What I did on my holidays…

Oh my, the heavens just opened outside and its raining and stormy here in London right now, but last week I was many miles away from all of that… Read more

The Heart Shaped Stone

Last weekend R’s niece found a heart shaped stone in the earth while we were out walking. I was just going to post the picture with no text at all but it struck me as a symbol for something that’s been pecking at my head for some time now. Read more

Eggs at breakfast

This morning I was having a late breakfast when Mrs Blackbird came to her nest. I’ve learned a lot about blackbirds since she chose our window-box as a nursery. One thing I’ve learned is that they only start brooding their eggs (sitting on them) full time once they have laid the whole clutch. The rest of the time, they only visit the nest occasionally, and then usually only for one thing! So I was pretty clued up when she settled deep into the nest and started fidgeting about. I had already checked the nest out this morning – it contained one shiny blue egg. When she left the nest about an hour and a half later, I was delighted but not too surprised to see this…

What makes me especially happy is that I actually saw her laying the new egg! I suspect that I also saw her laying the first egg the day before, I just diddn’t know what I was looking at at the time. lets take a closer look…

I’m filled with anticipation as to how many she will lay. I also look forward to her brooding the eggs full time, as I love working at the kitchen table with her just across from me. We are very companionable together.

Giant Plastic Insects!

I love ‘em!!!

Baby Birds

Remember how in this post I described how a pair of blackbirds had nested in our window-box? Well at last I can update you on their progress.Three of the four eggs hatched into scraggy, blind and naked chicks that looked no bigger than a couple of centemetres long. Mother blackbird kept them warm and safe by sitting on them till she decided they were big enough, at which point she was able to leave the nest for more than a few seconds at a time, and I was able to snatch these pictures. She wasn’t really bothered by me at all, I’d be working at the kitchen table, she’d be brooding the chicks, we were just a couple of inches away from each other. The chicks were completely used to me too, the male however diddn’t like the look of me at all and muttered to himself crossly whenever he caught a glimpse of me. The chicks grew at a phenomenal rate and before long they were far too big for the nest, and spent a lot of time sitting on the edge, scratching, preening and stretching. I imagine it was very hot and itchy in the nest once they got so big.

They are well and truly wedged in here…

This little fluffy butt is completely squashing his siblings, no wonder they were in a hurry to leave! Yes, sadly they all flew the nest this weekend over the space of a couple of days. I actually saw the biggest one (pictured above) fledge while I was eating my breakfast, it just did a kamikaze dive straight out of the nest, hit the wall opposite, and plummeted flailing into the bushes below. I was very anxious about the little guy, but baby birds are tougher than they look and he was actually fine. Another one did the big jump while we were out on the town, and the final chick made a break for freedom on Sunday morning. I thought I would never see them again, but they are now living in thick undergrowth at the bottom of the garden. Baby blackbirds fly no better than I do when they leave the nest, so they are still dependant on their parents for food and protection until their adult plumage has grown and they are strong enough to look after themselves. it seems very harsh and completely crazy – apparently mortality rates are very high. However I’m hoping that our blackbirds will reach maturity, and I’ll keep eagerly watching them in our garden till they’ve grown.

Whiplash girls ride again!

Those of you who were shopping at Liquorice-Allosaurs this Christmas may remember my alternative Christmas decorations. Well, a customer who had been browsing the product archives asked if I might not revive the design in the form of brooches – of course I jumped at the chance! They are wooden with sturdy glittery polyclay wings and completely handpainted.

These lovely ladies are available now – and I will be making necklaces in a similar vein so keep your eyes peeled….


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Pre-easter eggs

It really feels like spring now. I’m enjoying the blue sky, burgeoning hedgerows, birds all shouting at each other, and best of all the blackbird on our kitchen window ledge, who has stoically sat on her eggs for over a fortnight, has been rewarded today with three scraggy nestlings. The fourth, beautiful, sky blue egg has yet to hatch. I don’t look too often for fear of scaring the parents off but when mum takes a rest break, I have a little peek. Sorry it’s a lousy pic – even when I pull the curtain away it still reflects off the glass and makes it hard to see details. But just look at the blue of that egg.

For about the first week the mother sat like a stone, so very still I only knew she was there because I’d already seen her. Recently she started fidgeting about on the nest and very recently she started calling softly to the chicks still in the egg – I am guessing they could hear and reply to her, as unhatched chickens can. Watching the whole process while I work at the kitchen table only a couple of feet away from her has been very moving – quite an intimate experience of a wild animal for an urbanite like me.

It’s spring!!!

Leaning against a farmyard gate during a weekend stroll, we were admiring a happy pig in his mud wallow when the farmer appeared from an outbuilding and asked if we would like to see the lambs. Thinking he would just lead us to another field where his sheep would be grazing, we diddn’t know what a treat we had in store!

He led us into the lambing pen where expectant mothers, new mums and their newborns are kept. Laying with their mothers on a thick bed of straw we saw lambs only a few hours old.

This lady had twins the previous night…

This little one was only born a couple of hours before I took the picture. Shall we take a closer look?

But most precious of all was this little one. What we diddn’t know when the farmer appeared and invited us in was that a little lamb had just been born. The mother had a difficult time, and the farmer had to help her out. He’d just stepped out of the lambing pen when he saw us and invited us in. I think he was very releived and proud and wanted to show off mother and baby. Without his help they might not have made it.

It was very moving to see this tiny scrap of life being gently nuzzled by its mother. It was six minutes old.

Amsterdam

So at the beginning of this month I was lucky enough to do a little travelling. Check out my pics from Amsterdam!

Bikes are everywhere, I wish I’d done a whole photo essay on the cheerfullness of a city that travels by bike. People cycle about with big buckets full of kids, furniture, the weekly shopping and each other while chatting on their mobile phones and missing one another by millimetres. I never saw anything even approaching an accident though. If the first thing you can remember is being scooted along on the front of your parents bike, your sense of speed and balance must be phenomenal.

It’s hard to get across just how ridiculously pretty the whole place is

Almost chocolate box sweet and yet quirky, with quite and edge.

The window of a completely bonkers shop. The window shopping was divine; alas as we had spent all our money on the trip its-self, window shopping was all it could be. However with window shopping this good it’s hard to complain.

It ranged from kitsch…

…to rather more expensive kitsch…

…to mind bendingly kitsch…

…to the downright terrifying!

I took this in our favorite bar, during the week it’s pretty quiet but from Thursday onwards it’s packed and super friendly. The landlord is really smiley and has the best handlebar mustache ever. I was to shy to photograph him, so check out the lager and the weird lock winding mechanisms you can see out of the window.

Hot chocolate with a neat gin chaser? That’ll be Pat Allosaur’s order then!

Winter Wonderland!

Today it SNOWED!!!!! For those of you who live in naturally snowy lands this may not seem like a big deal, but here in London it certainly is. It wasn’t just me who bunked off work to go sledging either, seems like the whole of north London turned out to this hill for some fun.

Here’s the view as we approach the hill to Alexandra Palace, it was snowing really thickly! Lots of schools had to close for the day because teachers couldn’t get into work, so there were kids snowballing everywhere

These kids made a snowball so big and heavy that they couldn’t move it any more.

Sledging from the top of the hill

Alexandra Palace in the snow

It was gorgeous, I took so many pictures it was hard to decide which to post. We had a lot of fun sliding down the hill on tea trays, bits of wood and stuff, got absolutely soaking but who cares, we had a blast!

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