Being some of the things I did in June that I didn’t write about …
Saturday 1
So I was thinking what a dull and dismal day it was for the beginning of June – and it was. But then when we were eating this evening there’s a jay on the peanut feeder just a couple of meters from the dining room window. He was having a good tuck in too, and extracting large pieces of nut which disappeared whole. From the plumage it was almost certainly a juvenile, probably only passing through looking for its own hang-out. Although it may well be the one I saw a couple of days ago, salvaging some peanuts from the ground under the rambler roses. We don’t see jays going through the garden very often – maybe once a year – so good to have seen this chappie.
Sunday 2
There I was this morning sitting at the dining table doing some heraldry research, and I realised the jay was outside on the nut feeder again. When suddenly down swooped the magpie, driving the jay away. The gardener later reported that there were fledgling blue tits in the trees, and the parents were also seen scolding the jay. Meanwhile the jay has emptied the nut feeder!
Monday 3
As we have for the last couple of years, we’re leaving most of the lawn to grow unmown until at least some time in July. It does look a bit scruffy, but we are gradually getting a few wildflowers back; this year we have a nice small patch of buttercups. And of course the cats love the savannah: they can melt into the long grass and sit watching and waiting for anything that happens into their jaws – luckily this is mostly hapless insects.
Tuesday 4
We still have the jay around. Seen this evening attacking the nuts in the feeder up by the house, and just 2 metres from the dining room window. Of course it flew off as soon as I stood up and got a camera!
Wednesday 5
A good afternoon round at the doctor’s. I ran a “clinic” for anyone wanting help with online access to NHS health apps etc. Only 2-3 customers, but I was glad to help them. N and I also took charge of the waiting area noticeboards again – which the patient group had managed until Covid arrived. Hard work getting them rearranged but they ended looking much tidier and more welcomingly useful. We also met one of the new receptionists, who seemed polite, cheerful and helpful to everyone.
Thursday 6
I came in at lunchtime and looked out into the garden and thought: “What is that on our odd potato plant in the border?” On my way to feed the fish in the pond I took a look. It was a head of flowers. Now I know potatoes do flower, and they’re related to tomatoes and nightshade, so the flowers are similar. My past experience of potato flowers is that they are small and like white tomato flowers. But not these! They’re a rather fetching shade of pale lavender, and huge: probably 4cm or so across. And they’re rather pretty.
Friday 7
We still have our jay around, which I find quite remarkable. I know we have quite a few trees, including an oak, and there are some others around, but I wouldn’t have thought enough to make good territory for a jay. But then it is clearly a juvenile and there’s the attraction of fast food from out bird feeders. The magpies aren’t too impressed though.
Saturday 8
Something must be wrong. I actually made some time this afternoon to do some work on my family history, for the first time in months. Not that I made any progress, but still.
Sunday 9
Blasted tomcats. Well if next door will always have unneutered females it’s to be expected. Sadly. The current local alpha male is a lean, mean, spotted and striped, dark tabby – with nuts that look large enough to be used as ping-pong balls. He’s clearly at the top of his game because we get only the odd glimpse of any other tomcat. He’s persistent; in and out of our garden many times a day; and intrudes through our cat door to mop up any food our cats haven’t finished. He’s even been known to shelter from the rain in ours; and isn’t afraid of going upstairs either! He’ll get caught out, get scared witless, and be cured sooner or later – they always do! The sad thing is that if one could remove his appendages he’d probably be a nice cat; but for now he’s a pestilence. Why can people not get their cats neutered?
Monday 10
So this is June. Really? It is definitely on the cool side for June, and intermittently very windy. We’ve not yet managed to sit outside this summer with a coffee, let alone sit out into the evening over a bottle of wine, which was our habit some years ago. And it doesn’t look as if it’s going to improve this side of the General Election. Bah! Humbug!
Tuesday 11
Blimey! Rewriting, and checking, website code is absolutely knackering. A lot of the time you can do only a couple of hours without getting a completely addled brain. I’ve spent a lot of yesterday and today (on and off) doing little except checking and correcting the formatting of a new, very large and somewhat complex set of webpages – only 50 pages! That’s after days of work to check over the content. All(!) I have to do now is run the whole lot through a spellchecker. And then, barring any further errors, I can send them off to the developers to be added to our system.
Wednesday 12
An interesting cabaret at lunchtime. Arrives the jay (not seen for a few days); it bounces from the rose onto the small apple tree near the house and starts attacking the nuts in the bird feeder. It’s beak is extracting large chunks of nut which are going down whole. After a few minutes the magpie appears, and moves the jay on. Being slightly larger the magpie is definitely dominant. Magpie sits in apple tree and thinks about getting at the nuts – well if that jay can do it, so can I. It has a go, like the jay from a handy twig as a perch, but it isn’t that much better at it than the useless pigeons. Meanwhile a second magpie has appeared to sit on the fence. Magpie 1 departs. Jay reappears, via the rose, and resumes it’s assault on the nuts. Rinse and repeat. By the third round the magpie (not sure which it was) has definitely refined its technique and is being more successful than the jay at extracting large pieces of nut. Apart from the interplay between the young jay and (more dominant) magpie(s), what was interesting was that we’ve never before seen a magpie on a bird feeder!
Thursday 13
Why did I sleep so badly last night? It took me ages to get to sleep. Then I woke up just before 4 and was awake for at least an hour. So when the alarm went off at 8.30 I struggled to wake up.
Friday 14
About 20:15 this evening, while we’re finishing dinner, arrives the local fox (well one of them; we currently have at least two). I think the dog fox. He trots up the garden, stopping midway to stare intently at something in mid-air. He came right up to the house, bold as brass, stopping at one point to look at the cat door (from about a metre away). He then went to investigate one of the apple tree tubs – the one with the bird feeder hanging in the tree. Whatever he found to eat, there was a lot of it as it occupied him for a good 10 minutes. Although N said there was a small amount of fruit there (basically just a few grapes) this would not have occupied him for more than a couple of minutes. So either he’d cached something there, or some passing squirrel had tipped half the contents of the nut basket out. The latter is not that unlikely as the local squirrels, jay, etc. have emptied it completely in two days!
Saturday 15
So you go down the garden to feed the pond fish, and there are little tweety birds everywhere – along with the ubiquitous parakeets. Totally unable to see what they are: it’s just lots of generic tweeting (so possibly young ones) and of course they’re hidden in the depths of the boscage. They’re so uncooperative, these birds.
Sunday 16
The sweet sound of children’s voices! The evening has been raucous with the local brats screaming at the top of their lungs; the parakeets doing the same; and some thoughtful neighbour running a petrol mower. There’s an excuse for the parakeets: they’re wild. Mind you the children probably are too – I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to make that much noise as a kid. And why do you need a petrol mower for a lawn 5x10m maximum which you could cut with scissors – or a borrowed goat?
Monday 17
Another of those days when you’re feeling like you didn’t sleep well (actually I probably didn’t) and someone stole all your elastic bands. So everything is an effort, mentally and physically. What a good job there’s nothing on and I can spend the day clearing up odd jobs.
Tuesday 18
On the way back from the hospital at lunchtime we’re just round the corner from home … Walking along was a young woman. OK, so what? She was tall-ish and very slim; wearing dark legs and a dark blue top. This was set off with a low crowned black straw hat with a brim about a metre wide – well it was certainly enormous! But the pièce de résistance: walking nicely at heel was a milk chocolate coloured standard poodle, beautifully clipped right down to it’s pom-pom boots! One of those occasions when you need your camera in hand and primed because you had at most 5 seconds to grab the shot.
Wednesday 19
It’s surprising how quiet it is without my hearing aids. My hearing appears to still be deteriorating so I could well be stone deaf within 10 years, if I survive that long. The problem is that you can’t properly hear the things you need to. And what you can hear is different because you’ve lost the high frequencies — so most birdsong is out, except for the lower tones like wood pigeons.
Thursday 20
A very quick trip to the hospital today to collect my repaired hearing aids. I spent more time waiting to be picked up afterwards than I did in the hospital (which was about 15 minutes, and I didn’t rush!). And more time in the taxi going and coming that actually at the hospital. Still I sat outside in the sun while waiting which was very pleasant.
Oh, and true to form, I now think it’s Friday!
Friday 21
What a lovely day. At last we get wall-to-wall sunshine and it’s hot. Too nice to be doing anything, so I mostly didn’t.
Saturday 22
The usual interesting quarterly literary society social call this afternoon. Mostly the usual suspects including attendees from Ireland, USA and Japan. A lot of discussion about the English class system, and the mobility between classes, which usually baffles the Americans.
Sunday 23
I’m not generally a fan of the small plume moths. They always seem dull and uninteresting. But the one which was sitting on our bathroom tiles this morning was, I thought, unusually large (wingspan 25-28mm) and quite prettily marked, even if in shades of beige. Probably the Common Plume, Emmelina monodactyla, which are quite variable.
Note the spurs on the legs! This evening I made sure it went back outside to live another day.
Monday 24
So now I’m fed up with this ear infection. I’ve no idea what it is but is seems to be something swollen and sore in my ear canal – and it isn’t wax. I can’t hear anything in my left ear, and it is too sore to wear my hearing aids. At least it isn’t my usual vertigo. I’m hoping it’ll go away and I won’t need to bother the doctors. It’s the more miserable because the weather is hot (at last!) and very humid.
Tuesday 25
Much as I like being warm, and I’m naturally warm, I don’t like this humidity. It’s really draining. So much so that I spent a large part of the afternoon reclining on the bed in front of the fan with all the windows open – so I managed to accomplish very little.
Oh and let’s count the last few days according to my brain:
Thursday was Friday
Friday was Saturday
Saturday was Sunday
Sunday was no day at all
Monday was Sunday
Today? Well who knows?
Yes, I know, I’m going mad!
Wednesday 26
Meanwhile today I tried to photograph this tiny little insect on the bathroom wall – why do these things always sit where they’re almost inaccessible? It’s about 5mm in size and we often see them indoors. I’m not at all clear whether it’s a micro-moth or a fly; I suspect the former from the wing markings and that this one has feathery antennae redolent of a male moth. Anyway, here’s a very poor photograph; I shall try again sometime when I have more “go” and my proper camera gear to hand.
Thursday 27
Phew! It’s a bit cooler today, which is rather pleasant, but there’s a stiff breeze. In fact the breeze was so strong that I had to shut some of the windows to stop thee through draught. But it has been nice and sunny all day. I’m still struggling with this ear and it’s annoying me; it’s still sore and slightly inflamed, and I can’t wear a hearing aid in that ear. So I’ve got a call out to the doctors. I suspect it’s an abscess and will need some antibiotics. Very annoying!
Friday 28
We’re doomed; doomed I tell you. It’s the end of June and high summer. The buddleia is in full flower, but there’s not an insect in sight. Not a butterfly. Not a bee. Not a wasp. Not even a mouldy fly. The buddleia should be buzzing with insects. The only wildlife I’ve seen today are three woodpigeons. Gawdelpus!
Saturday 29
We have a fan in the bedroom, with a remote control. Last evening the remote was playing up. So I took a look today and the batteries were so corroded I was surprised it worked at all. Mind you we’ve had the fan for some years and they’re likely the original (cheap) batteries. I cleaned it up and put in new batteries. Nothing; it will not work. Check batteries; try another pair; ensure IR receiver on the fan is clean. Still nothing. Take the remote apart; clean it some more; and in the process snap a silly little wire right at a point where I can’t resolder it. Bugger! Unusually eBay doesn’t come up with a replacement; nor does anyone else. At least the fan still works, we’ll just have to get out of bed to turn it on/off. I can’t justify a new fan just for a broken remote – which has now been stripped down for recycling.
Sunday 30
It’s the end of june, so we’re halfway through the year. Well, no, actually we’re not. Count the days: the first 6 months of the year have 181 days (182 in a leap year), and the second 6 months have 184 days. So given that this is a leap year, today is day 182 and there remain 184 days. That means tomorrow, 1 July, is day 183 and there are 183 days remaining, so midnight on night of 1/2 July is halfway through the year. And in a normal year it would be midday on 2 July.