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A touch of gold
Our garden has a wealth of wildlife: Red Squirrel, Red Fox, Hedgehog, Common Pipistrelle and over 100 species of bird have turned up over the last 17 years that we’ve lived here. Of course this means that Martin is frequently distracted from whatever he’s supposed to be doing… On Sunday he was working in the…
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Rest and recuperation; A walk in the woods 04/11/2013
Goldcrests are flitting tirelessly through the branches just overhead, Jays are leaving the edge of the wood and flying over nearby fields on strange bat-like wings, the thin high seee calls of Redwings mingle with the calls of Blackbird and Song Thrush as they head for the deepest darkest interior of the woods, seeking the…
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Great North Bike Ride 2013
After decades of struggling to find any form of exercise that I really enjoy, I started cycling in May. By June I’d modified my mountain bike with lightweight alloy wheels and slick tyres and started following a 0-100mile training plan, by July I’d bought a road bike and last Sunday I completed the Great North…
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A chance encounter
“The man sitting at Table 7 is walking the entire coastline of the mainland UK to raise money for the Alzheimers Society and Alzheimer Scotland” Chris’ comment as we arrived to spend Friday evening, as we do most Friday evenings, at The Swan suggested a customer with a fascinating repertoire of anecdotes… As Philip was…
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The passing of an extraordinary man
Most people adopt children. Somehow we adopted a cantankerous septuagenarian… When we first met Jim, eleven years ago, he was already in his 70’s, but still very active and taking long walks in the countryside and camping most weekends. Retired for over a decade at that point, he became the first Treasurer of the Friends…
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Waxwing lyrical again
One of my favourite birds eased the pain of a shopping trip to Morpeth on Saturday morning. Why a painful shopping trip?…well, going to order a pair of reading glasses was my acceptance that my eyesight (at least my near vision) isn’t what it was when I was younger. I do a lot of reading,…
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Big Garden Birdwatch 2013
Last weekend was the Big Garden Birdwatch and we followed tradition by sitting in our kitchen with a mug of coffee, and a bacon and tomato sandwich, having topped up all of the feeders the evening before. An hour later, we’d racked up a list of 21 species; Blackbird 3, Jackdaw 2, Collared Dove 2,…
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Christmas Eve
It’s become a tradition over the last few years that, on Christmas Eve, the Friends of Choppington Woods have a walk from one end of the reserve to the other. One year we finish at our house and the next at Glen and Karen’s. This year we were starting at our end of the woods…
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Local knowledge
As many regular readers of our blog will know, we have quite an affinity for our local pub The Swan at Choppington; Kirsty and Chris’s daughter, Annabel, is Sarah’s god-daughter, Northern Experience Images donated the photography for William’s calendar to raise funds for his World Challenge trip to Namibia and Botswana in 2013 (and Amy…
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A busy start to 2012
After a quiet Christmas and New Year, Tuesday saw both of us back at work. As well as updating a lot of the content on our website, Martin started preparing our monthly newsletter…and spent some time being quite domestic, making a pot of chili for our Bird Race planning meeting. The Northumberland Winter Bird Race…