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sussex-nature-lover · 3 years

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Tuesday 22nd December 2020

Our Garden Birds. Part 1

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Before I start today, did anyone manage to see the Great Conjunction last night?

It was thick cloud cover here and the only bright light in the sky was a reflection of the house Landing lights in the bathroom window. I’ll keep looking out and you never know our luck although I have to say considering yesterday was the shortest day, today is putting up some stiff competition and the sky is a sheet of grey.

Back to birds...

Long Tailed Tit on one of our feeding towers

I’ve been chatting with Ms NW tE and she’s disappointed that her venture into bird feeding hasn’t taken off like she’d hoped and she wanted to have a conversation about that and about why and when do the birds come and go, so I thought that’s what I’d write about today. It’s turning out to be long, so I’ll have to carry over to tomorrow.

Why and How to Feed Garden Birds

First off think about your budget and the amount of time you’re prepared to put into feeding your birds. Second, think about the birds and wildlife you attract into your garden and what their needs are. For example we have a large and active squirrel population and for that reason we tend to avoid feeding peanuts - the cost is just prohibitive, we wouldn’t be able to keep up with them.

We offer hanging feeders with high quality fat balls NB please do not buy the coarse,cheap ones which are less nutritious and avoid the dangerous netting at all costs, Birds can get trapped in the net, it’s a very bad idea.

We have two metal garden obelisk type towers. They’re meant as features or to support climbing plants, but we have nicknamed them Italy and France (the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower don’tcha know, No prizes for why they got those names) and we suspend ‘Squirrel Proof’ (excuse me while I convulse with bitter laughter) Fat Ball Cages from each of them.

So called Squirrel Proof feeders No offence to designers and manufacturers but this is a battle you will never entirely win.

Squirrels are skilled acrobats and endlessly determined. We’ve used an old football rattle, a saucepan and wooden spoon, a kid’s Super Soaker water gun and any manner of things to frighten them off. They work, sort of, for a while...a short while.

We’ve had squirrels chew through plastic feeders and the ones made of very sturdy wire; learn to open the top lid so we had to secure it with twine and it was a devil then to top up or refill: one little squirrel actually got INSIDE the cage and when all else has defeated them they’ve stolen feeders and taken them away never to be found.

Squirrels really do manage the most outrageous assaults on the food sources

We also offer seed in ground trays of various sizes. The large wooden one has bitten the dust though after being trampled by Deer and the small ones have proven just the right size for tiny twins.

In the end we just accept that they’re hungry and pander to them as much as we look after our birds.

This brings me to another topic, not very savoury, but to be borne in mind - bird food may attract much less desirables. You can’t choose to put out food and always see it taken by what you intend it for and worst case scenario you may find it attracts rodents. Take in food at dusk if you can, sweep up any spilled seed and if you do have an issue then you may have to stop feeding for a time.

Also top priority for bird and garden health is to keep your feeders and the feeding areas clean. Good advice can be found Here and I do recommend to diary note regularly as we all know time runs away with us on the routine tasks.

Where to Place your Feeders

Bear all these points in mind:

Sheltered

The bird table needs to be positioned where there is not too much direct sunlight or in a windy location. Birds will feel safer it is in a sheltered position.

Quiet

If possible locate in a quiet place in your garden, preferably not by a path or any other area with human traffic passing. Remember not to place the bird table too far away from your house then you can still enjoy watching the birds!

One last thing to consider, make sure the bird table is placed away from cat ambush sites including fences which cats can leap from.

Safe Location

The bird table needs to be positioned next to a bush or tree; birds will perch before landing on the bird table to ensure that is it safe for them to land on it.

Raised

A raised bird table is easier to view from your house and safer being away from predators. Most bird tables are complete with a wooden pole but you can hang bird tables from a tree.

Nuthatch particularly like Sunflower seeds and you don’t have to spend a lot of money on suitable containers

Our feeders are directly in front of the kitchen patio doors so we have great viewing from our seats at the table - this is why so many of my photos are hurriedly snatched shots taken through the glass. We’ve left the dead trunk of the palm as a kind of Totem (our name for it) as the birds do like to fly to the various trunks and perch there or queue before going on to the feeder. The palm also offers some shelter and protection from both the weather conditions and the predatory Sparrow Hawk. We have Bamboo growing in our garden and in the hot weather I’ve been known to cut branches down and use those as a natural parasol too.

A lot of our birds are so used to us now that they don’t mind our presence and are happy to come and feed while we’re around outside. Some, like the Pheasants will more or less come and ask for more supplies, indeed when we had some resident Mallards, they’d peck at the door in the mornings. The Blue Tits will flock around my Crow as he fills up the feeders. We imagine the cry going out ‘The Man’s heeeeeeeere’

Female Common Pheasant above and Male below. The record number we’ve had in the garden at one time was the Season we got up to 22 - cost a fortune in corn

Anything for Me Please?

We’ve also been very lucky that when we had Dennis and now M Flambeau visiting, they are so well fed that they didn’t bother the birds at all. Actually Dennis used to watch the wildlife like he had his own TV channel for viewing pleasure. Here he is with his own personal Christmas tree. The little birds used to come and perch in it while he sat underneath.

When he first came to live with us he would occasionally give chase to a Butler (Squirrells) or two, but he soon tired of that and saved his energies.

Attracting Birds to your Garden

Just think when the breeding season is highly active, during Springtime, your garden feeders offer a handy and easy source of food for busy parents and their hungry nestlings.

Hungry young Great Tit

In bad weather and harsh winters when natural food is scarce, feeders can be a life saver and please don’t forget to keep fresh water available at all times too.

The important things to remember are good hygiene for your birds’ safety and well being and that if you are going to feed, do it regularly as you don’t want birds wasting their energy seeking out a food source that isn’t available that day.

Much the same as humans have different tastes and diets which are based both on natural preferences and on learned or informed decisions, our animal and bird life is subject to the same. I’ve noticed how some birds learn new tastes and routines to go against type and some stick rigidly to their type. Insect eaters such as Swallows for example haven’t ventured into our feeding areas despite once nesting in our front porch in the Robin box. Robins and the bigger birds like Magpie, Jackdaw and Rooks have found it very tricky to use the hanging feeders, but have persevered and triumphed, adapting their skills and mastering them to reach a food they enjoy. Others will happily scavenge for the bits that fall below.

‘Joe’ Rook and his balancing act. Source of the Joe nickname is Here

Starlings taking advantage of the berries on the palm

Top Ten plants birds will appreciate in your garden.

Birds of all sizes can be found sharing and feeding with impeccable manners, while others like Starlings descend like a veritable plague and are noisy and ill tempered with it. It all forms part of the experience of bird watching.

(mostly) Young Starlings and Great Spotted Woodpeckers make short work of three fat balls

Our gardens are an endless source of food for Green Woodpeckers, who unlike the Great Spotted ones, feed off Ants. We just need thousands more Woodies to keep up the sterling work.

Also insect eaters, Wagtails will come only to drink, although we did have one particularly comical Pied Wagtail who we nicknamed The Inspector because he liked to patrol the ground trays and see off other birds even though he didn’t partake for himself. I believe the expression for that is Dog in the Manger

Generic internet illustration

What's the origin of the phrase 'Dog in the manger'?

The infamous 'dog in a manger', who occupied the manger not because he wanted to eat the hay there but to prevent the other animals from doing so, is generally said to have been the invention of the Greek storyteller Aesop (circa 600 BC).

We happily ascribe this expression to Aesop, disregarding the lack of evidence that he even existed.

Many of the fables that have been credited to Aesop do in fact date from well before the 5th century BC and modern scholarship doesn't give much credence to the idea that Aesop's Fables, as we now know them, were written by him at all. Accounts of Aesop's life are vague and date from long after his death and some scholars doubt that there ever was a real Aesop. If he existed at all, it was as an editor of earlier Greek and Sumerian stories rather than as the writer of them.

Nothing written by Aesop now exists in any form. Nevertheless, you can go into any bookshop and buy a copy of 'Aesop's Fables'

I never actually thought of the expression as one of the Fables. The one that always springs to my mind is that of The Tortoise and the Hare, or the Hare and the Tortoise as it appears on the link above.

The carved staircase at Thornton Hall Hotel, Wirral - with scenes from Aesop’s Fables (est c1892) We used to go often for Sunday lunch when the girls were small

Once young broods are successfully raised you might notice feeders fall out of favour for a while. The wild foods like seeds and fruits in hedgerows and spilled grains from the harvest, mean birds can assert their independence and do their natural thing. They tend to return when they need to. Long Tailed Tits are a classic example of this behaviour taking long breaks in the woods and being missed very much by us. It’s great when they return.

Birds often disappear and go ‘into hiding’ after breeding when they moult and need time to recuperate, get their strength back and replace their flight feathers, Poor worn-out things.

Feeding birds can also have a side benefit - since the G S Woodpeckers became so very fond of the fat balls, we’ve noticed attacks on the bird boxes have ceased (fingers crossed) and everyone’s happily well fed.

To be continued.

Male Woodpecker using a crack in the palm to hold steady a piece broken from a fat ball

And do remember, as I said, in both hot weather and cold, please leave fresh, clean water for the birds to drink and to bathe. You don’t need a dedicated bird bath, they’re not fussy and really do appreciate a water source.

Little and Large, or should I say very large and little. Sparrowhawk above on the bird bath and Goldfinch below.

Decorations from the Standen Courtyard Christmas Trees

Two handmade heart decorations today. I thought we could do with seeing something nice and bright and different. These two are particularly beautiful and well crafted.

December 22nd Advent Door. The ever popular Blue Tit

The Nature Watch Nativity

The Shepherds were frightened at the sight of a brilliant light in the sky, but an Angel appeared and told them they should not be afraid as there was wonderful news to share. The lowly Shepherds were the first to be told of the birth of the baby Jesus.

Christmas Hymn of Choice today from King’s College Choir, Cambridge

‘Angels from the Realms of Glory’

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#caring for garden birds feeding birds Advent decorations Christmas #Nativity Goldfinch Sparrowhawk Woodpeckers #Squirrels nature photography

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cathrynstreich · 4 years

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Tips for Your Next Virtual Happy Hour or Party

(TNS)—We have all suddenly and somewhat unwillingly been ushered into the age of the social video call.

Yes, we’ve all been on a few video conferences for work here and there—a necessary evil of remote teams and global businesses. But this is the first time we’ve all found ourselves celebrating birthdays, baby showers, engagements and even weddings with our friends and family compacted into boxes on a screen. The ink was barely dry on the shutdown orders last month before people started organizing happy hours, game nights, book clubs, watch parties, brunches and other gatherings online.

The age of social distancing has proved to be remarkably social. But there’s a bit of a learning curve to using video conferencing, even if you’ve done it for work before. The etiquette and expectations are a little different when you’re just vibing with your friends— but they still exist.

There’s a lot of overlap between pro tips for using Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts for work and with your friends.

If you’ve never joined or set up a video call before, our ultimate guide to hanging out with your friends online has instructions. Once you’re ready to attain the next level of video-conferencing capabilities, come back here.

Using your laptop is better than your phone. You’ll quickly discover that holding a phone up at face height for an extended period of time is no fun. The video and sound quality tend to be lower coming from your phone. Also, if you have your laptop set up on a table in front of you, it’s easier to eat and drink. It also makes it feel a little more natural if you need to get up—like you’re just pushing your chair back from the table at a dinner party instead of making everyone else stare at your ceiling as your phone sits face-up while you refill your drink.

With Zoom, gallery view is better than speaker video. With speaker video, the person who’s making the most noise is a big picture, while everyone else is in a little bar at the side or along the top. Speaker view makes sense when you’re watching a work presentation but feels less natural in a group setting. Sometimes, more than one person is talking, or some other noise prompts the camera to switch over, like sirens outside or a dog barking. Gallery view gives you the “Brady Bunch”-style grid where you’re all in the same sized window. To change which view you’re seeing, go to the top right of the screen and click “Gallery View.”

Muting yourself still applies. In a get-together with a couple of other friends, sure, leave yourself unmuted. But when five or more people are joining the video call, it’s polite to mute yourself when you aren’t speaking. Laptop and phone microphones pick up sound differently than our ears do. What sounds to you like the normal hustle and bustle of making dinner in the background while you listen to your friends talk might be a magnified banging and clashing to them.

To look your best, put your laptop on a stack of books and check your background before you go live. I covered this in my complete guide to working from home, but it all still applies here. Put your laptop on top of a stack of books so the camera is at about eye level while you’re sitting down. Otherwise, you risk incurring the dreaded down-facing double chin.

Your friends are going to care less about what your house looks like than your boss might, but it’s still good to tidy up before guests come over, even if they’re only in attendance virtually.

“In a sense we’ve all become set designers,” said Mark Marino, who says he’d used Zoom a handful of times before coronavirus but now uses it regularly in his job as a professor who teaches writing at USC.

Just double-check that people aren’t staring at a mountain of dirty laundry or empty cans before you click “join meeting.” An alternative: Queue up some good virtual backgrounds.

Be the host with the most.

If you’re hosting the meeting with Zoom, you’ll need to upgrade to a Pro account or have to restart the meeting every 40 minutes when the free version runs out. Google Hangouts and Skype don’t set time limits. Try to start your gatherings on time so people aren’t left hanging on the hold screen.

Also, if you’re setting it up, plan some games that take advantage of the technology instead of trying to work around it. For more on that, keep reading. OK, we’re on the call. Now what?

Social events via video conference require a bit more planning and finesse than a casual hang.

Plan things to do other things than just talking.

In a normal party setting, you’d split off and have side conversations among a few people and migrate around to different groups. Here, you have to keep a conversation going among everyone at once. That’s challenging. If you’re hosting, it might be more helpful to set an agenda so people know what to expect: “We’ll chat from 6 to 6:30-ish, then I was thinking we could (play some games / do a scavenger hunt / watch the new season of “Nailed It!” on Netflix / work on our separate crafting projects simultaneously.)”

We have a ton of ideas for that in our ultimate online hangout guide. A few to get your started: Jackbox games, virtual card and board games on Playingcards.io, or tabletop RPGs—either standbys like Dungeons and Dragons, or ones designed specifically to be played virtually, like the #ZoomJam games Mark Marino’s students have been challenged to make. Party classics like Charades, Pictionary and Bingo are easily transferable to a video call.

Another idea: Be apart, together.

Pull out your Nintendo Switches and play Animal Crossing (the ultimate game for this moment in history) at the same time. Do crafts or a DIY project. You don’t have to be actively engaging with one another the entire time to feel together. Jennifer Peepas, who writes the advice blog Captain Awkward, called it “parallel socializing.” She and her friends have logged onto Zoom to knit together.

Scavenger hunts can take advantage of your separate locations and be a fun opportunity to move around a bit. The host names an object and everyone else has a certain amount of time (say, 30 seconds) to find it in their own house. A coffee mug with writing on it. A twist tie. A sock in a color other than white. A roll of toilet paper. (Credit where credit is due: I first heard of this idea on Twitter and vowed to steal it. Mission accomplished.)

PowerPoint Parties take advantage of digital screen-sharing technology. Everyone prepares a short presentation on a topic they’re enthusiastic about, whether it’s sourdough discard recipes or obscure unsolved mysteries or reality TV contestants. Then you take turns sharing.

Know when to say goodnight.

You aren’t the only person who feels totally worn out by these. A video call requires you to be “on” and maintaining conversation and eye contact in a way you don’t have to if you’re all meeting up at a bar. Marino likened the psychic exhaustion to “encountering a dementor in Harry Potter”—it’s just a weird, soul-sucking experience. And the fact that you can see your own face all the time is frankly perturbing. Feel free to have a sticky note on hand to keep yourself out of your line of sight.

So don’t plan an all-nighter. The general rule of thumb is that the more people on the call, the shorter it should be. I have found that the one-hour-to-90-minute range tends to be the sweet spot for most online gatherings that involve more than one or two other people.

Excusing yourself from the call can be a little tricky. Most of the reasons we give to leave a social situation no longer apply. You don’t need to beat traffic. You don’t have to get home to let the dog out. You probably don’t have somewhere else you need to be (though more and more people are finding themselves double-booked for Zoom hangouts these days).

“Just say, ‘it’s time for me to take off,’ ‘time for me to go,’ that’s it,” said Lizzie Post, the president of the Emily Post Institute. She said to resist the urge to pretend you’re having technical difficulties or the WiFi is going out. Your friends will get it and probably be relieved to have an excuse to say, “You know, I’m gonna get going too.”

“Most people are going through waves of being in weird headspace of wanting to connect or not wanting to connect or needing to get things done,” Post said. “Have confidence saying things like, ‘Hey, guys, I’m gonna take off, it’s been really fun chatting with you all, see you soon.”

Peepas, the Captain Awkward advice writer, said if you don’t feel comfortable being that assertive, use some outside help: an oven timer.

“If you’re trying to keep in touch with people, you do want to talk to them but you know you don’t want to do it for an hour, set a timer in another room (for however long you’d like to talk), and then enjoy your call,” she said, “and when the oven timer goes off, just say, ‘Oh, that’s my timer! I’ll talk to you next week.'”

It creates an invisible external force that the person you’re talking to likely won’t question. Up to you whether you decide to put something delicious in the oven to bake first.

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steveramsdale · 5 years

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The “Rhymy Blog” Blog

The “ Rhymy Blog” Blog

This blog will contain an absolute first and a treat. You will hear Mairi’s voice. That’s right. You’ll have to hold on until the end, but you’ll get there. You could, of course, scroll right on down there now. I would, if I were you. You won’t know the context, but you won’t have to read the rest of blog. It’s another first as well because it’s a poem. Good things come to those who wait.

But first - I have some clearing up to do. Last week’s blog, as you know, was finished and published in a great hurry. You just don’t really know why. I will tell you. I had to go somewhere. I had to finish some business from Friday which I was unable to tell you about as it would be a long story and I had to go somewhere urgently. So, I will tell you about Friday (last Friday) today and then you’ll know why I had to go somewhere.

Fortunately, this week has been a typically, uneventful week. Therefore, having last week to tell you about means I can blog.

On Wednesday last week (I didn’t tell you about this, either, but it completes the story) we went, fairly early, to Sergili which is a huge car bazaar. There are new and old cars for sale but there are hundreds of car parts shops and stalls. We wanted to get ‘proper’ seat belts for the van. As we wandered around, my phone rang and it was Yuri, the master. He told me to come to his garage. When we arrived, he took us to the electrician and, it transpired, we could take the van. He told us there were one or two things to work on – such as the wipers only having one speed – but, after a visit to a wheel alignment place (this involved sitting in a mechanic’s workshop for about 45 minutes), we finally had the van.

When we drove away from there it was about time for some food. We went to the new shopping centre I told you about a few weeks ago. Mairi was not particularly impressed with the selection of shops but we had some nice noodles.

We then went to get new tyres. Following a recommendation, we went to a place which was on the way home, sort of. For a very reasonable price, we replaced all of the tyres and they put the best one on to the spare for us. And then, with one wrong turn, we went home.

Some of the guys at NBU – where we live – have be asking regularly about the van for all of the weeks it has been with Yuri, so, when I turned up at the gate, they were interested to have a closer look. We had to stop just inside the gate for an inspection. The security guard even wanted to drive up and down the road. We were finally home!

I had promised our friend who had helped us with the purchase and talking to Yuri, that we would take her out somewhere once it was all done, so we decided we would take a trip on Friday. With another colleague and friend, we decided we would drive to a city called Shymkent, just across the border in Kazakhstan. I spent Thursday doing a bit more tidying inside and then went to a car cleaning place down the road. They did a great job on the outside and took off another layer of dirt on the inside, in the front. So we were all set for the trip.

We picked up Viktoriya first, then went to fill the tank before picking up Kate. I had thought that this was the best order but I don’t think it was. However, we were then on the road, spirits were high and the chatter flowed. There seemed to be a set of red traffic lights every 50 metres but, before to long were reached the border. Just before the actual Uzbek border, there was a barrier across the road. I had to take my passport in to a little booth where a police man wrote my details in a log book. Then we went to the actual border. My passengers went to the border control for people on foot and then I was summoned there, too. So we all got through there with no problem. I then drove the car to the car-checking point. It turned out that I should not have gone to the other border control but that error was easily fixed. After about 15 minutes, my vehicle and its contents had been checked and we drove about 200 metres to the Kazakh border. A very similar process was followed here and, without any mistakes we were allowed in to Kazakhstan.

Finally it seemed that the actual road-trip could begin. We all settled for the 120km drive to the city. We soon reached a motorway with a pretty good surface and settled in to our cruising speed. However, here the fun ends! Without warning hot water suddenly shot out from under the dashboard and steam covered the windscreen. I could see enough to pull over to the hard shoulder and we all got out. Despite not be an expert; I knew that something was wrong. I thought that the radiator must have ‘broken’. We looked at the engine, which revealed nothing obvious. I took off the front grill to discover that the radiator was cold. This was very strange. None of us had any data connection. I tried calling Yuri who, coincidently I knew was in Kazakhstan, but he did not answer. After a few minutes, a young man stopped to see if we needed help. He was either a mechanic or he knew a lot about engines. He told us that the problem was with the heater. He disconnected the pipes and tried to seal them with the few resources available. Kate and Viktoriya were, obviously, the translator but they said he was not a fluent Russian speaker. He would not take any money but recommended that we should find somewhere for better repairs. We decided that turning around was the best option – I really wanted some sort of recovery vehicle but we had no way of contacting anybody. We had about three litres of water so we added this to the cooling system and set off looking for a chance to u-turn.

After a couple of km, we could and so headed back the way we had come. After a very short time we could all smell that we were over-heating and so I stopped again. We could see that water was still coming out of the pipes the man had disconnected. Soon a people-carrier stopped. The driver produced a tow-rope. He was clearly a taxi driver with a full vehicle. His passengers complained so he left. Then two more men stopped and also had a good look at everything, both leaning over the engine with lit cigarettes in their mouths and the engine running. They could offer no further help other than about three litres of water and the empty bottle. While they were there, the taxi driver came back but soon left again. This whole thing was getting frustrating. We could see buildings not to far away so we decided to drive there slowly and get water and to then drive/wait/refill with water/repeat back to the border or to find more help in that process. This is what we did. We had to change money as we had no tengi, we bought some water and got some tap water. So, with the water tank filled again, we set off.

After another 5km or so, we stopped at a road-side café. There were some sinks outside the toilets so we refilled the water bottles. We also decided we should eat as it was past lunchtime anyway, we needed to let the engine cool and we didn’t know if we would get the chance again. I don’t really have time to tell you that I ordered plov. Will the other finished eating, I went to refill the water and I tried to improve the seal on the pipe I could see hanging down. I was not very successful.

We made one more water stop and then were able to reach the border. Every time we stopped, somebody would point to the water leaking from under the front of the van. At the border I chatted to some men who were very interested in it. We were told we could go through the Kazakh border. Kate and Viktoriya had gone to a little bazaar next to the gates and we could not contact them but decided they would realise where we had gone and we would see them at some point, so we drove to the gate and were aloud through. It did not take too long to get through the Kazakh side again. The foot passengers again went their way and I went to the same man who had let me in. At the check point the man asked for a document I didn’t have. He said I should have been given it on entry. He took me back in and the matter was discussed. It seems that they decided that as I had not been given it they would not bother about it!

All was going well. Re-united, again we drove towards the Uzbek border, 200 metres or so away. We joined a queue of around 20 vehicles. Kate and Viktoriya came to the van and we recommended that they walk across the border and get a taxi the 15km back to Tashkent. They insisted that they would stay with us in case we needed translation and because we were in this together. I wonder if they regretted that decision at any point! There were two line of vehicles – cars on the left and trucks and lorries on the right. They were alternating who was let through but the process, it emerged, was unbelievably slow. They were letting three cars at a time through the gate or three or four lorries. The gates would then shut for 40 – 60 minutes. I counted that we were the twelfth car at one point. A number of times we told our friends that they could/should go but they would not. I even said that Mairi should go with them, she absolutely would not. And so the wait continued. Three cars – a void. Some trucks. A void. Three cars. There was a woman selling somca car to car. There were people climbing through the fence separating the two sides of the road. The road was a bridge. One young woman walking across threw some rubbish – food wrapping – in to the river. Another young woman was waiting on the bridge. A young man joined her with shopping bags. She opened the packaging on some bed sheets and looked at them. An older woman (the mother of one over them) joined them. The young woman put the bedding in her bag and the older woman threw the packaging in to the river.

After about four hours, we were in the ‘next three cars’ group. There had been a little drama when a people carrier that had been in the lorry lane arrived at the front of that line. People objected. He was sent to the back. This will have added another three or four hours to his day!

Finally, the gate opened. Car one went through. Car two went through. I drove – car three – the guard held up his hand, stopped me and closed the gate. I was a little disappointed. I even went to argue with him! He would not look at or speak to me.

We waited again. Of course, the gate eventually opened and we again joined a queue. This time we were not leaving Uzbekistan but entering. So the bureaucracy was turned up to ‘Soviet’ on the bureaucracy meter. I had to go from window to window to show passports, get pieces of paper, take the paper to another window to get it stamped, go to a different room to get the next piece of paper for someone else to look at and stamp and finally go back to the original window for everything to be looked at again. There was a form to be filled in, of course. All of this was done with Uzbek men who have never heard of ‘a queue’ and push, reach over and generally try to get in front of everybody else. At last it was time to check the car. This was done fairly quickly (if taken apart from the entire process). We could load up and drive back in to the country. Of course, the man at the last gate asked to see our passports. May be he didn’t know what all the other people working there were doing!

If you cast your mind back to our arrival at the border in the morning (it was now almost mid-night), you will remember the road block and the little hut. We again pulled up there. A car was coming through the other way. It went passed and the police man closed the gate. He then looked at me, expecting me to get out with my passport. I am not sure how my expression looked to him - I did not feel pleased – but he opened the gate again and waved me through!

At the first likely-looking spot I stopped. I was not happy about leaving the van and suggested I sleep there and sort things out in the morning. Mairi would not hear of this. We summoned a taxi and all headed back to Tashkent.

This brings us to last Saturday morning and the unfinished blog. I woke up early and got a taxi back to the van. I had got a rescue service number and arranged to be rescued home. This was fairly easy – sending a map of my location using my phone. During this process I though I had lost my passport, to put the hat on the whole thing. I had not. I had handed it to Mairi after one of the 400 people who needed to see it had looked at it.

On Sunday, the same recovery vehicle picked me up and took me back to Yuri who, after much looking and chuntering and testing decided that I may have damaged the head or head gasket. A fairly big job. So, I am again with out a vehicle. I bought the van in January, I have driven it fewer than 10 times and have yet to drive myself to work! The 5,000-mile drive home looks like a trip to Mars at the moment!

As I told you, this actual blog week we largely uneventful. One important thing that happened was a plov lesson. Another lovely friend and colleague took us to Chorsu bazaar. Mairi wanted to buy an Uzbek jacket and knew we could get a better deal with a local friend helping negotiate. She also took to to all of the stalls we needed to visit to buy plov ingredients. She then brought us home and showed me her family plov recipe. We then ate the meal, together, with bread and salad. That cheered me up no end after my murder of the van.

I have to include one ‘funny thing kids say’ feature before you hear from Mairi. Like lots of schools, this year we introduced a ‘Lockdown’ procedure. This is a drill for if there is an intruder. We all have to go in to a room, lock the door and hide. We have had two practices. On Thursday, one of my girls asked if we would be having another Lockdown drill. I said that I didn’t know, teachers were not always told if there would be a drill so it seemed like the real thing. She went on to tell me that it was her “favourite” of the drills! I did not know students ranked the drills by preference.

So what is Mairi’s contribution? It’s a poem. This was written in the queue. I hope you enjoy it. let us know if you would like a regular poetry section in the blog. I don’t think it rhymes, the blog title is misleading.

Bye for now.

At the border

Time has no meaning

It goes at its own pace

Which Is Slow

At the border

Pedestrians move in minutes

And vehicles in hours

Endlessssssssssss...........

Hoursssssssssssss..........

At the border

Reality isn’t

Hope is dashed

Home seems

A long forgotten promise

At the border

The men in green

Hold all the power

And we

Can do nothing

But wait........

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