooney) just before half-time and then again (Gerrard) early in the second half simply because the Germans will try to defend their one goal lead rather than press for a second". I shook his hand and walked on a few paces. Then I turned and added, "Don't worry Mark, we'll be fine, despite a sending off (Upson) and another missed penalty (Lampard).*
Mark half smiled, straightened his plastic bowler (possibly the very one St George himself would have worn....had he been English) and turned away to seek out some other poor unfortunate to interrogate. I couldn't help but feel it was going to be a very long day for him.
*Please note....Due to the fact that I hardly do any time-travelling into the future at all these days, my prediction here is pure guesswork based on nothing more than total ignorance....Though I must admit, I do think England will actually win next Sunday!
Nobody Loves Me (17th June)
Banned....Again!
I stopped off in a little village shop deep in the Cotswolds today to buy a bottle of water and a sandwich to share with Tess, but one of the customers already in there glanced at the "UK National Wildlife Ranger" wording printed on my t-shirt, put two and two together and the following conversation ensued....
"Are you one of them ranger blokes?"
I turned to face my questioner, "Er...I'm a UK National Ranger for my sins, yes"
"So you're the one with the website then?" His posture had become slightly more confrontational and his tone a little more threatening as his friend suddenly appeared at his side from behind some shelving. I noticed absently that the latter was clutching a pack of women's 100 denier tights.....presumably for his wife, though by the look of him, they might just as easily have been for use in some kind of armed robbery.
"Yes, I do host a couple of websites, mostly of a Nature nature. In fact, I've probably got a card you can have...."
"I don't wanna card. You're the one then that don't like huntin' or shotguns and the like".
"That's correct, yes".
"....So, you're against people like us 'avin' shotguns?" He gestured towards Mr 100 Denier.
"Well, actually, I don't like firearms full stop and I'm totally against ANY member of the general public owning any kind of firearm whatsoever for whatever reason....It's bad enough that some idiot came up with the idea of arming some of the police. It's nothing against you personally I can assure you. It's how I happen to feel and it's born out of some fairly gruesome past experiences, but then, that's none of your business".
"Well, it's our business that you're shoppin' in my brother's shop and we'd rather that you didn't". This time, he gestured towards the guy serving behind the counter who half-nodded his agreement.
I studied each of them briefly in turn wondering vaguely at what point I'd walked into a scene from a Steven Segal movie. Yet, the thing is, I meet their type in my job far too often, though I usually manage to ignore them and walk away without incident.
I placed the water and the sandwiches on the counter and made towards the door. As I opened it to a chorus of baboonesque laughter and chicken impressions, I turned to face Mr 100 Denier, "I think you'll find they're a bit thick for this kind of weather and that shade of brown wont go with your nail varnish". I suppose In retrospect, a more Arnie-like, "Arrl be bark!" would have been slightly more Hollywood, followed by the bit where I crash my car through the shop-front window, but hey, it was the best I could think of at the time.
"F*** you!" came the erudite reply as I stepped outside and returned to the car where Tess was waiting expectantly for her share of a cheese and onion sandwich. We drove on to the next village and another shop....one hopefully owned by people with more than three brain cells to share between them this time.
For what it's worth, that amounts to one newsagent and two general stores that I'm banned from now because of my openly expressed opinions on the ownership and use of firearms in general and my anti-hunting stance in particular...and all of them are in the Cotswolds. I don't get this kind of trouble anywhere else, not from Hereford to Penzance....Just in the Cotswolds.
Freedom of speech in action I guess!
Egowatch
I endured an hour of the BBC's "Springwatch" last night. Does anyone else remember when the programme used to be about wildlife and not just a platform for pampering and displaying a few over-inflated egos?
The problem is, I'll never forgive a certain person for the totally vindictive campaign they initiated back in the day in order to oust Johnny Morris and his wonderful "Animal Magic" from the TV schedules just to advance their own career. Mind you, they wont remember me. I was just as much a nobody back then as I am now!
Bloody Sunday....30th January, 1972 (15th June)
A complete and uncompromising vindication of all those shot and killed by the British Army in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday. Plus, a full and unequivocal apology from the present Government offered to the relatives and friends of the victims and to the ordinary people of Bogside....Well, it's about time, but it's also massively overdue.
Bloody Sunday was a shade before my time there, but I would soon be gaining first-hand experience of just how profound the effects of the killings had been on those living in the region....not to mention the influence they had in the recruitment of new blood into the suddenly rapidly swelling ranks of the IRA. Perhaps most disturbing of all however, was the fact that Bloody Sunday provided the bombers and the gunmen with all the self-justification they needed to go on to commit some of the most devastating and barbaric acts of violence ever perpetrated either in Northern Ireland itself or on the British mainland.
I argued then and I still do, that it was a few desperately tragic minutes of utter stupidity on the part of a handful of inadequately trained and poorly led paratroopers (who, in my opinion, should never have been deployed in that area in the first place) which ultimately served to make things much much worse in Northern Ireland than they ever would have been otherwise and for a long time to come....They were logic-defying minutes of complete insanity which, more than anything else, sealed the fate of close to 4,000 thousand people from all sides of the religious and political divide throughout the increasingly troubled years that followed.
Not least, Bloody Sunday represented an act of shameful, military incompetence that went on to re-define the thought processes of an entire generation, ultimately plunging the UK deeper and deeper into what effectively became a state of civil war....even if Westminster refused to acknowledge it as such....Police action my a*se!
All in all, I'm glad the families concerned have at last been given their official apology. It wont change even the minutest detail of what happened on that fateful day thirty-eight years ago of course, but at least now perhaps a few ghosts can finally be laid to rest.
All-Out (13th June)
About once every five or six days on average, Tess and I get a SAR-related call-out and off we go to wherever it is we're apparently needed at whatever time of the day or night it might be. I should add that the vast majority of these call-outs (about 99% of them, in fact) are drills. That is, they are "practise" shouts designed by Tess's sponsors, not only to test the two of us for any possible improvement in our perceived capability as a team/unit, but also to help develop our so-called ability to (and I quote) "respond with maximum effect to as many kinds of situation as possible in as wide a variety of environments as deemed necessary".
To make things interesting however, the other 1% of said call-outs are the "real" thing (thus ensuring that we remain totally focussed and that we respond in absolutely the correct frame of mind on each and every occasion). Needless to say, ALL call-outs, whether they're drills or otherwise, are treated with equal seriousness by all concerned....Plus, every aspect of our involvement is scrupulously monitored, both in terms of individual performances and as a team. Not surprisingly, Tess nearly always manages to excel with scores generally in the region of around 80 - 90 out of 100, while I invariably struggle to get anything higher than a 65 or 70.
With regard to the call-outs, we're usually given only the bare minimum of information from the outset, which often amounts to little more than a couple of map co-ordinates or a grid reference relating to an area of perhaps two square km....inevitably an area of "challenging" terrain that we're expected to cover as thoroughly as possible. If we're lucky, we're occasionally provided with a brief description of who or what it is we're meant to be looking for!
Well, at 1025hrs today (it being my day off naturally), I received a call from Tess's sponsors who immediately set about providing me with a string of map co-ordinates and instructions requiring us to head for a particular location in the heart of the Forest of Dean where we were to conduct a thorough 1.5 km radial search for a suspected missing female...."age and physical status currently unknown".
Not surprisingly, this latest shout turned out to be a drill when, after nearly two hours of searching, Tess located a sodden fabric shopping-bag stuffed with an old cardigan, a shirt and a pair of women's trainers, all partially hidden amongst a tangle of tree roots overhanging the edge of a small lake.
I called it in and was subsequently informed that we had done reasonably well and that the exercise was now over. Later however, I was informed that I had had marks deducted for not calling in Tess's find BEFORE I attempted to retrieve and then open the bag in order to check its contents as, by that time, the search for a possible casualty may well have changed to that of a search for a possible murder victim, in which case I would, in all likelihood, have been tampering with evidence at a possible crime scene.
Naturally, I objected to the sheer, unadulterated unfairness of what, to me, was something completely and unfairly unfair, but was over-ruled....B*******!
Tess meanwhile, scored her usual (and increasingly ingratiating) 90....dropping only 10 marks, simply because she might possibly have been just a little bit quicker....Bless!). I, on the other hand, only managed another lowly 65....this time for being, as our beloved and generously tactful assessment officer and former Para put it over the phone, "a complete tw*t!".
Remiss (10th June)
There's been a lot in the news to make me angry of late and I've deliberately avoided commenting on such things as the World Cup (which I'm already sick of hearing about), the BP oil disaster and the proposed culling of urban foxes to name but three.
So, although I've been a bit remiss this last week or so as far as updating this on-line diary has been concerned, I have at least been keeping up with my written one....and it's even more litigious than usual! Still, not to worry because no-one will ever get to read it, at least not until long after I'm gone.
Which just happens to remind me of a brief conversation (number 93) that I had with my daughter earlier this evening....
We were watching the Simpsons while eating our evening meal or possibly eating our evening meal while watching the Simpsons....
"Dad" she said suddenly, "Do you want to be buried or cremated?"
"I'd like to finish my tea first if it's all the same to you"
"No, I mean when you're dead....Which would you prefer, cremation or burial?"
"Er....Is there something you know that I don't because if there is...."
"I'm being serious. Which one?"
"Has your mother just increased my insurance premiums again by any chance?"
"Dad!"
"Well, if you must know, I'd rather be buried....Although your mother did once suggest that I should be cremated and that my ashes be scattered in Marks and Spencer"
"Marks and Spencer? Why Marks and Spencer?"
"Because then she'd be able to visit me every day"
"Arrrgh! Why don't you ever take anything seriously? You know perfectly well I've got a psychology exam tomorrow and there might be a question about people's attitudes to death"
"What if they don't have any?"
"Any what?"
"Attitudes towards death"
"Everyone does" She paused to think for a moment (I laughed out loud....It was the episode where Homer picks up the telephone and says 'Give me the number for 911!') then she added "So, if you want to be buried, what would you want them to put on your gravestone?"
"I'll get a gravestone?"
"Yes, of course"
"Mmm....Tricky. After all, you shouldn't say anything about the dead unless it's good....So, it'll probably be something along the lines of....er, 'Good, he's dead!'"
"DAD! Seriously!"
"Can't I just watch the Simpsons?"
"No. What d'you think it should say?"
"Are you sure you don't know something? Has your mother been tinkering with my car brakes again?" I could feel the power of my daughter's oxy-acetylene glare beginning to cut into me. "Er, well, how about....'Actually, I wasn't dead. I was just giving my lungs a rest'?" I felt the glare factor go up a notch or two. "I know, how about....'I told you that hospital was no place to be ill!" Glare factor ten! "I'm sorry. This is serious to you isn't it....Well then, what about....'Here I lie heavy hearted, that now from chocolate I am parted!'"
Tess Back to Work Tomorrow (2nd June)
She wasn't injured too seriously, but she's had to stay at home for three days and hasn't been allowed to come out with me so far this week....Much howling ensued apparently, as I drove off each morning.
We were both injured as it happens, Tess was attached to my harness and everything was going well until the down-draft suddenly swung us towards a rock face. I just about managed to spin us round in time so that I took most of the impact, but Tess's nearside hind leg took a bit of a hammering. No broken bones, but she suffered some bruising and had to see the medic.
Nobody cared about me of course....I didn't even get a cup of tea!
Israeli Marines Commando (1st June)
Very topical all of a sudden, but what do I remember about them? Only that a bunch of their Sayeret guys trained alongside us for a while way back in the day....Cliff assaults, rappelling techniques, ship to shore, etc. Couldn't let them near any sharp objects though, if I recall correctly. Oh....and they were totally unable to get their heads around the local unit motto thingy...."Not by Strength by Guile", much preferring their own...."Sh*t, how was I to know there was still one in the spout!"
I suppose I could go on about adding "Ship-Boarding for Dummies" to their list of recommended reading, but perhaps I'd better not....What with SOH Deficit Disorder always being their biggest weakness.
British Military Fatalities, May 2010
30th May....Marine Scott Taylor (21) from Buxton in Derbyshire. Alpha Coy, 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
26th May....Corporal Stephen Curley (26) from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Killed in an explosion while on a "reassurance" foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
26th May....Gunner Zak Cusack (20) from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles. Shot on foot patrol while attempting to provide protection for local Afghan civilians. Nahr-e-Saraj, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
21st May....Corporal Stephen Walker (42) from Lisburn, County Antrim. 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
9th May....Corporal Christopher Harrison (26) from Watford, Hertfordshire. Bravo Coy, 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd May....Sapper Daryn Roy (28) from Consett, County Durham. 21 Engineer Regiment Group. Killed by a roadside bomb while manoeuvring his vehicle to provide protection for civilian contractors. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd May....Lance-Corporal Barry Buxton (27) from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. 21 Engineer Regiment Group. Died after a road collapsed causing the vehicle in which he was travelling to roll down an embankment and into a canal. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
2nd May....Corporal Alex Harvey Holmes (22) from Hyde in Manchester. 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment serving with 40 Commando, Royal Marines Battle Group. Killed in an explosion while providing covering fire for a returning foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
There's Always Something Going on in the Garden (24th May)
Garden view from the patio. Note the copious amount of blossom on the little apple tree this year. Hopefully, it's a promising sign that a good crop of apples will eventually follow, unlike last year when Squirrels ate most of the blossom and the tree went on to produce just a single fruit....which I eventually picked, sliced and ate with a large dollop of custard.
First cat casualty. Two separate pairs of Dunnocks nested simultaneously in fairly close proximity in the garden this year, which is unusual for such normally fierce and terrtitorial birds. Each pair managed to produce four eggs and seven in total went on to hatch successfully. Unfortunately however, only three of the chicks survived long enough to fledge....two from one nest and one from the other. I can't be certain what happened to them all, but I saw the one shown in the photograph above being carried by the dreaded cat from across the way. I immediately rushed out of the house and, by surprising it, caused it to drop its victim. Sadly, the chick was already dead.
Incidentally, note the tiny "egg-tooth" situated at the very tip of the beak, indicating that this chick had barely hatched before being absconded with by the cat. The egg-tooth itself is used by the baby bird to initially help it to crack open the shell of its egg from within, but then disappears or drops off altogether shortly after the hatching process is completed.
One of the two Dunnock nests (now vacated) built about four feet off the ground in the garden this year in two different fir trees.
Probably just unable to compete....Hatched by the pair of Great Tits nesting in the bird-table nest-box pictured further down the page, this tiny scrap of life must have simply failed to compete for its fair share of food with its four larger and stronger siblings. Note that this chick also has a still visible egg-tooth.
I happened to be in the garden when I noticed the female parent bird attempting to discard what I at first took to be some surplus or soiled nesting material from inside the nest-box via the entrance hole. I decided to stand still and wait for a minute or two to see what would happen, whereupon and after much exertion, the adult bird finally succeeded in her efforts. However, when I went across to examine whatever it was that she had been so keen to eject, it turned out to be this rather emaciated-looking and very dead chick.
Now, I knew for a fact that the remaining (and generally very vocal chicks) were considerably more developed than this one appeared to be and so I managed to take a quick shot of one of them (shown below) as it manoeuvred itself closer to the entrance hole....presumably to be first in line when dad or mum eventually returned with some wriggling juicy morsel or other. As you can see, its plumage alone suggests that it's at least several days older than the one that died, suggesting that it was most probably the rapidly increasing and unwholesome smell of the dead youngster that caused the parent bird to finally act as callously as she did. As for the discarded chick itself, I promptly removed it and buried it in another part of the garden.
I guess you could argue that life is unfairly harsh and seemingly without sentiment if you happen to be a bird, but the parent Great Tit may equally have been aware, at some level, that by leaving a dead chick to decompose in the nest-box indefinitely, it would almost certainly have exposed the remainder of the brood, not only to the increased possibility of disease, but to an entire host of potential predators and parasites who would probably be able to both smell it and track it down from a hundred yards away!
The Great Tit youngster mentioned above as it manoeuvres itself towards the nest-box entrance hole probably in order to be first in the queue for food. Note however, the difference in both size and development between it and its discarded dead sibling.
This is the male of the pair and the cause of a fair degree of mystery to me over the past few weeks....You see, Great Tits, like Dunnocks, tend to be aggressively territorial and when it became abundantly obvious that no fewer than two pairs of Great Tits were nesting simultaneously in two different nest-boxes positioned just a few yards away from each other, I became increasingly curious. It was several days however, before I finally worked out exactly what was happening....
It wasn't two entirely different pairs of birds at all, but two females sharing the same male!
However, the first pairing must have taken place at least two weeks before the second because the tree-based nest-box in which the first female took up residence was up and running with the sound of chicks emanating from within long before the second female had even had chance to lay her eggs in the bird-table nest-box.
The first family subsequently flew the nest two weeks ago to the day, giving the male Great Tit something of a headache as he eventually found himself struggling to cope with trying to feed at least four fledglings from the first family who simply refused to fend for themselves for almost a week and a brand new set of babies in the second family Hell-bent on demanding just about all his time and attention!
Anyway, the upshot of it is, the adulterous little rat-bag did manage to cope....somehow, but I can honestly say that with just a couple of days before his second family fledges, I've never seen such a knackered-looking bird. I even think he's developed a bit of a twitch over the last few days!
On a more serious note, I've never heard of male Great Tits behaving this way....Buzzards, yes....and some Pratincoles, but not Great Tits!
The female Great Tit enters the nest-box with food for her young
Three more shots of Robina, the excessively cheeky and unbelievably tame little Robin who was one of three surviving offspring raised this Spring by White-Eye and White-Wing in an open-fronted nest-box attached to a fence in the back garden.Robina seems to love nothing more than to shuffle herself down in the dusty soil of the back lawn, spread her wings and sunbathe for minutes at a time....Behaviour that might easily end in tears when it comes to the prowlings of the infamous cat from across the way! However, I've not yet seen her sunbathe when either Tess or myself aren't in the garden, so perhaps she's smarter than even I give her credit for. It's also behaviour reminiscent of the way that DT the Blackbird would "use" my wife's old dog, Sam, as a means of getting the bird-tables all to himself when Sam was in the garden. While on one famous occasion, he actually hopped onto Sam's back when he thought some danger or other lurked in the undergrowth and as the dopey old dog lay sleeping on the lawn!
One of the three youngsters who fledged successfully from a nest built behind the top shed by a new pair of Blackbirds to my garden this year. As I type this however, I strongly suspect that only two of the three still survive.
A first for me, at least as far as this garden is concerned, is the discovery of this embryonic Bombus lapidarius (I think) Bumblebee nest situated down a crack between the edging stones placed around our little wildlife pond. In fact, there must be a fair bit of a space down there because this must surely be the Queen so early in the season and she'll be looking for a place big enough to eventually house as many as 150 worker bees.
I've watched her for two days now as she comes and goes and I've noticed how she especially seems to favour the yellow flowers in the garden and in particular the big Ranunculous growing in a pot positioned to the side of the pond barely a metre from where she's shown in the photograph emerging from the nest-hole.
I've recorded lots of Bees either hibernating in the soil, in the compost in plant pots or in the various Bumblebee bamboo hibernating bundles dotted around the garden over the years, but this is the first time there's actually been a strong likelihood of a full-blown Bumblebee nest evolving there and I'm over the Moon about it!
Another first for me in this particular garden concerns Chaffinches....Although Chaffinches nest regularly just beyond the confines of my garden, they have never before actually nested within it. This year has been different however, as a single pair decided to build their nest and raise a family about eight feet off the ground in the same fir tree adjoining the patio at the back of the house as the Dunnocks whose nest is featured above.
They were totally successful too I might add, with all four of their buffish-brown with darker brown speckled eggs hatching and all of the youngsters fledging earlier this week. Their nest is shown in the picture above, but note how, like the Robins earlier in the Spring, they have made plentiful use of Tess's dog hair, some of which presumably remains on the patio after she's been brushed. In fact, the interior of the nest is completely lined with it, while individual hairs have been used to sew or bind the nest together instead of the more usual spider's webs.
Although comparatively small (about 50' x 30'), ours is a garden almost totally designed and developed over the past twenty years with wildlife in mind.
May Flower (21st May)
Nearly the end of May (my favourite month together with September) and the Crowtoes are still very much in bloom, enjoying all the sunshine we've been having of late. Every year I take my wife somewhere different to see them as they are amongst her most favourite of wild flowers, but since it rained the day I took her to see the ones in Bromsberrow Woods a couple of weeks ago and because it was equally overcast a few days later when she accompanied me on a long walk in the Forest of Dean, I thought it might be a nice surprise today if I took her to see the carpets of Bluebells still in flower in Dymock Woods. Thankfully, this time, the sun shone brightly for the duration.
Politicians at Home (No 10) (19th May)
Snow in May, a Pantomime Horse and a Controversial Idea for a TV Comedy (14th May)
I've lost count of the number of times I've been rained on, sleeted on, hailed on and even snowed on this week and all with spells of glorious sunshine in between! It's crazy weather we're having and it's about time this new Government did something about it!
Hey....and while I'm about it....I came up with the idea for a brief series of political cartoons earlier this week employing the concept of a pantomime horse to represent David Cameron and Nick Clegg, but then I learned the very next day that a proper cartoonist working for one of the big daily newspapers has had exactly the same idea....Buggrit! Oh well, I guess I'll just have to stick with my very first attempt at writing a TV script instead....
It's supposed to be a fifty minute pilot episode for a comedy series, half of which is based in Afghanistan and highlights the ups and downs and ins and outs of the soldiers of F Troop from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR? Like the SAS, but even more secretive and with brain cells attached), while the remainder of the show focusses on either the trooper's families back in Hereford or the terminally photophobic inhabitants of the MoD department responsible for their welfare and situated somewhere deep down in the damp, dank, dimly lit, half forgotten bowels of Whitehall. I guess you could say it's a kind of "Ultimate Force" meets "Dad's Army" meets "Shameless" meets "Yes Minister"....or "Ultimate Farce" as I prefer to think of it.
From a comedy perspective and as far as most of the trooper's family members back home are concerned or indeed, any of the MoD characters and politicians featured in the storylines, the humour would be very much of the dry, moderately sarcastic and deprecatingly observational variety....Pretty much along the lines of the little biographies I do on my websites regarding my beloved wildlife ranger colleagues. Unfortunately however, the soldiers of F Troop would tend to employ a much darker, gallows-type humour of the kind which, although vital as far as they themselves would be concerned when it came to helping them deal with all the cr*p they'd be forced to endure on a daily basis, would never be even remotely acceptable to the Great British Public, let alone to any PC sensitive, ratings-conscious TV executive!
Basically, it's an almost foregone conclusion that a comedy series like this, based on such currently sensitive issues as the trials and tribulations of British troops serving in Afghanistan, the constantly nagging fears and concerns of their families back home and, most especially, the obscenely unforgivable treatment afforded them by both the MoD in Whitehall and the politicians in Westminster, would doubtless incur the wrath of the Nation, but I also believe that the people who might actually find it funny (or at least be capable of understanding where it's really coming from), would be the real soldiers out there, the ones currently enduring or who have endured a tour of duty in Afghanistan....In fact, I'd be willing to bet that any old soldier who has fought in any conflict at any time and in any stinking rat hole around the world would probably understand. It's just the general public who would object....Sadly, about sixty million of them!
Oh well, I'll finish writing it anyway, if only because I want to speak out, in my own pathetic little way, on behalf of all our troops serving in Afghanistan and to highlight, as best I can, the deplorable manner in which they continue to be treated by politicians and bureaucrats alike....and then I'll see where it goes from there. After all, humour can be a vicious weapon sometimes. The trouble is, I'm just not sure I've got the necessary skill to wield it effectively.
Post Election Special (8th May)
Politicians at Home (No 9)
That's it then. It's just about over....All those weeks of bladder-squeezing tension, hernia-knotting excitement and heart-pounding drama....The promises....The rhetoric....The many questions asked....The many questions still completely unanswered.
Mmm....I guess an awful lot of people have finally got more or less what they wished for. In fact, in the ward where I live, the majority of voters have returned to Parliament one of the leading contenders in the expenses scandal (allegedly), but hey, let bygones be bygones I say, after all, everyone else seems to!
As for "change"....Well, I can almost guarantee that, if nothing else, we'll be seeing the return of fox-hunting, probably before you can say "tally-ho what"! You see, far too many important people (particularly around here) enjoy killing stuff way too much (it's in their semen) and they will always consider themselves far too superior to be told what they should, shouldn't, can or can't do, especially by those of a slightly more evolved nature. It goes way back to the Dark Ages, before the Norman invasion and makes a mockery of the very concept of "change".
Anyhoo, there has at least been one beacon set ablaze in all of this....Well done to Ms Lucas down in Brighton Pavilion ward....A landmark victory in a world still terminally dedicated to the same old same old....No matter how the slogan writers try to spin it!
Mind you, don't get me wrong. I'm totally proud to live in a democracy and always have been. In fact, I'd argue that few could believe in it more than me, if only because I'm one of the relative few who have actually fought for it and served alongside men and women who gave their lives trying to protect it. The trouble is that I despair sometimes because of....ah sod it!
* * *
Tickety-Boo
Oh....and while we're on the subject of politicians, check your cats and dogs very carefully because parasitic ticks are very thick on the ground at the moment. I've had to remove several from Tess over the past week or so despite the fact that she's been given a full application of anti flea and tick stuff recently (get the proper treatment from your vet and don't bother with the cr*p you buy at your local pet shop or the supermarket). Meanwhile, I discovered the one shown above attached to my leg just above my sock after a day of walking across farmland, so check yourself as well....and don't just pull them off with tweezers either. You'll simply leave the mouth-parts behind and they can easily cause a nasty infection. Instead, when you get the treatment, ask for one of those little plastic tick removers. Your vet is bound to have them....If only we could deal with irritating politicians as easily.
I wear gaiters all day long to help deter the wee little beasties, but they still manage to get at me sometimes and, because they'll inject you with quite a strong anaesthetic before they begin to feed, then you probably wont notice them. Note how this one is completely engorged with my blood (about 2 litres by the look of it) and how little bits of my flesh are still attached to its mouth-parts despite a fairly clean removal....Mmm, yummy!
Since I've Been Back (5th May)
Health Check Update....
Most importantly, since my return last Saturday from North Devon and a brief, unscheduled stop-off in Somerset, my wife has had yet another specialist health check at the cancer clinic in Cheltenham....and I'm delighted to report that all of her blood tests have returned completely normal. In fact, the specialist is so pleased with her on-going progress that he's decided he doesn't need to see her again until August. Meanwhile, she'll most definitely be carrying on with her twice daily spoonfuls of Manuka honey as well as her long walks in the countryside with Tess and me.
Threatened....
I've also been threatened (yet again) on two separate occasions since my return by a couple of goons of the particularly moronic Cotswold variety* who have gone out of their way to confront me in the middle of nowhere simply because I tend to be fairly vocal here on my websites concerning the subject of blood sports.
Mmm....What silly Billys you are gentlemen. Now, have you got someone to read this aloud to you? Yes? Then I'll begin....Do you honestly think that you're dealing with some kind of zit-faced, tree-hugging, animal rights obsessed university student-type? Well, if you do, then perhaps I should tell you that I and my terminally ugly ranger colleagues have now managed to acquire all your personal details, including names, addresses and telephone numbers (not to mention some very fetching digital photographs of your somewhat corpulent, shaven-headed selves), simply because you happen to be very stupid people and if anything whatsoever happens to Tess (as you have so earnestly promised it will), then I can assure you that all those details plus the photographs will appear right here in 18pt characters for the whole world to see. So, if you've got something against me, then at least have the b*lls to have a go at me directly and leave my dog out of it! I'll look forward to it. It'll be just like the old days, but please hurry because my new and much needed Post Traumatic Stress therapy sessions are due to begin next week and I don't really want any distractions.
* Please note that, although a fairly regular feature of my work amongst the postcard pretty villages and gentle rolling hills of the Cotswolds, I rarely encounter this kind of behaviour elsewhere in the South-West of England and never in Cornwall, Devon, Wales or Scotland.
On a funnier note....
Due to the fact that I often wear a bottle-green fleece jacket while out and about working in the woods and the hills, etc and because I frequently punctuate my days with a visit to the nearest garden centre cafe for a coffee and slice of cake, I am occasionally mistaken for a member of staff by seemingly less observant people who fail to notice that my fleece is covered in assorted wildlife ranger and SAR dog handler badges and patches!
It's not that I mind. In fact, it's quite amusing sometimes and besides, I'm very often able to point them in the right direction anyway and we have a laugh about it when they finally realise their mistake. However, not everyone does realise they've made a mistake and they can get a bit stroppy as the following episode that occurred at the Three Shire Garden Centre near Newent a couple of days ago illustrates....
I had just finished my cappuccino coffee in the cafe and was returning to my car via the plant department when I noticed a lady in her early thirties with a child about seven years old hanging on her arm approaching me at speed....
"Have you got marigolds? she demanded without so much as an excuse me or by your leave.
"No madam" I replied in my best Eric Morecambe voice, "I always walk like this".
The woman simply stared disbelievingly at me for a moment and then said, "You're a very rude man. I'm going report you to your superiors!" and scuttled off, presumably in search of the customer service counter.
The thing is, I don't like ignorant people who talk to shop assistants as though they're dirt just because their own self-esteem never managed to climb out of the putrefying slime that is their little world. My daughter still has a part-time job in a trendy High Street fashion shop at the weekends and has to put up constantly with rude, inconsiderate behaviour from a multitude of desperately insecure and inadequate customers (predominantly middle-aged women) who seem to think that good manners need only be used when it suits them and never when they're out shopping!
Anyway, I thought it best that I paid my own visit to the garden centre customer services department before I left, in order to explain to them that if they were suddenly assaulted by some overly irate, myopically-challenged woman demanding that one of their employees be instantly sacked, then there was nothing to worry about because it was actually me who had dared to use humour as a foil to the woman's ill-mannered demands on their marigolds! Sadly however, the girl I spoke to was only about sixteen and I think she thought I was some kind of middle-aged pervert rambling on about goodness knows what and so I eventually left the building expecting to be dragged to the ground by security guards at any moment! Is it me or did the world suddenly change beyond all recognition, possibly while I was spending ten minutes in the toilet one day?
Mel (1st May)
This is for Mel....Just eighteen years old and a close school friend of my daughter. Tragically, Mel died under the saddest of circumstances last week. A huge shock to everyone who knew her and a terrible waste of a vibrant young life.
Bright beyond words, funny and caring, Mel touched the hearts of all those fortunate enough to have counted themselves as her friend.
Over the years, she stayed at our house many times, mostly during my daughter's sleepover parties....She was the one who was always kind enough to laugh at my stupid jokes.
My heart goes out to Mel's family and especially to her parents.
British Military Fatalities, April 2010
7th April....Fusilier Jonathan Burgess (20) from Swansea. 3 Platoon, A Coy, 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh. Killed in a fire-fight with insurgents while on foot patrol. Nad e Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
4th April....Rifleman Mark Turner (21) from Gateshead. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed by a roadside bomb while on foot patrol. Kajaki, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
1st April....Guardsman Michael Sweeney (19) from Blyth in Northumberland. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards. Killed by a roadside bomb. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
General Election Draws Near (17th April)
Politicians at Home (No 8)
By the Way....
I wonder exactly how long it will be before the airline bosses decide that they actually know a whole lot more about volcanic ash clouds than the overly cautious volcanologists and begin finding ways to suggest that it's actually perfectly safe for flights to pass through UK air space once again? After all, nobody minds people being safe for a day or two, but not when it starts to hurt the pockets of the money junkies. Mind you, imagine the pages and pages of disclaimers that any prospective passengers desperate (or stupid) enough to believe them will be forced to sign before they're allowed anywhere near an aircraft....just in case!
Then and Now (12th April)
"Then", (Circa 1958)....and I'm the one nearest to the camera, while the other boy was my next door neighbour, a lad called Graham who was a year older than me. Incidentally, it was barely five years after this photograph was taken and my family and I had moved on to pastures new, that the local council decided (in their infinite wisdom) that the overriding problem with the prefabs was that everyone who lived in them actually loved living in them far too much....a deplorable state of affairs that resulted in the council deciding that they had to be torn down so they could be replaced with the awful, ghetto-type eye-sores that you can see in the picture below....Not to mention the degree of fraud that obviously "didn't" take place in connection with the allocation of building contracts, etc and all the shenanigans that "didn't" go on behind closed doors and which "didn't" result in a great many palms being greased at the expense of the poor sods whose lives "didn't" end up being totally dislocated!
Anyway, the fact that the flats turned out to be profoundly isolationist is an understatement to say the least, if only because just weeks before each tenant family was evicted from their beloved prefab, they were given the simple choice of either accepting the allocation of a tiny new box sandwiched between lots of other tiny new boxes or be thrown out onto the street!
Not surprisingly, those self same families soon lost all sense of living in any kind of a sharing and/or caring community and it's no exaggeration to say that the heart of the place had been literally torn out! It's ironic today though, that the few remaining prefabs still in existence throughout Gloucestershire as a whole which somehow managed to escape the bulldozers, have now been granted full listed status. In fact, they are recognised, quite deservedly, as being buildings of considerable historical importance and are at last protected by the full weight of the Law.
...."and Now" (fifty-two years later in 2010)....A recent shot taken from what was once our old garden. In fact, it's taken from almost exactly the same place that you can see me with little Malcolm and my devoted dog, "Slipper", in the picture below. We were sitting on the front lawn of the prefab we lived in for a while in the 1950s, but naturally, the people living in the building that now stands where our prefab used to be (ie, immediately to the left, but out of shot), must be delighted that the front garden is covered with so much paving, if only because of all the precious time they've managed to save by not having a "proper" garden to look after....Not to mention how much they'll be protected from the horrors of all the healthy exercise they'd otherwise be getting whilst mowing the lawn!
I wasn't the only child adopted into the family and Malcolm became very special to me during the year that he was with us. He eventually died from complications relating to the cystic fibrosis with which he was afflicted. As for Slipper, he was very special to me as well and we spent many long days together having adventures and exploring the surrounding countryside.
I'm probably about ten or eleven years-old in this pictures and once again living out near Chacely a few miles from Tewkesbury. The countryside was always my natural environment.
The three little Monkeys! The photo was taken by one of those professional photographer types that you used to get at fairs back in the old days. The fair in this case was the Tewkesbury Mop and, again, I must be about ten or eleven years old. I do actually remember this moment quite well because one of the Monkeys kicked up quite a fuss when the man tried to take him back from me. In fact it screamed and screamed and held on to one of the toggles on my duffel coat for all it was worth. I also remember that I seriously considered running off with it at the time and worried for days afterwards that the man must be badly mistreating it for it to behave like that.
Here, I'm pictured with my first camera....a Kodak "Brownie" given to me by my Uncle Sid. I could hardly afford new film however, let alone the cost of developing the pictures I took and so did extra jobs at home and for my Gran in order to pay for the film I did use.
Another shot of me, this time with my Mum and taken on Red Hill. Note the camera again. I think it's fair to say that cameras of one sort or another have been fairly central to my life since I was very young and not just in an amateur sense either. I've used them professionally too....as a graphic artist at Delta, on reconnaissance missions as a Royal Marine and constantly these days as a UK National Wildlife Ranger, but also now as an "Old School" type of so-called instructor for an altogether different bunch of people I've found myself involved with all of a sudden! Mmm....You'd think I'd have got the hang of it by now wouldn't you, but I guess I'll always lack the basic raw talent needed before I ever manage to take photographs that are really special.
I took this shot myself at Weston-super-Mare of my new Mum and Dad (they'd been my parents for about five years by this time) and I remember that the cafe structure was a bright yellow. It was one of our many day trips to the seaside organised by Warner's Coaches based in Tewkesbury. I think it was also the same trip as the one I recount in "Slices" on the co.uk site, the one involving the Donkeys and the police.....Note the pier on the right of the picture. It burnt down a couple of years ago and has since been rebuilt.
Weston also featured quite heavily in the lives of my children when they were younger....My Son played several District football matches against representative teams from leagues in Somerset there and my Daughter swam in countless competitions at Weston's fantastic new pool, including the County Championships back in the days before Gloucestershire eventually acquired its own county standard pool ( the GL1) at Gloucester.
Finally, I just thought I'd mention how important my Uncle Chris' garden was to him. He used to spend countless hours pottering about in it and it was much admired both far and wide for its wonderful display of flowers at the front of the house and the sheer volume and quality of the vegetables he grew at the rear. It was every inch a labour of love. Well, I happened to drive past his old house the other day for the first time since his widow, my Aunty Daisy, passed away in the early 1990s and the house was sold....and this is what his once beautiful garden looks like now!
GONE is the magnificent Laurel beneath which his beloved dogs Wet and Windy were buried! GONE is the surrounding waist-high hedge! GONE are the magnificent climbing Roses! GONE are the immaculately tended flower beds! GONE are the flowering window boxes! GONE are the countless rows of vegetables and the Damson and Apple trees once so prolific in their fruitful abundance at the rear of the property! GONE is the greenhouse crammed full to bursting with Tomatoes and Geraniums and the ever-germinating seedlings of infinite variety!
Instead, there is this despicable wasteland....A ghetto garden where almost nothing grows....A rubbish tip of human detritus where even a feeble attempt to feed the birds met with what must have been immediate and hopeless abandonment....Fifty years on, I could scarcely believe it was the same place and feel nothing but contempt for a world that, so often now, I fail to recognise!
Then and Now (9th April)
Head to head....During the time my wife was in hospital and I was spending as much time there as possible, my closest friend (that's him on the left), a former fire-fighter, managed to redecorate almost our entire house and, amazingly, actually finished the job just minutes before we returned from the hospital and walked through the door!
It was a year ago today that my wife was allowed home from hospital after having every cell of her bone marrow brutally zapped during some very intensive chemotherapy sessions. All of her blood then had to be replaced with that taken from her during the four day long stem-cell harvest procedure a few weeks previously. Agonising days and weeks followed while she remained in a hospital isolation room for the simple reason that she was, by then, completely without an immune system and desperately needed her own replacement blood to kick-start her body's ability to once again produce healthy, viable white blood cells.
Delighted to be home...certainly, but my wife still had to endure my jolly japing ways as I donned her newly acquired wig (or "Wiggy" as it eventually came to be known) and set about making a complete pr*t of myself. Interestingly, it would be just a few days later that we'd be able to sit back and enjoy watching "Wiggy"running about the place, fetching sticks and balls or chasing Tess in and out of the garden. I remember too how Tess once chased "Wiggy" under the bed and how they both refused to come out until tea-time when hunger finally got the better of them....but that's another story!
Amazingly, she responded to the awful treatment so well that she was actually allowed to return home almost two weeks ahead of schedule! Thankfully, since then, she has continued to go from strength to strength and, despite the added subsequent burden of being forced to undergo specialist surgery to repair and reinforce several collapsed and fragmented vertebrae in her back, she remains totally upbeat and positive about the whole thing.
The smile....always the common factor
Meanwhile, she continues with her twice-daily teaspoonfuls of Manuka honey (interestingly, she hasn't had so much as a cold for over a year now either) as well as partaking of one or more often quite demandingly long walks in the countryside each week with Tess and me.
Home for a Few Days (8th April)
My son and Daughter both enjoyed our hilltop family walk on this, the first really warm day of the year so far, though the going on the lower slopes was still quite muddy.
Our son is home from the City for a few days this week and we all went for a long walk across the hills today on what turned out to be the sunniest and warmest day of the year so far. A real sense of Spring was in the air too, with lots of Painted Lady, Red Admiral and Brimstone Butterflies on the wing, quite a few Bumble Bees at large, a good many Chiff-Chaffs and Willow Warblers on show while even a couple more early Swallows passed overhead across the lower slopes as they made their way steadily north.
Little and Large (5th April)
One of these vehicles is used almost every day in all kinds of weather conditions and across some frequently very rough terrain by a butt-ugly, six foot three inch, sixteen and a half stone ex-Royal Marine/latter day wildlife ranger and SAR dog handler while the other is used simply for the purposes of driving around town, dropping the kids off at school and doing the shopping at the local supermarket. Can you guess which is which?
Oddly, in this case, the big, posh 4x4 on the right (the one with the tail-light array almost as big as the rear window on the "toy" car next to it), was thoughtfully parked in a roofed zone especially designated for drivers with dogs aboard their vehicles who require as much shade as possible to help keep their animals cool. Yet the odd thing was, the big vehicle's frightfully important owners didn't actually have a dog on board.
Mind you, that didn't stop them from complaining quite bitterly to the apparently malicious fool who owned the Postman Pat-type car on the left, that their sticky, whinging, snot-besmeared eight year-old son was now completely unable to open the passenger door of their vehicle sufficiently wide enough for him to be able to climb back inside (although, I must admit that the six foot three inch, sixteen and a half stone ranger had, nevertheless, somehow managed to extricate himself from his own vehicle despite the lack of space).
"Why", the owners of the shiny new 4x4 enquired of the apparently selfish ranger, "have you insisted upon squeezing your grotty little car into such a ridiculously small gap?" Conveniently ignoring the fact that it was all the space that was left after they themselves had taken up one and a half parking bays with their self-aggrandising, inadequacy-compensating, environmentally aberrant monstrosity.
"Are you completely stupid?" they enquired. "Don't you realize that we now have to move our Discovery out into the open before our son can get in!" Mmm....Now, I know it's fairly well documented that the people who drive these things often tend to dwell at the precious, easily offended end of the emotional spectrum, but it wasn't even raining that day for pity's sake!
You'll be pleased to know however, that the horrible ranger concerned did at least manage to refrain from replying using the words that initially popped into his mind, though not so much because a child was present, but more due to the fact he didn't want to offend his dog who he could see had listened intently from the back seat of the Noddy car to all that had transpired.
Anniversary (1st April)
Who knows how many years it's been since that special day so very long ago? Anyway, today was our wedding anniversary thingy and we celebrated by going for a long walk in the wild and woody places of Herefordshire. It was cold of course and it rained just like it did on our wedding day, but it didn't matter then and it didn't matter today either. Besides, we treated ourselves to hot vegetable soup afterwards at the Three Shires Garden Centre cafe just a few miles up the road from where we'd walked and then bought some plants for the garden.
British Military Fatalities, March 2010
27th March....Rifleman Daniel Holkham (19) from Chatham in Kent. 3rd Battalion The Rifles part of 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed by a suicide car bomber while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
26th March....Lance-Corporal of Horse Jonathan Woodgate (27) from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Household Cavalry Regiment. Killed while on foot patrol by a grenade thrown by insurgents. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
22nd March....Serjeant Steven Campbell (30) from Pelton, County Durham. A Coy, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed in a roadside explosion. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th March....Private James Grigg (21) from Hartismere, Suffolk. 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment serving with the Royal Household Cavalry Battle Group. Killed in a roadside explosion together with L/Cpl Hardy. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th March....Lance-Corporal Scott Hardy (26) from Chelmsford, Essex. 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment serving with the Royal Household Cavalry Battle group. Killed in a roadside explosion together with Pte James Grigg. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th March....Captain Martin Driver (31) from Barnsley in Yorkshire. 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment serving with the Royal Household Cavalry Battle Group. Died at Selly Oak from wounds sustained in an explosion on 21st February, 2010. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th March....Corporal Stephen Thompson (31) from Bovey Tracy, Devon. 1st Battalion The Rifles, 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed by small-arms fire in a skirmish with insurgents. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th March....Lance-Corporal Tom Keogh (24) from Paddington, London. A Coy, 4th Battalion The Rifles, 3 Rifles Battle Group. Died from gunshot wounds sustained in a fire-fight. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
6th March....Rifleman Liam Maughan (18) from Doncaster. Specialist sharpshooter, 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed in over-watch while protecting his platoon. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
5th March....Rifleman Jonathon Allott (19) from Bournemouth. Front man, IED clearance, 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Died from injuries sustained in a roadside explosion. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
2nd March....Corporal Richard Green (23) from Reading in Berkshire. Reconnaissance Platoon, 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Shot while manning a vehicle checkpoint. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
1st March....Rifleman Carlo Apolis (28) from Exeter (originally from South Africa). A Coy, 4 Rifles, 3 Rifles battle Group. Killed by small arms fire. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Conversations with My Teenage Daughter (Number 73) (27th March)
My Daughter and I were watching TV in the living-room earlier this evening. I’d agreed (against my better judgement) to let her watch ‘Hollyoaks 90510 CSI Miami's Next Top Model' rather than one or more of the episodes listed on my new ‘Shawn the Sheep’ DVD. I was more than relieved therefore, when the programme finally came to an end, but suddenly heard alarm bells ring when she decided to ask me a question....
“So Dad, what are you planning to get Mum for your anniversary?”
“What anniversary would that be then?”
“Your wedding anniversary of course. You know full well it’s April 1st next Thursday, so you must have got something planned”
“Er....”
“You haven’t even thought about it yet have you?”
“Er....”
“In fact, I bet you’ve forgotten all about it!”
“Ah, now then....That’s where you’re wrong see because not even I could manage to forget my anniversary when it falls on April Fool’s Day....even if I did insist before the big event that we didn’t actually splice our main-braces until after mid-day”
“So what do you have in mind then?”
“The clock”
“Clock? What clock?”
“Our old grandmother clock. That one over there” I gestured towards the clock positioned under the stairs. “It hasn’t worked for years, but I’ve arranged to get it fixed properly this time because your Mum’s always liked it so much. In fact, it has a really nice quarter-hourly chime which I don’t think you’ve ever heard plus it strikes each hour on the hour just like a proper clock should”
“Wont all that chiming and striking get on your nerves after a few weeks?”
“Nah....It’ll get on my nerves after a couple of hours, but it’s for your Mum so I won’t complain”
“Dad, you complain about everything all the time! Anyway, how long have you and Mum actually been married?
“Hard to say without access to reliable carbon-dating techniques, but I’m pretty certain the wedding was at least a couple of days into the Mesolithic period....Plus it was on a Saturday....Oh and it rained!”
“How did you propose to her? Was it all romantic and stuff?”
“Now there’s a funny thing....After all, there she was, the love of my life, the single most important woman in the world to me. Beautiful she was and I adored everything about her”
“Apart from making me nauseous,what’s so funny about that?”
“Well, I lived near Tewkesbury at the time and I’d been going out with this vision of loveliness for almost three years. Then, regular as clockwork, she started coming over on the bus all the way from Cheltenham on Saturdays to spend the day with me in Tewkesbury and then I’d walk her back to the bus-stop, the one situated outside the King’s Head pub in Barton Street, to catch the last bus home in the evening”
“....but what about the proposal?”
“Hang on, I’m just getting to that bit....One hot, sticky, sultry Saturday evening at the sizzling height of a simmering summer heat-wave, I can only assume I must have had too much hot milk in my late-night cocoa or something because I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself afflicted by some kind of mental aberration as we waited there patiently at the bus-stop for the last bus to arrive. Then, without warning, I took her perfectly manicured hand in mine, dropped to one knee right there at the bus-stop, gazed up into those gorgeous green eyes and whispered ever so romantically, ‘please, will you marry me?’ just as some drunken, toothless, beer-soaked female fell out of the pub doorway and onto the pavement where she was promptly sick! Then, I could feel the drunken lush staring at me from the gutter where she’d rolled in a vomit-sodden heap and cringed inwardly as she spoke to me through the gaps in her black rotting teeth, ‘Don’t you worry yourthelf deary’ she said, ‘I’ll marry you hiffin that shilly cow sayth she don’t wantcha....Hic!’”
At this point in my story, I chose to pause for dramatic effect.
“So what happened then?” my Daughter asked impatiently, “Did she agree to marry you despite the drunken woman’s incredibly bad timing?”
“Well, she said no of course and so I decided to cut my losses and marry the drunken lush instead....and needless to say, we’ve been happily married ever since!”
Back to Front (18th March)
Coltsfoot
In the last week, I've seen my first Honey Bees of the year gathering pollen on sunlit Snowdrops in an isolated Herefordshire woodland, Brimstone and Red Admiral Butterflies fresh out of hibernation in a North Gloucestershire village garden, extraordinarily early Tansy (positively weird and requiring further investigation) on the North Wiltshire border, Willow Warblers almost everywhere, a Redstart (female of course) in a South Wiltshire hedgerow, clumps of Coltsfoot here and there (but actually appearing as normal and therefore significant in itself), Germander Speedwell everywhere (apparently unaffected by the weather) and (more surprisingly) very early Heath Speedwell on farmland adjacent to the River Avon in Warwickshire. I've noticed Garlic Mustard meanwhile, growing in Worcestershire and Sand Martins catching insects above Frampton Ponds in South Gloucestershire....and all before the Daffodils have finally begun to flower!
Snowdrops
The Daffs aren't the only reluctant ones out there however, just the most obvious. Poisonous Dog's Mercury, for example, is normally one of the very first of woodland plant species to emerge (often as early as January), enabling it to flower long before the leaves on the trees even think about appearing....a tactic that allows the early-flowering plant to take full advantage of the relatively thin Spring sunshine. Yet, it's only in the last week or so (and now with many buds on the trees beginning to burst open) that almost any Dog's Mercury has begun flowering at all.
These are just a small minority of the huge number of things that I've noticed and subsequently made note of during the past couple of months and obviously, it was the exceptionally harsh weather that affected the entire UK earlier this year that messed things around so much, but it's worth bearing in mind that, despite the extreme cold and prolonged bouts of heavy snow, all these things have still occurred relatively early and ahead of the Spring Equinox and that most are happening long before they normally would have done just thirty or forty years ago.
Liz (17th March)
Almost exactly the same age, my wife and Liz were both diagnosed with multiple myeloma cancer nineteen months ago. After the diagnosis, they were given a fairly dire prognosis. They received the same courses of treatment together, including a series of stem-cell transplants. They endured weeks of total barrier nursing, were prescribed the same drug regimes and suffered prolonged sessions of chemo-therapy. They remained in touch throughout their ordeal and only Monday (15th March) had intended to spend a morning together.
Unfortunately, Liz was taken seriously ill over the weekend and admitted to hospital. She died earlier today.
Not surprisingly, this has affected my wife profoundly, but her main concern is for Liz's husband, Geoff and daughter who are devastated.
I therefore want to dedicate these few words to the memory of Liz who was a good and supportive friend to my wife throughout the relatively short time that they knew each other.
Early Start to Nesting Activities in Garden (14th March)
White-Eye (sitting on fence to left of picture) brings yet another feather to help provide the finishing touches to the brand-new nest.
Blue Tits have already begun nesting activities in three of the nest-boxes in my garden this year, not to mention two pairs (this time) of typically squabbling Dunnock who are currently busy building nests in fir trees growing in opposite corners of same,. However, I was particularly pleased this time around, to see that the Robins, White-Eye and his new partner, White-Wing, have also begun nesting. In fact, they've taken up residence in the previously unused nest-box attached to the back garden fence situated behind the Honeysuckle. The box was completely empty just three days ago, so the amorous pair must have been very busy in the interim because the nest is all but completed already.
Another distant shot of White-Eye (left) plus the only picture I have (to date) of White-Wing (right). I should perhaps point out that she doesn't actually have any white on her wings, just a couple of white flank feathers on each side of her body that just happen to cover the alula and lesser coverts on her wings. Meanwhile, White-Eye's former mate, Ruby is still alive and well and continues to visit my bird-feeders every day, but she also appears to have taken up with a different male this year whose territory occupies the garden of a house further along the Close.
Close-up of the newly built nest.
Vicious Dogs....and Their Animals are Almost as Bad! (9th March)
Just three points concerning the proposed new Government legislation intended to create at least some degree of control over the ever-increasing problem of dangerous dog ownership in the UK....
Firstly, on the subject of all dog owners being required by law to insure their animals in the event that they should ever attack someone as well as having them micro-chipped and registered as puppies so that the owners of wayward animals can be traced and subsequently held accountable.....Mmm, all I can say is that, if you'd just bought a new car, but had never learned to drive, would the fact that you had registered and insured it also qualify you as a good driver?
Secondly, not one of the children savaged to death by dogs in the past decade would have been saved from their fate by any registration or micro-chipping scheme.
Thirdly, who is going to actually enforce such legislation when, during a time of severe economic cutbacks, dog wardens, for example, are amongst those considered by their Local Authority employers to be highest on the list of their most expendable employees. A fact which could only leave the police in charge....but the reality is that our boys and girls in blue are hardly likely to have either the time, the inclination or the manpower to make such a scheme even remotely effective.
So where does that leave the ordinary, law-abiding dog owner? Well, my guess is that they'll be the ones who cough up hundreds of pounds a year to insure against their cuddly, arthritic old Labrador running amok, Cujo-like, on our city streets while all the inadequate, insecure, sadistic morons out there who should never be allowed near a dog in the first place, let alone to own one, will conveniently "forget" to micro-chip and insure their so-called "status" dogs and completely get away with it. After all, they don't pay their National Insurance or their council tax or their TV licence or their car insurance or their car tax or any other tax as it is, so how the frickin' heck can anyone be naive enough to think they'd be willing to cough up for bl**dy dog insurance?
If you ask me, this is yet another example of a totally lame idea invented by a typically witless bunch of suits who get paid obscene amounts of money just to sit in meetings all day long shining seats with their big fat backsides!
So what's my solution? Well, Give me a magic-wand and twenty-four hours and I'd change this ailing, maggot-infested country beyond all recognition believe me, but failing that (and on behalf of the REAL victims of crime everywhere), I'd send all the cruel, morally sick, b*stards to prison indefinitely....and I mean PROPER prison with Cool-Hand Luke-type hard-labour chain-gangs, damp, rat-infested isolation cells and gruel for breakfast, gruel for lunch and double-gruel for those who try to resist....and none of that bull about Human Rights, outrageously expensive Social Readjustment/Rehabilitation Initiatives or Political Correctness....Hardly any of that stuff works in real terms anyway and I'm fed up with it and I bet I'm not the only one. These people ain't human, they're sub-human and they don't give a flying duck about anyone except themselves and you ain't never gonna make 'em worse because they're already light-years beyond redemption!
Basically, this criminal-sympathising country is spiralling out of control, the PC Brigade are at the controls and the politicians have got the only parachutes....Trust me, at this rate, twenty years from now "Escape from New York" will seem like a week at Pontins compared to the reality of living in the UK!
"Hard on crime"? "Hard on the causes of crime"? Do me a favour! Where's that bl**dy wand!?!
Please note, I wrote the above item knowing how extremely unlikely it is that all this guff about dog owners having to pay hundreds of pounds a year to insure their beloved pets isn't just a nasty little stealth tax ploy invented by scheming politicians and petty bureaucrats in some desperate effort to boost their own coffers by screwing, yet again, many of the most vulnerable amongst us in society. After all, I reckon it would probably cost somewhere in the region of £150 - £200 per dog per annum and I'm sure there isn't a greasy politician in the land who would mug an eighty-four year-old widowed pensioner like Mrs G over the road to the tune of £800 simply because she happens to have three Yorkshire Terriers and a Corgi. She's desperately poor, but she dotes on those dogs, they're all she's got and I know for a fact that it wont be any of them who go without regular meals!
As for Tess, she was micro-chipped as a puppy and we already pay insurance for her via the Kennel Club, which includes third-party cover should she ever choose to bite anyone. She's also insured separately by her SAR sponsors for claims up to £2,000,000 so where does that leave us in all of this?
Then and Now (3rd March)
I found this old black and white photograph in a parish magazine amongst a pile of things I've been trying to sort out lately. It was submitted to the magazine by my Uncle Sid way back in 1958 to help illustrate an article about the Severn Valley, but the interesting thing about it from my perspective is that I was the one who took it. My uncle often took me for afternoon drives out in his car and we visited places that I would never have otherwise seen. I vaguely remember our drive to the top of Birdlip Hill from where I took this particular photograph using his beloved Kodak camera and then I think we drove on to Cirencester, though I can't remember why he particularly chose to go there. Anyway, I decided the other day to walk the few miles from home over to more or less the same spot from which I took the original photo in order to take a few more....and then compare them.
1958....from Birdlip Hill across the Severn Valley. The line of hills barely visible on the horizon in the top right-hand corner of the picture are the Malverns. Tinker's and Chosen Hills appear as one a few miles distant. Note the complete lack of urban sprawl in a pristine landscape. 2010....Almost the same shot as the original, but a closer view of the now more densely wooded southern slopes and ancient man-shaped ramparts of Crickley Hill. Meanwhile, the fields on Chosen and Tinkers Hills appear to have retained most of their basic shapes.
2010....Typical for the modern age, Brockworth (middle distance left) has become little more than a sprawl and now merges completely with Gloucester situated the other side the M5 Motorway which runs from one side of the picture to the other and is outlined here by the straight line of greenery visible in front of Chosen Hill. Many however, would probably consider the most significant change to the landscape from this vantage point to be the horrific scar that is the recently completed homage to man's seemingly indispensable passion for the motor car, the A417 dual-carriageway, as it wends its grotesque way towards the M5 and the City of Gloucester beyond.
Letting the Wildlife Come to You (1st March)
It's all very well to go traipsing miles across the countryside looking for all kinds of wildlife, but sometimes the most pleasing and rewarding of things will come to those who only sit and wait.
This is something that I've been trying to impress upon my young "apprentice" from the very first day she came out into the field with me....and today, her enforced patience paid off.
Maddy has a particular fondness for Deer of all kinds and so I took her to see a small herd of semi-wild Red Deer. However, they are generally nervous, uncooperative animals at the best of times as well as rarely being where you expect them to be. I explained that we could either spend a great deal of time searching for them (even with Tess's help) or we could take a chance and wait for them to come to us. In fact, she chose the former option, but I insisted that we find a hopefully suitable location and sit very quietly for an hour or so to see what shows up.
Fortunately (and more by luck than judgement on my part), we only had to wait quietly for about twenty minutes for Tess to suddenly prick up her ears just moments before a fine-looking Red Deer stag strolled cautiously out into the clearing ahead of us. Then, after carefully smelling the air and listening intently for a couple of minutes, he moved forward followed by no less than ten hinds and another, much younger male.
They chose to remain in the clearing and graze on the already close-cropped grass for a few minutes before finally moving on....possibly prompted by the sound of Maddy's camera shutter. She was absolutely delighted however and kept telling me over and over that she'd never been so close to Red Deer before. I reminded her that these particular animals were only semi-wild and not really like those you'll sometimes glimpse from afar on the rugged mountainsides of the Scottish Highlands, but her enthusiasm remained undaunted and I dropped her off at school later in the day one very happy little bunny.
British Military Fatalities, February 2010 (28th February)
26th February....Sergeant Paul Fox (34) from St Ives in Cornwall. 28 Engineer Regiment attached to the Brigade Reconnaissance Force. Killed in an explosion near a checkpoint while on foot patrol. Nad Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
25th February....Rifleman Martin Kinggett (19) from Dagenham in London. A Coy, 4 Rifles, 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed while on routine foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
24th February....Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate (20) from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. 2nd Squadron, Kandahar Airfield Defence Force. Killed while on a routine vehicle patrol. Kandahar, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
18th February....Lance Sergeant David Walker (36) from Glasgow. 1st Battalion The Scots Guards. Shot during a fire-fight with rebel forces. Nad Ali Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
18th February....Lt Douglas Dalzell (27) from Hamstead Marshall, Berkshire. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards. Killed during an operation to clear insurgents. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th February....Sapper Guy Mellors (20) from Coventry, West Midlands. 36 Engineer Regiment. Killed in an explosion during an operation to clear an area of improvised explosive devices. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
14th February....Kingsman Sean Dawson ( 19) from Stalybridge, Greater Manchester. 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. A possible blue-on-blue incident is currently being investigated by the MOD. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
14th February....Rifleman Mark Marshall (29) from Exeter in Devon. 6th Battalion The Rifles, 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
13th February....Lance Sergeant Dave Greenhalgh (25) from Ilkeston, Derbyshire. 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards. Killed while on a routine vehicle patrol. Nad Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
11th February....Lance Corporal Darren Hicks (29) from Mousehole in Cornwall. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards. Killed while on routine patrol. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
8th February....WO2 David Markland (32) from Euxton, Lancashire. 36 Engineer Regiment. Killed in an explosion during an operation to clear a route of improvised explosive devices. Nad Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th February....Private Sean McDonald (26) from Edinburgh. 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, Royal Scots Borderers. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th February....Corporal John Moore (22) from Bellshill, Lanarkshire. 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, Royal Scots Borderers. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
1st February....Corporal Liam Riley (21) from Killamarsh, Derbyshire. 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Malgir, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
1st February....Lance Corporal Graham Shaw (27) from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Malgir, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Knightley Night Out (28th February)
My Daughter spent her hard-earned cash recently on a couple of surprise tickets for her Mum and me to see the totally excellent Steve Knightley perform live at Gloucester's Guildhall on the last night of his current tour. She knows how much we both like really good Folk/Roots music and really good folk musicians don't come any better than this guy.
Double folk award-winning Knightley, one half of the outstanding "Show of Hands" (the other being the obscenely talented Phil Beer), is one of those rare individuals who, for years, has managed to produce totally outstanding songs both musically and lyrically. However, because he also happens to be cursed with a profound degree of social conscience, his lyrics it seems, are forever doomed to be incurably infected with meaning and substance.
Sadly, this is most definitely not a good thing in today's world of pop-plastic, drivel-driven media culture....at least, not if you're a remotely serious wordsmith like Steve who openly admits how he continues in his efforts to gain wider public recognition via the likes of BBC's Radio 2.
For example, Knightley's superbly crafted "Country Life" (the closest thing I have to a personal anthem) or his uncomfortably venomous (to corporate bankers) "Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed", were both recently rejected by Radio 2's Lyrics Committee for containing (and I quote....) "too many issues for the average daytime Radio 2 audience to deal with and not altogether appropriate to air during the period leading up to a general election". Mmm....I guess I'd better not say anything more about it. Besides, I think I've already mentioned the BBC's rejection/banning of "Country Life" elsewhere!
Anyway, as expected, Mr Knightley was his usual musically excellent (and always dryly humorous) self, but I was also very impressed by the extremely young, equally Devonish and disturbingly talented Jenna (Witts). Singer/songwriter Jenna has been touring with Steve Knightley for some time and has gradually gained a justifiably sizeable following. She also has that all-important "sense of humour" factor coupled with a hefty dose of amicable approachability to which almost any audience will instantly relate....She even had sufficient sympathy to laugh when we had the following conversation....
I'd just bought one of her CDs during the half-time intermission thingy and she offered to sign it for me....
"What would you like me to write?"she asked.
"Er....To Don" I replied, "Thank-you for the best night of my life, love Jenna".
She glanced up at me and, realising that I was only joking, laughed and said "I can't fit it all in!"
"Oh well, just put "To Don" which she did.
I bought one of Steve Knightley's CDs as well....and, strangely, he wouldn't put "To Don, Thank-you for the best night of my life" either!
Our Toughest Test Yet (27th February)
Teaching Tess, who is still a very young and headstrong dog, the very important skill of remaining hidden, alert and, above all, patient for up to half an hour at a time has been one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do with any animal. Here, she continued to lie obediently behind cover as Maddy and I spent more than fifteen minutes observing a group of seven potentially ultra-sensitive Smew plus a number of Goosander on a lake in the heart of the Forest of Dean while a straggly flock of inquisitive Redpoll kept wary eyes on us from the trees above our heads. Teaching the equally young and headstrong Maddy meanwhile, the art and craft of observing wildlife without ever disturbing it unnecessarily is a very important part of what I'm trying to do with her, as well as simultaneously trying to introduce her to and familiarise her with as many new species of birds, mammals, plants, etc as possible. I'm also very insistent that she learns the importance of old-fashioned-style note-taking and sketching techniques (complete with annotations) and that she's not just taking the lazy option of simply photographing everything she sees. I took the above, rather poor photograph from about seventy-five metres with my little pointy-shooty pocket camera that I always have with me. However, I was loathe to risk disturbing any of the birds by attempting to get us any closer and everything was calm right across the lake until two twitcher types suddenly burst out of the surrounding forest. As they raised their binoculars, several nearby Canada Geese called out in alarm and then all Hell broke loose, resulting in every one of the Smew and all the Goosander panicking and fleeing to the far side of the lake. The birders meanwhile, apparently oblivious (or more likely indifferent) to the upset they'd caused, but obviously pleased with their sightings nonetheless, disappeared back into the forest after no more than a couple of minutes. They hadn't even noticed Maddy, Tess and me, let alone the Redpolls who, like the wildfowl, had chosen to vacate the immediate vicinity as soon as the men had appeared. Anyway, Maddy and I stayed for another ten minutes after the twitchers had gone, but the birds on the lake and the Smew in particular were still in a considerable state of agitation by the time we finally decided to leave. Twitchers? Self-serving d*ckheads if you ask me, but at least these two individuals served to provide Maddy with a useful insight into just how stupid and/or uncaring certain so-called wildlife enthusiasts can be!
Tess and I will soon be required by our "sponsors" to undergo our toughest SAR assessment to date and I'm desperately worried that I'm going to let her down. I know for a fact that she'll be fine throughout the forty-eight hour continuous exercise and will approach the whole thing as though it's one big game, but we'll be working deep within the heart of the darkest of dark Celtic forests and be up against three successive teams of four highly trained individuals (mostly male, but a few female as well) who will not only have an hour's start on us, but will all be much younger and fitter than me and trying very, very hard NOT to be "found" at all! In fact, the longer they are able to remain undetected and the more of their own set tasks they are able to complete, then the greater the number of Brownie points they will acquire from their beloved instructors.
In fact, technically, it's not really a Search and "Rescue" exercise at all, but more of a Search and "Locate" one, wherein our own task will be to track, locate and then photograph (hopefully unseen) all twelve of the "targets" from a point as near to their positions as possible. Then, if Tess and I actually manage to do that successfully, the exercise will be deemed terminated and we can all return to the vehicles for hot tea, soup and sandwiches.
In a way, it will be a kind of "old codger" methods versus the new ways of the Sat-Nav/GPS generation and, in view of the fact that I shall undoubtedly be at a considerable disadvantage as far as age and general levels of fitness are concerned, I shall simply have to be infinitely more cunning and make full use of every dirty cheating trick in the book....plus a few that aren't! Then, if the Pagan Green Man himself will only be kind enough to lend us a helping hand by turning the conditions into an absolute quagmire of mud, flood and general climatic misery, it will be like any other working day for Tess and me and we might even have a slim chance of success. After all, we do this kind of cat and mouse stuff on a daily basis, but with ultra-timid wildlife (the main reason for us being selected to do this kind of thing in the first place over and above....and I quote the guy in charge...."your average clod-hopping, overly focused on one thing hunter types assisted by dogs of far too unsuitable a mindset", so I guess anything could happen.
My main advantage of course, will lie in the fact that I'll have a very enthusiastic Tess on my side and, even though our "targets" will be entirely mobile and may well be able to slip by me without too much difficulty, they wont be able to get past her. It should, therefore, prove to be an interesting forty-eight hours....Oh, and Tess will even get her very own special little camo-patterned dog coat/harness thingy and be encouraged to get as blissfully filthy dirty muddy for the duration as possible!
Times Change....Not! (18th February)
Something happened today that prompted me to dust off my old 1982 diary. Within its obsessively neurotic hand-written pages, I eventually found the story I was looking for....
19th December 1982
The train was full to bursting. Mostly roughnecks, refinery workers, riggers and assorted gas company employees all heading back south for a few days R&R with their families over Christmas. Kelly and I, both still in uniform, had managed to board just as the guard had blown his whistle and the engine had begun to take the strain and pull away from the platform.
We glanced around the carriage, searching hopefully for a couple of spare seats, but there were none.
“No room at the inn and there's you, all pathetic-looking, with your banged-up knee. You’d think someone would offer you their seat”. Kelly spoke just loudly enough for those sitting around us to hear, but they only responded by concentrating even more on reading their magazines or by staring out of the windows as if completely deaf.
My knee, in fact, was still heavily strapped and firmly encased in a calliper-like arrangement of metal struts and supports not dissimilar in design (and weight) to the mighty Forth Bridge plus, I also continued to depend fairly heavily upon the crutch given to me by the physiotherapist when I’d finally been discharged from hospital almost two months previously. “Well, I’m certainly not going to play the sympathy card just on the off-chance I might get to sit down. Besides, someone’s bound to get off long before we change trains in Edinburgh, so let’s just move on through to the dining car. We might be luckier there”
I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “We’re pretty full sir, but I might be able to get you a seat in first-class. Follow me” The guard had spotted our (or rather my) predicament and decided to intervene. “My nephew’s a Marine. You might know him....Matthew, Matthew Curtis....He’s in Four-Two”. He paused and turned to face us. “Big lad, sandy-coloured hair. Nick-named ‘Tank’ by his troop by all accounts. They’re all in Northern Ireland at the moment. He’s a good lad, but his mother worries about him all the time....So does his dad, though he never lets on. D’you know him?” We continued making our way towards the first-class carriage.
“Curtis?” I couldn’t place the name with the description “How long’s he been in the Corps?”
“Passed out in the summer. Is that what you call it? So missed the big show, thank goodness! What happened to your knee?”
“Wrong place, wrong time and a sad case of very bad judgement on my part!” We arrived in first-class at last where fewer than a dozen seats were occupied out of at least forty.
“Sit anywhere you like lads and there’s coffee and a snack-bar if you want them” He turned as if to go, but a rather portly business-type English chap in a pin-stripe suit suddenly grabbed him by the arm “I trust that you don’t intend for these two....soldiers to remain in first-class. They are quite obviously NOT entitled to be here!”
“Marines!” said Kelly, bristling.
“What?”
“Marines” repeated Kelly ominously “Not soldiers!”
The man decided to ignore him “I have paid to travel first-class while these two....soldiers, I assume, have not. I demand therefore, that they be removed from this carriage back to where they came!”
“FROM WHENCE they came” I interjected helpfully.
“What?”
“You should have said ‘back from whence’, not ‘back to where’....It’s an English language thing”
The man simply glared at me for a moment “Well?” he returned his attention to the guard “Are you going to remove them or not?”
“Are you going to remove them or ARE you not?” I couldn’t resist it.
“Now look here....!”
“I’ll pay the difference in the fare". I’d hardly noticed the elderly, kilt-wearing gentleman sitting a few seats away with his back to us. “I said I’ll pay the difference!” he repeated, but more forcefully this time while half turning in his seat to address the guard. He spoke with the softer, Scottish lilt common to those born and raised in and around Edinburgh.
“....and what, may I ask, has it got to do with you” The portly Englishman rounded on the elderly Scot.
“Weell, I’d say that ye’re a fat English pig who’s tryin’ to tell a couple of Comacchio boys what they can an’ cannae doo in MY country an’ if I took it upon me sen to stab ye thru the heart wi’ this wee knife fer bein’ an obscenity to the Lord God Almighty Himseelf, then I dunnae think any one would mind i’ the least!
“I’d like to see that!” said Kelly with mounting enthusiasm while conspicuously admiring the sizeable dirk that the old man had apparently pulled from his sock.
The portly guy, meanwhile, had blanched noticeably. He glared at the guard, “Are you going to let him speak to me like that? My God man, can't you see? He's got a knife!”
“I don’t see a knife” said the guard, obviously thinking on his feet.
“Nor me, but I think he means to use it anyway” said Kelly glancing from the apparently invisible knife to the increasingly pale Englishman then back to the knife again.
“Now mister, why doon’t ye just sit back doon and then we can all enjoy our journey on the choo-choo train" Then, to us, “Join me if ye like lads. It looks as though ye might have a story or two to tell an oold man to help pass the time”
At that point, the portly Englishman wisely returned to his seat and said not another word to any one thereafter, while Kelly and I suddenly found ourselves enjoying the first-class company of an ageing Black-Watch veteran (as it turned out.....tough b*stards too who never bluff....or ever need to) and typically recalcitrant, Anglophobe Scot who simply wasn’t prepared to see two Arbroath-based Comacchio Company-attached Reconnaissance Royal Marines (honorary Scots thereby) treated with anything but the utmost respect....even if they did both happen to be English-born, Navy sons of bitches!
As for what happened earlier today....
My mucky little car, but not looking too bad at the moment (no, really) because I had to clean it inside and out last week ready for a full service and MOT (which it passed without a hitch I might add, at least once I'd changed the elastic band). However, there was so much mud from my boots in the footwell on the driver's side that nearly a dozen seedlings of various kinds had managed to germinate and were sprouting through the soil. Basically, it was an allotment on wheels! The red thing on the back seat by the way, is one of those spill-proof water bowls for dogs and NOT a porta-potty as Nobby keeps suggesting rather unkindly). Unfortunately though, it's not designed to be proof against Tess putting her foot in it as I drive along and sudden floods of water are commonplace if not somewhat inevitable!
I was originally going to restrict this story to being an entry in my written diary and not mention it on my website at all, but Maddy has accompanied me during my daily ranger routines no less than six times in the last month already and I always drop her off safely at the gates of her very, posh and obscenely expensive school at the end of the day. However, as I’ve mentioned before, she’s a boarder there and on two occasions I’ve also been required to pick her up from school first thing in the morning. This has involved parking somewhere on the school grounds until she eventually appears, but it also means that I arrive there in my very grubby, semi-vandalised and rather elderly little Japanese/Korean 900cc Perodua Kenari car at exactly the same time as all the non-boarding pupils are brought to school (from usually no more than a mile or two across town) by their frightfully important parents in their enormous, brand-spanking new Chelsea tractors.
Now, I don’t mind that, if only because I’m secure in the knowledge that I’ve spent half my time in recent weeks using my grubby little car to rescue such people when they’ve managed to get themselves stranded in their mighty 4x4s in the snow! What was it the civilian guy taught us about the finer points of driving two and a half ton armoured Land Rovers on the mean streets of Belfast all those years ago....Something to do with it not being about WHAT you drive, but more about HOW you drive what you drive?
Anyway, someone must have complained after the first time I picked Maddy up in the morning because one of the school’s admin staff walked across to where I was parked today and handed me a note from the vice-someone or other. It read as follows....
Dear Mr W,
While enormously grateful for the time you are currently prepared to give to one of our senior pupils, namely Madeleine *******, by way of work experience, could I please ask you to refrain in future from driving your vehicle into the school’s pupil drop-off and collection zone. Concern has been raised by certain parents as to the genuine nature of your presence on school grounds and therefore could you please avail yourself of the public parking facilities to be found in nearby ******* Street. You may then either collect and/or return Madeleine at the main school gate forthwith.
I trust that you will see the necessity for this arrangement and comply accordingly.
Again, I thank-you for the time and effort you are so obviously prepared to devote to Madeleine. It is much appreciated.
Yours in confidence,
Ms ******* (Vice-Something or other).
Ok, “so what?” you might say. Well, I just thought I’d put the two things side by in order to at least demonstrate just how much the world hasn’t even begun to change in more than twenty-eight years! I would also like to add that, despite the obvious snobbishness of those with whom she must surely come into contact on a regular basis at school, Maddy remains a genuinely bright, hard-working and unprepossessing soul who I am more than happy to mentor for as long as she finds it useful, no matter what the parents of other pupils might think of either myself or my little car.
Whatever the trials and tribulations of our day and whatever people choose to think of me, I'm never more at peace than during the small hours of the night with Tess fast asleep on the sofa beside me as I submerge myself in yet another good book....In this case, Phyllis Kelway Collins' delightful "The Otter Book" written in 1945 and taken from my own very large collection of natural history books, most of which I inherited from my Uncle Chris. In fact, some of them are very old, dating back as far as the middle of the 19th Century, but I love the words and expressions used in them while many are illustrated with the most beautiful of diagrams, line drawings and water-colour paintings often done by the authors themselves.
Super Cynic....Who? Moi? (14th February)
I know full-well that I'm probably alone in thinking this, but if you're a big-shot military commander and your first concern is for the troops under your command and you know exactly what has to be done in order to get the best possible results with the minimum of either military or civilian casualties, but then the self-serving armchair generals at Westminster keep sticking their big fat oars in, insisting that you MUST do things their way, if only because it's an election year as well as a "new age" of warfare that needs to be fought as much in the media and on the interweb as on the battlefields of Helmand, then I can't help but suspect that the entire situation has deteriorated into little more than one giant spin fiasco!
Imagine if Thatcher had tried to fight the Falklands War that way....We'd still be fighting it today with casualties on both sides running into the thousands!
How many British and American troops are the spin doctors actually prepared to sacrifice simply because we don't have leaders with either the b*lls or the backbone to let the most qualified people do the job the way it should be done? I've said it before, if it was up to me, we'd be pulling out of Afghanistan tomorrow, terrorist threat or no terrorist threat and pouring billions into doing something about the 30,000 speed and drink-driving-related deaths we've had on our roads in the last ten years alone!
The thing is though, we ARE in Afghanistan and for the forseeable future, so let the people who are best qualified to fight the war the way it needs to be fought do the job they've been trained to do and without all the ridculous interference from people more interested in protecting their own backsides than providing adequate resources for the men and women who ultimately pay the biggest price of all....Oh, and definitely keep the press well and truly out of it as well!
I Know Who'd Get My Vote! (11th February)
My definition of a typical hypocritical Parliamentary Politician....
"A publicly elected greed-driven money-junkie who is quite happy to cheat, defraud and exploit the British taxpayer for as long as he or she is able to get away with it, only to cry 'foul' when ultimately caught in the act and who then feels wholly justified in doing whatever pitiable thing he or she deems necessary in order to extricate themselves from the sh*te while conveniently managing to ignore the fact that he or she actually is, in essence, the sh*te itself.
Furthermore, even though said politician may eventually believe that he or she has actually been successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of the afore-mentioned British taxpayer and believes that they have, after a suitable period of time, managed to detach themselves from the main body of sh*te (to such an extent that he or she once again feels justified in casting hypocritical accusations of woeful wrong-doing upon his or her opposition party colleagues), in so doing, he or she must somehow have also managed to completely ignore the fact that sh*te is still sh*te no matter how far from the sh*te-hole it manages to crawl!"
Obviously tired, but still up for the job, Treo takes time out from a gruelling patrol to rest with handler, Sgt Dave Heyhoe. I should point out that, unlike the other 99.99% of photographs on my websites, this particular image is not mine, but rather one from the archives of the Press Association....Nor do I have permission to use it. I have tried to get permission and continue to do so, but have so far been unable to get in touch with the right department in order to ask. Meanwhile, if either the Press Association, the actual photographer or Sgt Heyhoe demands the removal of this picture from my site, then I shall delete it without delay.
....but now for someone who, as far as I'm concerned, would be infinitely more worthy to govern this country and eminently more capable of doing so I should imagine....Well, they'd get my vote anyway....
Treo, an eight-year-old black Labrador, together with his handler, Sergeant Dave Heyhoe, has literally managed to save the lives of countless civilians and military personnel during his year-long tour in Afghanistan by successfully locating a string of hidden roadside explosive devices.
The heroic search dog twice saved both soldiers and civilians from major catastrophe while out on patrol in Helmand Province in the last month alone by sniffing out explosives which had been wired together and primed in daisy-chain patterns prior to being covered by more than half a metre of soil alongside public footpaths.
Princess Alexandra will be awarding Treo with the Dickin Medal, the animal world equivalent of the Victoria Cross, at a ceremony at the Imperial War Museum on the 24th February in recognition of both his immense courage under fire and his dedication to his work.
At this point, I'd also like to remember another explosives search dog called Sasha who was killed while on duty in Afghanistan in July of 2008. She died alongside her handler, L/Cpl Kenneth Michael Rowe who desperately tried to place his own body in the line of fire in his efforts to protect her. Explosives search dogs and their handlers remain prime targets in Afghanistan for obvious reasons and for those of you out there who might question the validity of awarding a medal to a dog, I can assure you as a handler of a working dog myself, they know exactly when they are in danger because they are such instinctive and emotionally sensitive animals, yet they are also incredibly loyal, unbelievably determined and intelligent creatures and totally trusting in their handlers. They may not understand the politics of the situations they find themselves in, but they are completely aware of the dangers I can assure you!
Perhaps the most telling thing of all for me however, as I read through some of the more prominent news items of the day first thing this morning, was the utter contempt I found myself feeling (yet again) for our so-called leaders when I learned that the official investigation into MP's fraudulent expenses claims will cost the taxpayer at least six times more than the total amount the fraudsters are prepared to pay back (do you think they might consider financing it themselves?) compared with the immense pride I felt regarding the day to day actions of a bl**dy search dog, but there you are....I guess it just about sums it up for me and now I can't help feeling that the run-up to the general election will amount to little more than how best to find the least offensive turd to vote for hidden deep inside the biggest pile of sh*te imaginable!
It's only going to get a whole lot worse isn't it and I'm bound to get very angry....and probably end up in trouble all over again! Anyway, if Treo would like to run for Parliament in my constituency, then he's definitely got my vote because I know for a fact he could be trusted and would certainly have the b*lls to do whatever needs to be done!
A Very Odd Thing (8th February)
Tess takes in the scent of any possible former occupant of this undamaged and perfectly serviceable toddler's pushchair apparently dumped at the edge of a wood miles from anywhere.
While driving along one of the more remote country lanes high in the Cotswolds today, I noticed what appeared to be a discarded pushchair by the side of a wood. Two things struck me as odd about it however so I pulled over to take a closer look.
Now, it's not unusual for the more pitiful and thoughtless of simpletons amongst us to dump their rubbish in the countryside wherever and whenever they feel like it (that is, when they're not otherwise occupied in the new national pastime of parking their 4x4s in disabled parking spaces), but this particular pushchair appeared to be almost new and completely undamaged plus, whoever had left it there had apparently taken the time and trouble to unfold it as though preparing to use it rather than just leaving it folded and dumping it far less conspicuously in the undergrowth.
It was of a similar, lightweight type I might add, to the one that my wife and I had used for our own kids once upon a time ago and a closer look proved that there was absolutely nothing wrong with this one whatsoever. It was clean-looking, quite new and fully functional, so why would anyone go to the trouble of driving to such an out of the way location to discard a perfectly good pushchair?
Strange.
The thing is, you hear all too often these days of people involving themselves in all kinds of terrible or foolhardy acts of desperation with regard to themselves and/or their kids. On the other hand, I figured it could easily be a simple case of a mum or a dad deciding to take their toddler for a walk in the nearby woods, but in doing so had managed to get themselves into some kind of difficulty. Anyway, I thought it was worth checking out a little more thoroughly, but with Tess's help.
Tess led with a thorough search of the large adjacent woodland which, although privately owned and "enthusiastically" guarded, was where she felt it was necessary to go....and so we did.
I checked first, but there were no reports of any missing persons in the area, yet the pushchair appeared fairly dry, especially considering how cold and damp a morning it was and how much it had rained and even snowed during the night. It all felt very wrong somehow.
At this point, you probably expect me to go to describe how we eventually discovered a semi-hypothermic mother with a broken leg lying in a ditch somewhere and a small child clinging desperately to her side, but I'm delighted to say we found nothing of the sort. In fact, we found absolutely nothing at all! We did both benefit however (at least from a training perspective) by conducting a very thorough one mile radial search of the entire area during the following two hours, focussing not just on the wood itself, but also on the surrounding arable farmland, including a couple of miles of hedgerow and assorted ditches plus various other wooded areas. Basically, it turned out to be good practise for both Tess and me with Tess maintaining her concentration throughout.
Later, we extended our search pattern to include nearby fields and hedgerows, but found nothing untoward apart from a couple of rabbit snares which I duly cut into small pieces (I don't like snares, they are cruel and the use of them implies a considerable Bear Gryls-like lack of skill and finesse on the hunter's part. Besides, you are just as likely to snare a dog or a local cat as you are a rabbit).
As for the pushchair....Who knows? It still didn't feel right and my instincts nagged me to drive back that way again later in the day to check out another area slightly further away, but again, we found nothing. Maybe if something did happen in connection with the pushchair, it happened somewhere else entirely or, more likely, someone with a lot more money than sense simply decided to throw away a perfectly good piece of equipment and couldn't even be bothered to give it to someone else who'd genuinely appreciate it.
Finally, even as I type this in the early hours of the following day, I already know that I'll be taking Tess back up there again tomorrow, if only because I'm more like a dog with a bone than she is when it comes to letting go of something that might be even remotely important!
MPs Charged (5th February)
Politicians at Home (No 7)
Delighted and Very Proud (2nd February)
I've not had a lot of time for adding to this on-line diary over the past week, but by far the most important thing that I will mention now is that my wife had a hospital appointment today to get the results of her most recent blood tests....and everything is exactly as it should be!
The doctors continue to be very pleased with her progress, so pleased in fact, that she doesn't need to have another appointment until May which, in itself, is very good news.
It's almost a year since she had the first of her stem-cell harvests prior to having all of her bone-marrow zapped with what amounted to a really aggressive course of chemo treatment and then needing to have her own stem-cells transplanted back again in order to kick-start her immune system,....not to mention the emotional burden of losing all her hair. She was so poorly back then, but she also had to cope with the operations she needed around the same time in order to rebuild and/or reinforce five of the vertebrae in her spine! Anyway, she managed to pull through all of it somehow....and without once losing faith in her own ability to defeat the cancer and turn the quite dismal prognosis given to her at the outset completely on its head!
Add to that the fact that she continues to have her two spoonfuls of high-factor Manuka honey EVERY single day (without fail) as well as go walking with Tess and me as often as possible and you have what has basically been her very own magic formula for getting better.
Probably the worst aspect of all this as far as she is concerned, was the fact that, after more than thirty years, she was forced to give up working as a hospital nurse, but it wasn't long before she found another job translating doctor's notes into English at a local doctor's surgery and will soon be starting work at the same place as a part-time practice nurse.
Other good news of late includes the fact that my son has managed to find a job working full-time as a teaching assistant in a London primary school where he gets plenty of very useful experience working on a one-to-one basis with children who have serious learning difficulties, particularly those suffering with Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD). He's very good at it too by all accounts plus, he's also managed to secure a place on a post-graduate child psychology course at a university starting in September 2010. His geneticist girlfriend meanwhile, continues to work at one of the UK's most advanced research institutes as part of the genetics team that's getting closer and closer to finding a cure for diabetes (no animal experiments involved I might add).
As for my Daughter, she's looking forward to starting university life herself next September, but must soon decide which university she actually wants to go to having had offers from all five of the ones to which she applied....and I don't give a damn if I do sound full of it because, apart from my son getting a first in his degree last summer, we've had a really sh***y year by and large (what with two strokes in the family, the sudden and unexpected loss of one of my wife's closest friends and the involvement of another in a serious car accident a few weeks ago), so it's about time something good happened around here and I want the world to know how proud I am of them all because they've had to achieve what they've achieved DESPITE everything else going on around them and that certainly can't have been easy!
British Military Fatalities, January 2010 (31st January)
24th January....Lance Corporal Daniel Cooper (21) from Hereford. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. South of Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
22nd January....Rifleman Peter Aldridge (19) from Folkestone in Kent. A Coy, 4 Rifles attached to 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th January....Rifleman Luke Farmer (19) from Pontefract, West Yorkshire. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed in the same explosion as Cpl Brownson. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th January....Corporal Lee Brownson (30) from Bishop Aukland, County Durham. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
11th January....Captain Daniel Read (31) from Cornwall. Royal Logistics Corps, 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Regiment. Killed while attempting to diffuse his 33rd explosive device. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd January....Private Robert Hayes (19) from Cambridge. 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment. Killed in an explosion while on patrol. Nad-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Work Experience (22nd January)
Maddy wanted a picture of me (well, Tess really) to put on her "Facespace" social networking page, but that's not really allowed....at least not to the extent that people could see exactly how ugly I am! Social networking? We used to call that talking to people face to face in my day. Anyway, here I am in all my glory as snapped by Maddy a couple of hours into the day in the driving rain and up to our armpits in mud. Now perhaps you can see for yourselves why I'm the target of so much derision, rudeness and abuse when I suddenly find myself surrounded by "normal" people in a town!
The Boss has a couple of grand-children (both girls) and one of them, I'll call her "Maddy" for the sake of needing to call her something on here, is almost exactly the same age as my own daughter. This means therefore, that like my daughter, she too will be taking her A-levels at school during the summer. However, Maddy is desperate to forge some kind of a career in wildlife conservation and, before setting off to do a wildlife conservation-related degree at university, she first of all plans to take a gap year to work alongside park rangers on one of the larger African game reserves.
Mud glorious mud....Labrador heaven!
I've got to admit that my new Zamberlan boots have really been put through their paces over the last few weeks, but, as expected, they've been brilliant throughout and haven't let me down so much as once....and no, I don't get any kick-backs from the makers of Zamberlans for saying it, if only because they don't even know I exist!
Maddy is, by all accounts, very bright and particularly headstrong (something else she has in common with my daughter) and boards at an extremely posh and obscenely expensive private school for young gals not too many miles distant from where I live. As a result of that and the fact that I have a daughter of nearly identical age (and must therefore know all all there is to known about the whys and wherefores of teenage girls in general), the Boss came up with the insane idea that Maddy might somehow benefit from spending one day a week working out of doors with me throughout the spring season and well into the summer.
Almost certainly weakened by the severe winter weather we've been experiencing lately, signs suggested that this log had ultimately been torn apart no more than a week ago by Badgers probably in search of various hibernating creepy-crawlies. It was from here that Tess then led us to a brand-new (new to me that is) Badger's sett no more than fifty metres away (below) and which I would otherwise have missed.
For years I've prided myself on knowing the locations and probable population levels of just about every Badger's sett in Gloucestershire (or at least those not situated on strictly private property), as well as the vast majority to be found in most of the surrounding counties, so it was a real surprise when Tess led Maddy and me to this one after initially investigating the Badger handiwork with the log shown above. I counted seven entrances altogether though there were probably a few more tucked away well out of sight.
"She has a lot learn Don" he said, "and there's a lot you can teach her" he spoke in full-on flannel mode. "In fact, it's probably fair to say that she's incredibly KEEN....That's KEEN spelt with capital letters". He was speaking to me over the telephonic communication device thingy that sits wilfully on a table in the corner of the living-room and which I normally manage to steadfastly ignore with all the enthusiasm of someone who's particularly enthusiastic about ignoring something....especially when the "something" in question makes persistent and incredibly irritating ringing noises! However, this time, and for reasons that will never be entirely clear to me, I'd actually answered the damn thing myself!
"Maddy's a tough kid Don, believe me. A lot like her paternal great-grandmother in fact, who, as you know only too well, is tougher than any foul-mouthed Bootneck we ever knew" (and as foul-mouthed too I thought to myself). "She tells me, by the way, that she stills likes you to go walking with her as often as possible, which is probably for the best when she insists on yomping all those countless miles across the Cotswold Hills every other week and despite being ninety-something!". I shifted uncomfortably in my armchair as I recalled how often in the past I'd needed to break into a jog just to keep up with "Road-runner" as I secretly preferred to call her!
"I think it's more to do with the fact that she IS ninety-something actually" I replied before adding, "but you know full well that, apart from all the ranger stuff I do, I'm already bogged down with the extra SAR training I'm doing with Tess these days....which was your idea by way, as well as the bits and pieces I've been doing in Herefordshire of late....also your idea if I remember correctly....and that means I don't really have time to be showing the ropes to any apprentice. What about one of the others?", but I already knew the answer to that one.
"....And who did you have in mind exactly, apart from Jenny and Nobby? The thing is, they're working too far away from Maddy's school at the moment, as are most of the others, so it has to be you and, besides, aren't you the one who's a fully qualified teacher....and a qualified youth-worker as well if I remember correctly, not to mention having your own daughter of the same age?".
"Right, so how long will this be for exactly?".
"As I said, it's just one day a week until she finishes school some time in July and then I'll be arranging for her to spend a month or so doing coastal and marine biology work with Beth and Sean. Maddy is already a fairly capable diver, but she'll be able to learn a great deal from Beth who, as you know is a former Navy diver as well as a marine biologist. Eventually, Maddy plans to start working in Africa towards the end of September and that will give me chance to get her up to Scotland after finishing with Sean and Beth for three or four weeks to work with Sam and Joe where I imagine she'll learn a little bit about what it means to eat, sleep and work out in the open in the mountains. She's already done particularly well on manoeuvres in the school's CCF outfit, but If nothing else, she'll find out one way or another if she's truly cut out for the kind of conservation work she has in mind".
Tess investigates the place where Maddy slipped and fell into the drainage ditch, possibly wondering why the new girl had been allowed to go swimming but not her. It was a good lesson for Maddy however, to learn (albeit the hard way) about how farmers often use the winter period as an opportunity to dredge ditches and some of the smaller streams on their land, often making the bank-sides very steep, deep and slippery in the process. In fact, there have been several cases of near or even actual drownings in such ditches over the years and extra caution is advised when working near them, especially after prolonged spells of heavy snow and/or rain when the water in a ditch like this one can be up to two metres deep and very close to freezing!
....And so it came to pass that it came to pass that Maddy found herself experiencing her first day (today) "ate and abate" in the field with Tess and me....and the heavens opened up and the rain poured down and we walked eighteen miles in total and got thoroughly soaked....In fact, Maddy slipped half-way into a flooded drainage ditch almost at the off and was totally drenched from the waist down, but I must say, after experiencing the sudden initial shock of the icy-cold water and then being dragged out by the scruff of the neck and dumped unceremoniously into shin-deep mud, she didn't complain, not even once and just carried on as though nothing had happened. However, I was able to supply her with a spare pair of socks and a pair of over-trousers (ones belonging to my daughter and which I always carry in the car along with other bits and bobs during the winter in case we're ever snow-bound and have to walk any distance) and she changed in the vehicle while Tess and I went to examine something suddenly very interesting in a field about a hundred metres away!
Ghost River....After more than three hours of relentless and very heavy downpours, the rain did finally stop for a while around mid-day. The wind dropped too and within half an hour a milky-white mist had covered this entire section of the River Severn. We stood for a while above the ghostly scene as an other-worldly silence seemed to envelope everything, except that is, for the occasional and almost ethereal-sounding call of a Curlew far off.
Meanwhile, I did my best to explain to Maddy that the job we do as wildlife rangers must, out of sheer necessity, encompass ALL aspects of the Natural World that surrounds us and not just certain elements within it. We are not mere twitchers after all, and the importance of balance and connections right across what others see as the "natural divide" is vital in our understanding of the way things work (or not as the case may be) and, therefore, of how one day they may be saved from obliteration by the petty failings and desires so frequently born out of the ignorance, greed and malice so common to all of mankind.
I must admit that Maddy simply stared at me blankly for a few moments after I'd finished yet another lecture, possibly wondering what on earth her grandfather had got her into, but then she said...."Balance and connections....Yes, I understand what you're saying and I agree, but what's a twitcher?"
I suppose it wasn't really what you might describe as a typical day in the countryside, even for me and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an altogether "appropriate" experience for a young gal in the upper sixth of a school for frightfully refined young things, but I must say that she impressed me from the outset and continued to impress throughout the day. Plus, the Boss was right, she is tough in exactly the same way as her great grandmother and I couldn't help but notice lots of little similarities between the two of them almost constantly. In fact, it was almost as if I'd gone back in time about seventy-five years and found myself spending the day with the young version of the Great Dame herself!
Suddenly, it was as if the mist on the river acquired a mind of its own and began passing over the flood-bank into the fields beyond. This happened simultaneously both ahead of us and behind us like some kind of pincer movement designed by enemy forces to prevent our retreat. At this point, I asked Maddy if she'd ever seen a film called "The Fog" and, fortunately, she hadn't. Five minutes later, it began to pour with rain again and the mist/fog simply melted away.
The strange thing is, Maddy actually insists that she WANTS to carry on working with me, despite her somewhat damp and strenuous initiation into the wilds of South Gloucestershire and the occasionally taciturn nature of the upper stretches of the Severn Estuary and I figure that, starting next week, maybe a little bit of SAR training experience alongside Tess and Me might go some way towards adding a modicum of gravitas to her overall CV as well.
More "Politicians at Home" Doodles (17th January)
Had a bit of time on my hands today, so I drew a new "Politicians at Home" cartoon. Meanwhile, I couldn't decide which caption to include out of two alternatives I came up with, meaning you get both versions (so tough titties!)....Plus, I've added an older PaH cartoon that I originally drew for my hand-written diary last year when the desperate shortage of military helicopters in Afghanistan was making all the newspapers....
Politicians at Home (No 6)
Politicians at Home (No 6a)....and thank-you Bob Hope
Politicians at Home (No 5)
So, Where Have All the Greenfinches Gone? (13th January)
Not very good photos (again) today I'm afraid, but note the bright yellow wing bars on this male Greenfinch which prove so useful as part of this sometimes quite aggressive species' threat display when attempting to scare other birds away from the various bird-feeders and tables.
Severe winter weather always brings the Finches into my garden in significantly large numbers. Chaffinch and Goldfinch, a few Linnets, Siskin, Brambling and even the odd Bullfinch or two (the latter usually searching for its favourite black sunflower seeds) all making their way in from the surrounding countryside where the Chaffinches, for example, gather in winter flocks of as many as a hundred birds keen to forage in the fields until the snow forces them to seek alternative food sources elsewhere....though I should add that today, they occur in nowhere near the numbers they did when I was a boy when such flocks often numbered in their thousands and amateur naturalists argued amongst themselves as to whether or not the birds divided into separate flocks made up entirely of either males or females.
Goldfinches generally come to my garden in numbers ranging anywhere from a single bird to flocks of twenty or more, being drawn, as they inevitably are, to the niger (Black Thistle) seed or the sunflower hearts I put out for them.
Meanwhile, under normal circumstances, I would also expect to see as many as fifteen to twenty Greenfinches competing at the various bird-feeders hung in my garden (or at least at the ones which contain their much-beloved sunflower hearts), but during the last three or four years, I've noticed a considerable drop in the total numbers of Greenfinches visiting my garden right through the winter season (even during all the extreme weather we've been having lately) and I'm very concerned this year especially, as I've counted no more than four individual birds so far!
Two only slightly better shots than the very blurry ones I put on the "Garden" page of the www.wildliferanger.co.uk site a couple of days ago of the male Blackcap that's been coming to the suet blocks I've placed on the feeder trays. No sign of the brown-capped female this year however, whereas, oddly, it was the male I had so much difficulty in trying to photograph last year.
So what is happening to them? Well, their actual conservation status remains "green" (meaning there appears to be no "identifiable" threat to their population status at the moment), but they are in increasingly rapid decline nonetheless and the BTO believes that a major part of the problem is down to the severe depletion of seed availability in the countryside caused by intensive agriculture techniques as a whole, meaning that the food we make available for them in our gardens is becoming increasingly more important, but that it may not be enough.
Being the greedy, belligerent and argumentative little so-and-sos that they are, the Starlings will try to completely take over the garden by sheer weight of numbers if they can.
In 2005, the Nature Conservation Minister, Ben Bradshaw said, "Although numbers (of Greenfinches) remain historically low, they do appear to have stabilised and we may now be starting to see the start of an upward trend".
Meanwhile, "Mr Grumpy" continues with his on-going and elsewhere documented one-bird battle against the ever vocal and cacophonous Sturnus vulgaris hoards.
Mmm....In 2005, I think I would possibly have agreed with him, but things seem to have changed radically since then and, as far as I'm concerned, something perhaps a little more sinister than seed depletion is suddenly happening to the humble Greenfinch together with a great many other species, including the Yellowhammer (though currently holding its own in the Cotswolds), the Tree Sparrow, the Stock Dove and the Turtle Dove....all once reasonably common birds as little as ten years ago, but which now appear to be in mega-serious decline!
So many Blackbirds....and there were as many as this again sitting around in the trees and bushes or on the fences!
That's More Like It! (12th January)
Not a shout this time, but I was diving over the very top of the Cotswolds where the snow was pretty thick, but just about passable for an ultra-lightweight little vehicle like mine, when I spied what looked to be a youngish guy trudging ahead of me as best he could along the road in the wheel ruts in the snow. He was wearing a grey suit and patent leather shoes. I stopped alongside him and asked if he needed help. He explained that his car had broken down back aways (I'd already seen it in fact and checked it out) and was trying to get to Winchcombe where he could catch a bus down into Cheltenham.
I duly gave him a lift to Winchcombe, but was headed in the opposite direction to Cheltenham after that out towards Broadway. Nonetheless, he was enormously appreciative and hardly stopped thanking me almost the entire way (about four miles). He revealed that he'd come to Britain from Nigeria in the summer and that this was his very first experience of snow. His English was very good and he added that he'd only had the car for about two weeks and it was already the third time it had broken down! I strongly suggested that he didn't try driving in the high Cotswolds in this kind of weather in future (at least not in that car) and that if he did, then he should be better prepared for situations such as this.
It turned out that he had a Nigerian diploma in land management and had been for an interview for a job on one of the local estates. I doubt that he'd been successful, given the state of employment (or the lack of it) in the Cotswolds at present, but I figured that he must have been quite keen to get the job if he was prepared to risk getting stuck in the snow in an untrustworthy vehicle and I was therefore, moderately impressed by his grit and determination.
There was something profoundly likeable about the man that reminded me of a particularly amiable Bootneck I used to know years ago and so I asked if he minded giving me a contact number, explaining that, although I couldn't promise anything, I'd have a word with the Boss with a view to him possibly being able to put a word in for him somewhere or other in the not too distant future.
The thing is, I know that if I was an employer and I ran my own business, I would staff it almost entirely with people I had a gut instinct about during their interviews or even with a few who I'd met at random while out and about, regardless of their academic qualifications....So I guess it's probably just as well I'm not an employer because I dare say we'd sink without trace inside the first financial year!
Just a Simple "Thank-You" Would Be Nice! (11th January)
It's certainly been a busy week one way or another. Nine shouts to people stuck in the snow, not so much to rescue them (there were no injuries), but more to simply lend a hand. Still, each one required a degree of time and effort, especially when Tess and I were forced to go on foot.
The first simply involved getting fuel and a few supplies out to an 81 year-old pensioner who lives alone a few miles up the road. I utilized both the car and the kid's old sledge for that one, while Tess carried six tins of assorted Heinz soups (about 2.5kg) in her special backpack mountain harness. However, the other eight "incidents" were all vehicle-orientated with four of them caused more by bad luck than anything else while the rest were purely down to what can only be described as crass stupidity while driving 4x4s!
Of the eight vehicle shouts, seven of them involved male drivers at night while only one occurred during daylight hours and concerned a woman who had her eight year-old daughter with her. In each case, it was just a question of escorting people back to their respective towns or villages or, as in the case of the gent from Swindon, into the nearest town which just happened to be Cheltenham, though he was another one who was considerably less than happy that I'd turned up on foot and I think he'd only called for assistance in the first place because a taxi he'd rung for had been unable to get to him and he most definitely didn't want to walk the four miles into town (strange, I thought all 4x4 drivers were tough guys?).
The thing is, I'm not entirely sure I'm cut out for all this SAR stuff, if only because out of the nine people I assisted, only the elderly lady and the woman with the daughter said so much as thank-you, while three of the men were downright rude, wanting to know for example, why they'd had to wait so long before I arrived (about an hour on average) and/or why I hadn't brought a vehicle to drive them back to civilisation!
Oh well, such is the fundamentally self-serving, self-orientated nature of today's so-called modern society I guess. A society full to overflowing with examples of profound arrogance, ignorance and stupidity. Still, I shouldn't let it get to me I suppose, but when after more than forty-eight hours without sleep and countless miles of trudging through snow and ice just to help people who can't even find it in themselves to say thank-you, I pop into the village post-office for a bar of chocolate with Tess (who had also worked non-stop for forty-eight hours in quite dangerous conditions sometimes), only to be pounced on by the staff and told to remove her from the premises because it was "against the law" for a dog to be in there! I'm afraid I kind of got a bit cross. After all, I'm sure she'd be more than good enough for them if she was suddenly needed in order to find a member of their family lost in some north-easterly blizzard late at night with temperatures falling to below -15C.
All I wanted was a bar of chocolate and I hate it when people quote the law at me because they use it like a shield to cover their own inadequacies and anyway, the law's an ass sometimes and I always think of Dr King's observation when he reminded the world that everything Hitler did in Germany leading up to the Second World War was legal....Besides, Tess is technically a working "assistance" dog and is clearly marked as such and I'm told she comes under the same legal category as a guide-dog or a hearing-dog and not one person across the entire South-West has ever expressed even the remotest concern with regard to any of the few occasions when I've been forced to take her into a shop. In fact, they've always welcomed her with open arms when they recognise the enormously and increasingly difficult job she does and possibly the fact that humans carry on them or inside them more than fifty times as many varieties of hazardous germs and bugs as any dog, though I should add that Tess has never ever complained about nasty, bug-ridden humans, not even once!
As for tying her up and leaving her outside....Remember, Tess has been threatened and even attacked by all kinds of dribbling idiots during this last year or so. She's been beaten with a walking stick, shot with an air-rifle, subjected to having a shotgun let off right next to her, had dogs set on her and stones thrown at her. I even found a note under my windscreen-wiper in the summer telling me that she was going to be stolen and returned to me piece by piece! Subsequently, I'm incredibly protective of her, I never lose sight of her and I certainly don't leave her tied up outside shops or post-offices where she would be most vulnerable! I don't trust anyone any more where Tess is concerned and she's with me the whole time
Frickin' Health and Safety morons and their enthusiasts have a lot to answer for in my book, but at least I suppose that Tess and I eventually go home to a good meal and a roaring log fire after a day or night in the snow, which is more than can be said for a lot of folk in the UK. In fact, it's probably believing that there are plenty of people out there who genuinely need help and who are still prepared to say thank-you which keeps me working at this more than anything else.
It Seems I Spoke Too Soon (6th January)
Three miles across country on foot in the middle of the night in a blizzard to get to a young guy stranded in his car at the end of a remote country lane. Tess and I found him eventually, freezing cold, hungry and worried about his predicament.
....and why had he driven to the end of such a remote country lane in the first place? Well, he said he was a professional photographer and had driven high up into the Cotswolds with all his gear to take pictures of the snow-covered landscapes. He explained that he'd then walked a fair distance in search of that perfect shot, but that by the time he managed to get back to his car he was well and truly snowed in! Unfortunately, he had nothing in his car to either dig himself out with or to eat, to keep himself warm or wipe his backside after a cr*p in the woods!
By the time it had grown dark, he'd wisely resigned himself to sitting it out until the morning. However, he then ran his car engine for too long a period in one go in an effort to stay warm and, already low on fuel at the outset, discovered the hard way why you should never leave home in such atrocious conditions with anything less than a full tank....and even then only run your engine for a few minutes at a time every twenty minutes or so if you happen to get stuck!
The temperature up there was -7C by the time I reached him and a metal-bodied, single-glazed car will soon become like a refrigerator as the cold is conducted inside directly from without, but at least he was out of the wind as well as staying dry. In fact, it's not a bad idea to let the snow build up on the roof and windows of your vehicle if you're not going anywhere because it will increasingly act as insulation from the cold outside.
Anyway, obviously annoyed that I hadn't showed up in some kind of Viking all-terrain caterpillar tractor on loan from the ASG, he insisted that he wasn't really physically capable of yomping the three miles back to my house in a heavy blizzard and refused point-blank to abandon all his very expensive camera equipment in the boot of his car for goodness knows how long.
The thing is, to me, it's just a car and a bunch of camera equipment and I'm guessing everything was insured and replaceable, but the guy was adamant about it and since I wasn't about to compromise either his safety, my own or Tess's for the sake of a few thousand pounds-worth of photographic equipment, I decided to leave him there and return home.
First however, I gave him a blanket, an old woolly jumper, a box of hand-warmers, a wind-up torch, a bottle of water, a packet of biscuits and an MRE from my pack, the latter so he could at least have a warm meal using the self-heating thingy (but even then he was disappointed that the main meal was a curry)! Meanwhile, I worked out his position as a map reference and left him to sit it out. He'll be ok and either myself or someone else can get him later. Basically, I couldn't help feeling that, as a young guy, he profoundly resented needing help from an old duffer like me.
Again though, it's all about common sense (or the lack of it). He didn't NEED to be up there. He didn't NEED to be out taking pictures in the snow with red-alert weather warnings already issued right across the UK, but he did NEED to equip himself in readiness for the worst case scenario at the very least.
Ok, I may not know a lot about anything much, but I am familiar with every stone, boulder, pot-hole, blade of grass, stream, pond, lake, river, woodland, footpath, lane, road, hill, hamlet, village and town in the Cotswolds simply because it's my job to be. It's what I do. In fact you could stand me blindfolded on my head anywhere from Winchcombe to Burford to Cricklade and I would know exactly where I was from just from the sound of the cattle farting in the fields nearby, but even I don't take unnecessary risks with the weather....photographs or no photographs!
Tess and I then headed home, but via the eerily quiet main road this time so as to check out all the abandoned vehicles we could find en route, but there was no-one in any of them and Tess seemed confident that there were no unfortunate souls lying prostrate in any of the snow-filled ditches or on the verges along the way. You never know though because there were quite a number of cars and that must have meant a fair few people had suddenly found themselves on foot with a long walk ahead of them in some of the worst weather to hit this country in the last thirty years. We eventually got back just after 0400hrs.
A Busy Few Days Ahead (5th January)
Things are going to be fairly hectic over the next few days if only because, this time, the berries got it right. The worst snow in thirty years? I'm guessing it will be just like when I was a boy.
Tess and I spent nearly five hours in the car today, travelling here and there around and about the Cotswolds in the worst of the weather. Saw some crazy things as well, including lots of people just abandoning their vehicles when they didn't really need to and setting off to walk goodness knows where. Sometimes drivers would just stop in the middle of the road for no reason and wait for I don't know what. One man just got out of his car and left it in the middle of the road!
There seemed to be entire families sometimes, kids too, just walking along the centre of the main roads in the dark. As far as I could see, it was because they were all wearing totally unsuitable footwear for the conditions and seemed unwilling to use the footpaths because they were covered in several inches of snow and must therefore have thought that it was better to risk their necks in the middle of a treacherous road than get their feet wet. Nor were any of them wearing any kind of reflective gear amongst all that skidding traffic!
The schools and businesses didn't help either....I think dozens of them must have closed at exactly 1400hrs, creating traffic chaos and gridlock in the town as thousands of parents set off in their cars to collect their kids coincidentally with thousands more leaving work early to go home. Absolute madness!
Now, with as much as 40cm of snow expected up here in the Cotswolds tonight (although it's actually stopped snowing and has begun thawing as I type this at 0215hrs), I'm pretty certain there'll be a fair few people getting themselves into all kinds of difficulty over the next couple of days and I think that Tess and I are going to have our work cut out, particularly as I don't plan to use a vehicle if I can help it.
More with Less (4th January)
The Government has just announced its new strategy intended to "encourage" British farmers to increase long-term food production, but only by using far fewer resources. This is all about the ever-pressing need to meet the massively increasing demands for food in the UK by a constantly growing population, but at least it's beginning to look as though the powers that be are finally beginning to appreciate the true value of our agricultural community.
Statistics provided by webhosts Netbenefit showing the number of "hits" to my websites per annum since 2005 for the co.uk site and 2006 for the .com site. Admittedly, it's of absolutely no interest to anyone out there with even half a life, but visits to both sites suddenly began to take off around March 2009, when the monthly totals first managed to exceed well over a million each and then continued to do so. I'm given to understand that this was due at least in part to an increased degree of media attention that my sites suddenly began attracting and the extensive measures that certain groups and/or individuals were suddenly determined to go to in order to "get to the bottom" of who the UK National Rangers really are and what we do. There were also efforts made by a few others beginning around then (and also about the time that a lost wallet of mine was handed in to the police) to dig more deeply into my past and to find out more about me than than I choose to disclose on either of my sites.
As we all know, statistics can be very misleading. Take for example, the fact that a piece of toast when dropped, will land butter-side down at least 95% of the time (according to satirist Steven Wright) and that cats when falling from a great height, will nearly always manage to land on their feet. Mmm....but what would happen if you strapped a piece of toast butter side up to a cat's back and dropped them together?
Obviously, great strain would be put on the infra-structure of the space/time continuum and the heads belonging to as many as 75% of the people who consistently make up around three quarters of the world's toast-eating and cat-owning population would probably explode....Except, that is, for the 50% of them who don't understand what the term "75%" actually means and for whom so-called artificial intelligence will never be a substitute for good old-fashioned, 100% natural stupidity and who, despite all that, still manage to become politicians!
Rambling on....Perhaps you can see now why so many of the science fiction short stories I've attempted to write over the years have turned out so badly!
Still rambling....As Aesop once said, "we hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office" and, as far as I can see, nothing has changed since he first said it....After all, every one of us knows deep down that chimpanzees can't change their spots....a truism which, in itself, is worth bearing in mind come this year's much anticipated general election
....Plus, it's also worth remembering that, from a statistical perspective at least, each successive political party is bound, by its very nature, to be 100% worse than the one preceding it. It's one of those indefinable, self-perpetuating-type Laws of Nature stating that if you put any elected government in charge of an ocean, then within three years, there will be an international water shortage, no fish left to swim in it, and a whole raft of taxes on rain!
Ramble, ramble....Anyway, I only began typing this rubbish as some kind of intro to the end-of-year "hit" statistics for my websites as provided by my long-suffering webhosts, Netbenefit.
Just short of 28 million throughout 2009 for the two sites combined....which probably explains why I've been attracting a number of companies who want to advertise their services and/or products on my sites, but who I have so far managed to steadfastly ignore.
I would like to make it perfectly clear (yet again in some cases) that I totally and positively DO NOT wish to advertise your CRAP on my websites and that I'm perfectly aware of how financially lucrative it could be, especially when you consider that one company alone has offered me £300 a month to advertise their complete and utter rubbish!
The trouble is you see, I AM NOT what you might consider a "normal" person to be. I am NOT for example, constantly driven by the chance to make a quick buck. I may not have financial wealth, but I am rich beyond measure as far as my family is concerned and being there for them is all that matters to me. So keep your fast cars, fancy women, big houses and expensive holidays abroad....IT AIN'T WHAT I'M ABOUT! Besides, I absolutely loathe advertising of almost any description and the last thing I want to have on either of my sites is a tapestry of cursor-sensitive banners, logos, pop-outs, pop-ups, drop-downs, flashes, slides, scrolls, widgets, dings, wings, wangs or animations. I HATE THEM ALL! In fact, the next company to pester me will be rewarded with very wordy items on the "Home" page of each of my sites listing, in great detail and possibly with illustrations, exactly why I think their product is a waste of money, a waste of time and a waste of space!
Ah....yes and one other thing....How do you explain to the producers of all those pointless TV and radio "Best Moments of the Decade" programmes that 2010 is the LAST year of this decade and NOT the FIRST year of the next? Oo, oo, I know, they should try counting from one to ten on their fingers and thumbs (I'm sure they'll be used to doing that). Think about it....If you insist on starting with zero, then, duh, you suddenly wont have enough digits to include the ten! It was the same with the start of the 21st Century and the poor media wretches who just couldn't seem to grasp that the first day of the 21st Century was the 1st January, 2001 and NOT the 1st January 2000! It's a finger and thumb thing.
Mind you, nothing will ever explain to me how it's possible for the BBC to justify sandwiching the X-Factor's Susan Boyle in between the Nine-Eleven disaster and the introduction of the Euro as Europe's primary currency in a list of THE most significant events of the last ten years!
Without doubt, it's a changing world and one I am most definitely NOT managing to keep up with....A fact for which I shall be eternally grateful!
Oh yes....and finally....
A very happy New Year to all my readers, whatever it is you may be doing at the moment (hopefully without access to any sharp objects) and in whichever type of institution you are currently being forced to reside....In fact, I'd say you're never too old to try anything. Although in my case, I'll admit that when I walked past a cemetery yesterday, two guys came running after me with shovels! Not really the most dignified of endings to the year I feel!
British Military Fatalities to End of Year 2009 (31st December)
31st December....Sapper David Watson (23) from Whickham, Tyne and Wear. Royal Engineers, 33 Engineer Regiment. Died from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
28th December....Rifleman Aidan Howell (19) from Sidcup in Kent. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed by a roadside bomb while on routine patrol. Kajaki, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Important Note (29th December)
By the time the light was beginning to fail, the snow had arrived from the Welsh border and begun hammering into the Higher Cotswold Hills with a vengeance. I took the above picture no more than fifteen minutes after the first of the snow had begun to fall! Naturally, the Local Authorities had made no attempt whatsoever to grit or salt even the main roads....probably because they'd only had about twenty-four hours warning that this would happen. Mind you, ten miles further on and as the road dropped into the valleys below, the snow gradually turned to sleet and then to rain by the time I reached Cheltenham to pick my daughter up from the trendy fashion shop where she has a part-time job.
Having come over the top from Bourton in a blizzard and then just returned home from a drive down into Cheltenham in heavy rain and sleet to collect my Daughter from work, I answered a knock at the front door. It was a very concerned lady from up the road who said she needed my help. Apparently, her elderly mum and dad had driven to Moreton earlier in the day to go to the market. Then they'd stopped off for a meal in Bourton and been caught in the heavy snow on the way home as a result.
The day had started well enough, although bitterly cold, very windy and wet on the more exposed hills and with the occasional heavy shower of sleet just to keep Tess and me on our toes.
The problem was that they'd come close to having an accident about four miles from home when their car almost skidded off the road and the mum had insisted that they go no further after pulling in at the next lay-by. Unfortunately, they were not members of any breakdown service and were ill-equipped to spend the night in their vehicle, having nothing so much as a blanket between them!, Luckily, they did at least have a half-charged mobile phone, were able to get a signal and could phone their daughter who happened to be in. She doesn't own a car however, but because she's a follower of Tess's escapades on my websites, had decided to come ask for my help.
Obviously, I couldn't refuse to help and because she said that her dad had told her he might try and walk the rest of the way to the village (in ordinary shoes, casual clothes and a basic anorak I might add!). I thought it best if I take Tess along for the ride when I set off to find them. Add to that the fact that we were unable to contact the couple because they'd turned their phone off to conserve the battery, we had a full-blown emergency waiting to happen!
We covered a fair few miles during the morning and didn't actually see another soul out walking for the entire way.
Anyway, I took the lady's number and and told her to return home and wait by the phone in case they tried to contact her again. I then told her to ring the emergency services if I hadn't rung her within thirty minutes. I knew they'd be ok if they stayed with the car, but I was worried that the dad might have decided to walk after all.
As it turned out, I found them quite quickly and both were still with their car. I rang the daughter straight away and she was greatly relieved. We left the car for retrieval the following day and I brought them home.
Now, this little episode ended ok and I was glad to be of help, but please note....
Neither Tess nor myself are even remotely qualified as yet to be involved as primary searchers in any SAR operation!
If you or anyone else you may have reason to be concerned about find yourselves in any kind of difficulty whatsoever, THEN CALL THE EMERGENCY SERVICES on 999! Needless to say, they are infinitely better trained and qualified as well as vastly more experienced and resourced than I could ever hope to be!
The last thing you or I would ever want is for someone's chances of survival to be compromised by my failings and/or limitations in an area to which I am relatively new.
The two or three so-called rescues that Tess and I have been involved with to date (including today's little drama), just happen to have worked out fine, but that's just down to beginner's luck. Next time it could all be very different and that's when you need the right people doing the job properly and not just some aged, rank amateur like me!
I'm fully aware of my limitations and Tess's too. We're getting there, but it's a long, slow, uphill struggle and, to be perfectly honest, my age combined with one or two of my old injury problems most definitely make me the weaker link in the handler/Tess partnership!
Finally (and having made that last point abundantly clear I hope), it might once again be appropriate at this point to suggest a few simple items that you could take a few minutes to gather together and place in the boot of your car just in case you suddenly find yourself in a similar situation to the elderly lady and gent I helped earlier today....
A couple of old blankets or even sleeping bags, bearing in mind how many people you are likely to have in your car at any one time!
A shovel or spade.
A good torch or lantern with spare batteries still in their blister pack.
A mobile phone with possibly one of those wind-up-type phone-chargers
Something to eat, such as a chocolate bar or two or a packet of biscuits (good for morale)
A bag of spare warm clothes, including thick trousers (not jeans), fleece-type top, woolly hat, gloves, scarf and socks.
A good, weather-proof coat
Walking boots or wellies (preferably not trainers)
Something to read.
Your RAC, AA or Green Flag phone number and membership details (VERY IMPORTANT, if only because just knowing that someone is on their way to help you can make all the difference)!
Some people might also include a things like a portable (and fully charged) car battery-starter or strips of old carpet or coconut matting to put under the wheels of their vehicles in the event they get stuck in the snow or mud, but it's entirely up to you as to what you include. Mind you, life (and the military in particular) has taught me that you ONLY NEED IT IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT IT, so beware what you decide NOT to include!
There are those of you (particularly men) who will consider what I advise here as being outrageously over the top, but from what I understand, these guys tend to be the emergency services most regular customers, including one twit caught in a snowstorm in Wales last year who hadn't bothered to un-stick the wipers frozen to his car windscreen before setting off and then blown several fuses by repeatedly trying to switch them on. He quickly became stranded on a minor road with nothing by way of emergency provisions or equipment in his vehicle. He was discovered by a SAR dog team twelve hours later, severely hypothermic and close to death....but hey, it was never going to happen to him....right?
SAR Practise (27th December)
My son came out with me for a few hours today to help give Tess some valuable Search and Rescue training. We spent most of the time up in the high woods where my son would run off in various directions, upwind, downwind, etc and then attempt to find a good place to hide about three quarters of a mile away. Meanwhile, Tess and I would wait about ten minutes before setting off to find him.
Early....and looking forward to a particularly wet, muddy and chilly few hours ahead, but very rewarding ones just the same.
He was under instructions to make finding him as difficult as possible, while I had to remember that the important thing in a practise session like this is to allow my dog to do most of the thinking and trust to her infinitely sharper senses and instincts above my own....though in a real SAR scenario, it would be vital for us to work off each other in that respect. Obviously, my son is totally familiar to Tess, which doubtless made it much easier for her to locate him as a "casualty" today, but during the real thing, it would be very unlikely that she'd know the casualty personally and, unless there was some available item of clothing or other that actually belonged to the person we were looking for and from which she could get a scent, then the job of locating a total stranger would be considerably more difficult.
Tess must wait, albeit impatiently, as my son sets off once more to find yet another good hiding place amongst the woods and scrubland of North Gloucestershire.
Still, any kind of practise is better than no practise at all and, during the course of this particular session, we repeated the "hide and seek" exercise many times, utilising as much of the surrounding terrain as possible and with my son being as creatively difficult in his bid to avoid detection as he could. Nevertheless, Tess, using a combination of both ground-scenting and air-scenting techniques, managed to find him each and every time (going virtually straight to him in most cases) and with absolutely no help from me whatsoever!
Here Tess is quick to pick up the scent, but it's a cold day in the hills and time is of the essence because these are exactly the kind of conditions in which a lost child, a confused and frightened elderly person or an injured rambler with perhaps a broken leg could easily and very quickly succumb to hypothermia.
A SAR dog is invaluable in scrubland terrain such as this because, binoculars or no binoculars, a human searcher just isn't going to be able to see a casualty lying prostrate in this kind of vegetation and valuable time would almost certainly be wasted in having to check every single square centimetre before moving on. In fact, on this occasion, my son was lying low down and pretending to be injured in the scrub just behind the tree about thirty metres ahead and slightly to the right of Tess who is simply following his scent trail straight to him. Had I been searching alone however, I could easily have missed him.
Here, Tess has been able to track my son using a combination of both ground-scenting and air-scenting simply because the "casualty" in this instance was upwind of us. I'd explained to my son how people in difficulty will often seek refuge in whatever shelter might be to hand and this time Tess finally found him crouching down inside the little corrugated lean-to shown in the picture.
Into the Beechwood....
My son had made this one quite tricky by weaving a long, convoluted trail around and about the Beech trees before finally going to ground behind the cross-country horse-jump towards which Tess is heading in the photograph.
....and finally, after a tough, but very enjoyable day in the hills and woods, we head back to the vehicle and then home. Tess meanwhile, insisted on carrying her obligatory chunk of ice, which I think she chooses to do because, with all the work and running around that she does, she gets quite warm (even in the middle of winter) and to have a large piece of ice pressed against her tongue is an effective way of helping her to cool down....Mmm, I've always done pretty much the same thing of course, except that I prefer to put the ice in my underpants! It's a (Dog's) Wonderful Life (26th December)
I didn't have time yesterday to add this little account of Tess's Christmas Day, so here it is on Boxing Day....It began early enough for her when she got up when I did at about 0545hrs. Unfortunately, it was more than three hours before anyone else decided to get up and we were both fairly keen by then to be getting on with the unwrapping of all the presents that had appeared so mysteriously under the Christmas tree overnight!
The Great Unwrapping....
"Come on, come on why don'tcha? I know that at least two of these are mine!"
"Yes, mine I do believe!"
"I'm off to open this upstairs!"
...."In my special, secret place where I'm completely invisible!"
"Oo, oo....Please let it be a Squeaky Squirrel....I've always wanted a Squeaky Squirrel!"
"It is! It is a Squeaky Squirrel! Oh joy of joys!"
Later the Same Day....
The Christmas Day afternoon stroll doesn't exactly get off to a good start as Tess fails to make it to the field before nature takes its course. Meanwhile, you can probably guess from the picture which muggins was left to deal with the offending "pile" with a poo-bag! Still, at least that's a dog-poo bin attached to the footpath sign-post just ahead
Then off we go Through the freezing snow Off we trudge 'cross the ice and sludge While the sun shines high In a clear blue sky
Ice turns to mud en route and one of our party (I wont say who) manages to get themselves well and truly stuck! Tess meanwhile, runs and runs and runs regardless of the conditions, pausing only occasionally to pity the hopeless humans!
....On the other hand, her obsession with carrying this apparently "special" chunk of ice for a good part of the walk only served to lend weight to my on-going theory that, for a supposedly bright dog, she's more than a few snowflakes short of a blizzard!
My Daughter's new "Christmas" wellies are put through their paces. I might add that there are those close to us who will be mightily pleased that she finally has slightly more subtle replacements for her old ones!
Tess's "search and rescue" demo for my son who attempts to hide while pretending to be the so-called "casualty". Tess then tries to find him from a couple of fields away....
Picking up the scent....
Gaining in certainty....
Closer now as she picks up a definite trail....
At last....Found him!
Finally....A race between Tess and my Daughter along the local point-to-point course. With her competitor already up and running more than a hundred metres ahead, Tess is allowed to "Go!" at the water-jump....
....No obstacle there then....
....as my Daughter heads straight up the middle of the course with less than fifty meters to go....but it isn't enough and Tess wins by a nose....and a length....and....well, about twenty metres!
The victor!
My son, home for Christmas and with good news that I'll talk about in a day or two.
....and when all the fuss is over....
Someone took this with one of my cameras without me knowing, so it was a bit of a surprise when I discovered it. Whoever it was wont own up, but at least I don't seem to be dribbling!
Christmas Day (25th December)
During the course of today, I shall be listing the 56 names of those soldiers killed while on active service in Afghanistan since the 20th July, 2009. This is intended purely as my own tribute, not just to the men themselves, but also to their families and the families of all those troops I have mentioned previously on my sites on what will most surely be a very difficult day....
22nd December....L/Cpl Christopher Roney (23) from Tyne and Wear, Sunderland. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Possible Blue on Blue. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
22nd December....L/Cpl Tommy Brown. Parachute Regiment. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
20th December....L/Cpl Michael Pritchard (22) from Eastbourne in Sussex. 4th Regiment, Royal Military Police. Suspected Blue on Blue. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
19th December....Cpl Simon Hornby (29) from Liverpool. 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th December....L/Cpl David Kirkness (24) from Leeds, West Yorkshire. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed at a checkpoint by a suicide bomber while trying to protect nearby civilians. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th December....Rifleman James Brown (18) from Farnborough, Hampshire. 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Killed at a checkpoint by a suicide bomber while trying to protect nearby civilians, Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th December....L/Cpl Adam Drane (23) from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. C Coy, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglican Regiment. Shot whilst carrying out security duties at a checkpoint. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
30th November....Acting Sergeant John Paxton Amer (30) from Tyne and Wear, Sunderland. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards. Killed in an explosion. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
18th November....Sgt Robert Loughran-Dixon (33) from Deal in Kent. 4th Regiment, The Royal Military Police. Shot during a fire-fight with insurgents, Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th November....Rifleman Andrew Fentiman (23) from Cambridge. 7th Battalion The Rifles. Killed by small-arms fire. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th November....Cpl Loren Marlton-Thomas (28) from Braintree in Essex. 33 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers. Died while searching for roadside explosive devices, Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
8th November....Rifleman John Samuel Bassett (20) from Plymouth in Devon. 1 Platoon, 4th Battalion The Rifles. Killed in an explosion. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
7th November....Rifleman Philip Allen (20) from Dorchester in Dorset. 2nd Battalion The Rifles serving with 4th Battalion The Rifles in the 3 Rifles Battle Group. Killed in an explosion. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
5th November....Sjt Philip Scott (30) from Edinburgh. C Coy, 3rd Battalion The Rifles. Died following an explosion. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Please note...."serjeant" in The Rifles Battalions is unique in the British military in being spelt with a "j".
3rd November....WO1 Darren Chant (40) from Walthamstow, London. 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards. Shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. Shin Kalay, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd November....Guardsman Jimmy Major (18) from Grimsby, Lincolnshire. 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. Shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. Shin Kalay, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd November....Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith (24) from Brackley, Northamptonshire. Royal Military Police. Shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. Shin Kalay, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd November....Acting Corporal Steven Boote (22) from Birkenhead, The Wirral. Royal Military Police. Shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. Shin Kalay, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd November....Sgt Matthew Telford (37) from Grimsby, Lincolnshire. 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. Shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman. Shin Kalay, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
31st October....Staff Sgt Olaf Schmid (30) from Winchester in Hampshire. 11 Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistics Corp. Died with attempting to defuse a roadside explosive device. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
25th October....Cpl Thomas Mason (27) from Rosyth in Fife. 3rd Battalion The Black Watch, Royal Regiment of Scotland. Died in hospital in the UK from injuries sustained in an explosion on 15th September. Kandahar, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
22nd October....Cpl James Oakland (26) from New Moston in Greater Manchester. Royal Military Police. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
8th October....L/Cpl James Hill (23) from Redhill, Surrey. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards. Killed in a blast not far from Camp Bastion. Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
5th October....Sgt Jamie Janes (20) from Brighton in East Sussex. 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards. Died on route to hospital after being caught in an explosion. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
1st October....Senior Aircraftman Macin Wojtak (24) from Leicester. 34 Squadron, RAF Regiment. Died in an explosion while on patrol. Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
27th September....Pte James Prosser (21) from Cwmbran, Torfaen. 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh. Killed in an explosion while taking part in a vehicular patrol. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
21st September....Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett (29) from Monifieth, Angus. 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, Operational Liaison and mentoring Team. (OMLT) Battle Group. Killed while trying to confirm the presence of a roadside explosive device. Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th September....Trooper Brett Hall (21) from Dartmouth in Devon. 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. Died in a UK hospital after being caught in an explosion in Helmand on the 12th September. Helmand, Afghanistan.
16th September....Acting Serjeant Stuart McGrath (28) from Princes Riseborough, Buckinghamshire. 2nd Battalion The Rifles. Killed in an explosion while on foot patrol. Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
13th September....Kingsman Jason Dunn-Bridgeman (20) from Liverpool. 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. Shot during an exchange of gunfire between his platoon and insurgents, Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
9th September....Cpl John Harrison (29) from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire. Parachute Regiment. Killed during a raid to free the kidnapped New York Times Journalist Stephen Farrell. Sadly, Mr Farrell's fellow hostage and interpreter, Sultan Munadi was also killed in the raid. Kunduz, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
3rd September....Pte Gavin Elliot (19) from Woodsetts, South Yorkshire. 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, Light Dragoons Battle Group. Died en route to hospital after sustaining a gunshot wound during a fire-fight while on foot patrol. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
2nd September....L/Cpl Richard Brandon (24) from Kidderminster, Worcestershire. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Light Dragoons Battle Group. Killed instantly when the vehicle he was in was hit by an improvised explosive device. Babaji, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
31st August....Sgt Stuart Millar (40) from Inverness, Inverness-shire. 3rd Battalion The Black Watch, Royal Regiment of Scotland. Killed in a blast thought to have been caused by a rocket-propelled grenade while on foot patrol, North of Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
31st August....Pte Kevin Elliot (24) from Dundee, Angus. 3rd Battalion The Black Watch, Royal Regiment of Scotland. Killed in a blast thought to have been caused by a rocket-propelled grenade. North of Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
29th August....Sgt Lee Houltram (33) Royal Marines Commando Reconnaissance. Apparently killed in an explosion, but full details are not likely to be made available. Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
25th August....Fusilier Shaun Bush (24) from Coventry in Warwickshire. 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Died after being caught in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
20th August....Pte Johnathon Young (18) from Hull in East Yorkshire. 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. Killed while on routine patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
20th August....Sjt Paul McAleese (29) from Hereford. 2nd Battalion The Rifles. Killed while on routine foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th August....Fusilier Simon Annis (22) from Salford, Greater Manchester. 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Killed in an explosion while on routine patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th August....L/Cpl James Fullarton (25) from Coventry in Warwickshire. 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Killed in an explosion while on routine patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
16th August....Fusilier Louis Carter (18) from Nuneaton in Warwickshire. 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Killed in an explosion while on routine patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th August....Sgt Simon Valentine (29) from Bedworth in Warwickshire. 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Died after being caught in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
15th August....Pte Richard Hunt (21) from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh. Died from injuries sustained while on patrol on the 13th August. Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
13th August....Lance Bombardier Matthew Hatton (23) from Haxby, North Yorkshire. 40 Regiment Royal Artillery. One of three soldiers killed by two separate explosions while providing security for an election-orientated meeting of local village elders. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
13th August....Rifleman Daniel Wild (19) from Easington, County Durham. 2nd Battalion The Rifles. One of three soldiers killed by two separate explosions while providing security for an election-orientated meeting of local village elders. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
13th August....Capt Mark Hale (42) from Bournemouth in Dorset. 2nd Battalion The Rifles. One of three soldiers killed by two separate explosions while providing security for an election-orientated meeting of local village elders. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
9th August....Pte Jason Williams (23) from Worcester. 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment. Mortally wounded by an improvised explosive device while attempting to rescue a fallen colleague. I believe it's also important to note that three Afghan soldiers were also killed in separate incidents in the same operation that day. Gereshk, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
6th August....Cpl Kevin Mulligan(26). 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment (UKSFSG). One of three troopers killed in an ambush while on routine patrol in a Jackal armoured vehicle. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
6th August....L/Cpl Dale Hopkins (23). 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment (UKSFSG). One of three troopers killed in an ambush while on routine patrol in a Jackal armoured vehicle. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
6th August....Pte Kyle Adams (21). 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment (UKSFSG). One of three troopers killed in an ambush while on routine patrol in a Jackal armoured vehicle. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
4th August....Craftsman Anthony Lombardi (21) from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers attached to the Light Dragoons. Killed when an explosion struck the vehicle he was in while providing escort to a supply convoy. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
27th July....Trooper Philip Lawrence (22) from Birkenhead, Merseyside. Light Dragoons. Killed by an improvised explosive device while on vehicle patrol. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
27th July....WO2 Sean Upton (35) from Nottinghamshire. 5th Regiment Royal Artillery. Died from injuries sustained in an explosion while on foot patrol. Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
25th July....Bombardier Craig Hopson (24) from Castleford, West Yorkshire. 40th Regiment Royal Artillery. Killed in a blast while on vehicle patrol. Lashkar-Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
22nd July....Guardsman Christopher King (20) from Birkenhead, Merseyside. 1st Battalion The Coldstream Guards attached to the 1st Battalion The Welsh Guards. Killed in an explosion while on patrol. Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
On the same day that Tess found the Signal Crayfish photographed above, she drew my attention to this one that had been left half eaten almost certainly by one of the local Otters....A conclusion I could draw in view of the fact that, not only is this a typical example of Otter-type finicky eating, but because it had also been discarded on a rock beside a Cotswold river that is frequently used as a feeding station by at least one of the Otters inhabiting that particular area.
Some people are apparently greatly irritated by the sheer number of photographs of Tess that I keep insisting on putting on my websites....Well, tough! I don't do it for them, I do it for me and for the huge numbers of dog-lovers worldwide whose only reason for visiting my sites at all is to find out if Tess is
....Which she soon does!
I'm a firm believer that, in order to get the best possible results when training any kind of an animal, there needs to be a strong element of fun injected into whatever it is you're trying to accomplish with them. I also believe that confidence-building is the key to overcoming almost any obstacle they may encounter along the way, either physically or mentally. A dog, for example, should be able to thoroughly "enjoy" whatever challenge you might give it by developing its sense of self-worth and that's best done by constantly presenting it with achievable goals...Simple stuff at first, but getting more and more adventurous, complicated and challenging as time passes and as the dog develops that all-important self-confidence.
The more time that Tess and I spend studying and mapping the gradual spread of Otter activity across the South-West, the less surprised I become about certain aspects of their behaviour....Here, Tess has led me to what turned out to be a highly probable temporary lie-up for the big dog Otter we've been focussing more and more of our attention on just lately. I guess a pile of old tyres is as good a place as any (perhaps better than most) to rest up, but it's not exactly the first place I'd have thought to look for evidence of Otter activity. Unfortunately however, we're not the only ones who seem to be aware of this particular animal and I've now dismantled or destroyed a whole variety of traps intended to either catch it or kill it. As a result, I've now put in a request for some rather "specialist" help from an altogether different kind of organisation to hopefully catch the perpetrator in the act plus it's good training for them.
Watching and waiting patiently as I get us ready for another early morning trek.
An Otter may have as many as three or four different holts plus several lie-ups dotted across its often very large territory. Tess became very excited when she discovered this holt today (15th March, 2010), about fifteen feet up an embankment above a small stream in the middle of an isolated wood, although judging by the degraded condition of a small quantity of spraint nearby, my guess is that it hadn't been used for at least two weeks. It is however, the second such holt she's discovered in the area in the last fortnight and we're gradually beginning to build up a much clearer picture of the range and activities of what I believe, in this instance, is a fairly large solitary dog Otter.
Lunchtime again and time for a game of fetch the stick....A kind of Canine equivalent of working hard and playing harder!
The same small stream as in the above picture, but further up the hill
I worked out that Tess' tail wags an average of fifty times a minute when we're out and about. That works out at around 3,000 times per hour....but say 2,500 times to allow for when she's sitting on it. So, if we're out for, say, eight hours (it's usually more), then she probably wags her tail somewhere in the region of....er, a lot of times in total!
....Waiting and watching
Taking a Break
At the End of Another Long and Very Demanding Day of Training....Basically Knackered, but Very Happy!
"Hang on a minute....There's no such blinkin' person as Humpty-Dumpty is there!"
Too much hanging around sometimes for her liking.
....At last! There it is....My veggie burgher and chips at the beachside cafe at Kennack Sands on the Lizard Peninsular....and yes, I did share the chips with her. After all, we'd both walked a very long way that day.
At Thirteen Months, Tess is a Bit of a Shorty Really
"....'s funny, I could have sworn there was somewhere to swim here a couple of weeks ago?"
Another Motor-Home Shot.
Tess in the Garden
Watching and Waiting....
Enjoying a well-earned break in the sunshine
Hopefully, well on the road to a good recovery plus some special Canine therapy to help things along.
Never Happier Than When She's Swimming
When Labradors Attack!
Christmas Santa Horror!
First Time in the Snow
"I Suppose You Think That's Funny!"
The Larger Lake
The perfect way to end the day! 
Nobility in Demeanour
Nobility in Thought
Nobility Without Shame!
Whereas I've praised Tess in the caption to the photo below for being quite bright, getting her head stuck in the stair bannisters was quite a stupid thing to do....and pretty dumb as well....and stupid! Sorry, did I already say "stupid"? Oh well, then what I meant was....REALLY stupid!
The final round and "Tess the Destroyer" is almost caught unaware by a fiendishly sly flying Ninja-type Turtle attack to her exposed top right nipple!
With all turtles (Squeaky or otherwise) now firmly vanquished, Tess decides
Tess the mischief-maker (seven weeks old)
No problems with eating then! We'll be feeding her special "Purina" Beta dog food for large breed puppies for a while yet. It's fairly expensive, but worth it in the long run. It will also be a few weeks before she can go out into the big wide world....or at least until she's had her full course of injections (more expense). As for exercise, we'll make sure she gets plenty in the garden and Sam will help as well by playing with her. Besides, it's not a good idea to go mad exercising Labradors for the first twelve months or so because they can easily develop extremely painful joint problems in later life if you allow them to tear about chasing sticks and balls for too long every day when they're youngsters!
My daughter took a whole bunch of photographs of our latest family acquisition to be. She says that she's a "real Cutie-Pie", but I know about these things from terrible experience and I know what they're TRULY capable of and how one tiny ball of irresistible furry cuteness can reduce a grown man to tears in about the same time it takes to turn a chair leg into sawdust and an expensive shag-pile carpet into a pile of pee-sodden rags!
My God....Look at the size of those feet! 
Spear Thistle
Hover Fly on Purple Anenome 
Another beauty from my Mother-in-Law's early Autumn garden display. 
Calibrachoa Cavern 
Clematis 
Robina seems to love nothing more than to shuffle herself down in the dusty soil of the back lawn, spread her wings and sunbathe for minutes at a time....Behaviour that might easily end in tears when it comes to the prowlings of the infamous cat from across the way! However, I've not yet seen her sunbathe when either Tess or myself aren't in the garden, so perhaps she's smarter than even I give her credit for. It's also behaviour reminiscent of the way that DT the Blackbird would "use" my wife's old dog, Sam, as a means of getting the bird-tables all to himself when Sam was in the garden. While on one famous occasion, he actually hopped onto Sam's back when he thought some danger or other lurked in the undergrowth and as the dopey old dog lay sleeping on the lawn!
A first for me, at least as far as this garden is concerned, is the discovery of this embryonic Bombus lapidarius (I think) Bumblebee nest situated down a crack between the edging stones placed around our little wildlife pond. In fact, there must be a fair bit of a space down there because this must surely be the Queen so early in the season and she'll be looking for a place big enough to eventually house as many as 150 worker bees.
Tickety-Boo
Teaching Tess, who is still a very young and headstrong dog, the very important skill of remaining hidden, alert and, above all, patient for up to half an hour at a time has been one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do with any animal. Here, she continued to lie obediently behind cover as Maddy and I spent more than fifteen minutes observing a group of seven potentially ultra-sensitive Smew plus a number of Goosander on a lake in the heart of the Forest of Dean while a straggly flock of inquisitive Redpoll kept wary eyes on us from the trees above our heads.
My mucky little car, but not looking too bad at the moment (no, really) because I had to clean it inside and out last week ready for a full service and MOT (which it passed without a hitch I might add, at least once I'd changed the elastic band). However, there was so much mud from my boots in the footwell on the driver's side that nearly a dozen seedlings of various kinds had managed to germinate and were sprouting through the soil. Basically, it was an allotment on wheels! The red thing on the back seat by the way, is one of those spill-proof water bowls for dogs and NOT a porta-potty as Nobby keeps suggesting rather unkindly). Unfortunately though, it's not designed to be proof against Tess putting her foot in it as I drive along and sudden floods of water are commonplace if not somewhat inevitable!
Politicians at Home (No 7)
So many Blackbirds....and there were as many as this again sitting
The day had started well enough, although bitterly cold, very windy and wet on the more exposed hills and with the occasional heavy shower of sleet just to keep Tess and me on our toes.
The victor!
