More than a murmur...

One of my favourite winter poems is 'December' by Carol Ann Duffy. It begins ' The year dwindles and glows to December's red jewel...' and there is a definite nip in the air today, a tell tale sign that winter is on its way.

So is the sight of hundreds of starlings beginning to flock together. We have a group that took up residence yesterday in the field next door and they spent most of the day feeding and flying in an out of the ash tree in my garden. As you know, the collective noun for starlings is 'a murmuration' .When they all get together and make their incessant noise it is more than a murmur! It is deafening. There have been more today but they usually decamp to the farm down the road where they gather in their thousands. As the nights shorten they will fly over the garden at roughly the same time every afternoon on their way to a roost in the reed beds of the River Cleddau about 4 miles away. We don't get to see those huge moving swarms that you see on television but I still get a thrill at the sight of hundreds of them speeding past.

Starlings are an official 'red list' species and this means they are a special case for conservation. When you've grown up with them it is hard to believe that their numbers have declined by over 70 % in recent years and that they need our protection. I hope I shall see lots of them in December, when, as the poem says, 'the sky blushes and lays its cheek on the sparkling fields....'

Save the Albatross this Christmas please...

I have spent most of today catching up with my commitment to 'Combat Stress'. I realised I was way behind on my promise to use the fabric I was given and make items for sale this Christmas so I've been beavering away making cushion covers, peg bags and tea cosies. I am happy to support the charity this way and when I received our first Christmas card (what!) it reminded me of another charity and a request I'd like to make. The card above was my home made Christmas card from last year and yes, along with obsessions about beetles, moths, butterflies and buttons I also have a thing about stamps and about birds.

So, for the past few years I have been saving my stamps for the RSPB's Save the Albatross campaign. Friends and family know what I'm doing and keep me steadily supplied all year round with their British and foreign stamps. Once I have a large envelope full I send them off quite regularly and start all over again. If the Christmas cards are on the way there is no better time to start saving them. Even if it's only for Christmas, your stamps will make a difference. It's the one time of the year after all when we are guaranteed to get lots of post!

These beautiful creatures spend years wandering the seas only returning to land to form bonds and mate, which they do for life. With wingspans of up to 11 feet these wonderful birds can live up to 50 years old. In the myths of the sea the albatross used to be seen as a good omen unless one was harmed and then the luck turned bad. In sea lore they were said to be the souls of lost sailors.

Every species of albatross is facing extinction and numbers have plummeted worldwide. This is due in the main to long-line fishing practices. The birds are killed on hooks meant for fish, for no reason at all. They also die from ingesting the tons of plastic flotsam that the sea is riddled with. It is a sorry tale and if this majestic bird was lost for future generations it would be a crime not to have contributed to the fight to save them in some small way. Have a look at the link to the campaign and please think about saving those stamps this Christmas. Thanks.

Birthday Present

Yesterday was my birthday. As usual on a Wednesday I drove up to Bristol to spend the day with my Mum. The journey takes about 2 and a half hours each way and either flies by or seems neverending when the weather is foul. Last night wasn't too bad but it was very very windy so concentration was intense. I got home feeling really tired and opened the pile of cards that had arrived during the day.

Whilst it's lovely to hear from your friends and family my best surprise came with the envelope I received from Jill at Third Age Musings. The other day I was lucky enough to be picked out of the bag in her giveaway of these lovely ATC's. They are just great and really made my day. Thank you Jill.

Unplanned activity

Yesterday morning I was reading Donna's latest post at layers. I go there to see her wonderful collage work and she writes about how her work is planned, posing the question - what do others do? Now, I am not a great work planner but I felt inspired by her words to do something creative, hence the walk in my wellies up to my workshop... where I found the badger activity.... c'est la vie.

Anyway, I'd had this idea about screenprinting some cards or tags for Christmas a while ago so just made a paper stencil, got out some card, chose the paint and hey presto, I had a couple of sheets of prints. After finding some ribbon that matched (sort of) I cut them up, stamped over the top, attached the ribbon and had enough tags to stock a shop! After finishing these I came back to the house and received a phone call from my friend suggesting we meet for a coffee in Tenby this morning. At the end of the call she jokingly reminded me to bring the peg bag I was supposed to be making for her. This has been a running joke for a few weeks but, fired with energy, I picked up the fabric I'd put by for her and made the bag in less than an hour.

I was on a roll by now and had to do something else. The peg bag material was one of the £1 remnants I bought ages ago and I rooted around in my box (crate....) of fabric and found another sample I bought last year in a sale for £1 too. I'd bought a piece of silk from the charity shop for 50p and was going to use that for the lining. I'd already cut out all the pieces to make a bucket handbag but I'd moved on to another idea by the time it came to sew it. See what I'm like? Butterfly brain.

Anyway, I decided to finish it there and then. I already had all the bits like the handle and magnetic catch so all I had to devote was my time. It only took me a couple of hours and I'm really pleased with the result. It might make an aceptable gift for someone.

As I bought the fabric last December and cut it out in March, does sewing it up in November count as planned activity or is it simply procrastination? I've got a long way to go to organise myself better but I had a very productive day nonetheless. Thanks for the spur to action Donna.

Come dine with me... or us....

Pembrokeshire is at the heart of a controversial plan to cull some of its badger population in a bid to get rid of bovine TB. I don't pretend to understand the whys and wherefores of it and know it can be an emotive subject whichever side of the fence you're on.

We've lived in our current house for over eight years and despite lots of evidence of badger activity we have never actually seen them in our garden. As most of our garden used to be a field and as we're surrounded by farmland we see their runs everywhere but they've never really troubled us unduly - until today.

A couple of weeks ago my husband planted over 300 crocus bulbs because he read how much bees flock to the pollen they offer. In readiness for next Spring he spent a few hours planting near his hives. Today, I ventured up the garden for the first time since this terrible rain started and I noticed that the badgers have decimated the garden near the hives. ALL of his crocus bulbs have been dug up and are gone! There are great holes in the ground, made by some very powerful paws and divots of grass are everywhere.

I told him the news when he got home expecting despair and exasperation. I should have known better. My husband is such a pragmatist and says that if the bulbs gave the badgers a much needed feed in this awful weather then so be it. I hope the powers that be that have to decide on the cull can be just as pragmatic.

Book at Bedtime

I was really restless last night and couldn't seem to settle to anything. As I was sorting through the piles of paper I seem to accumulate some crows that I'd cut from a children's story book fell on the floor. I take these things as a sign and think they tell me to get on with something! On my kitchen windowsill (where else?) was a piece of watercolour paper I'd dyed in some tea for another idea and next to it was a strip I'd cut off for some reason. This is now about 10.00pm but I daubed another bit of watercolour on top, let it dry, folded it , attached my birds and then scribbled some hastily thought up words. It sounds like gibberish when I read it now but last night it seemed quite good.

When I got up this morning I found some scrap paper for the cover. The other week I bought a book on learning to type in a charity shop because I thought those letters would come in handy. Trouble is they are so small they are impossible to cut out but I can live with the rough look. It's either that or take more time over things but when I get an idea in my head I don't always pause for quality control sadly. In about 15 minutes I had my 'crow story' accordion book.

For some reason I cannot make this look bigger to enable you to see the text. On second thoughts, given that it's gibberish, that's not a bad thing!

Christmas List

I have just come home after spending a week looking after my dear Mum . She has rallied well after a sudden chest infection knocked her for six. When you're away from home all of your routines go out of the window don't they? Still, it gave me time to search for the books I might want to put on my Christmas list. 'Birds' by the photographer Andrew Zuckerman will be a must. Using his trademark white background he has produced a visual study of birds ranging from the common to the endangered. This video just gives a taster but I know the book will definitely be on my list. Look and enjoy.