In the last week we’ve had a few days out with clients, but gentle, short walks birdwatching\u00a0in Druridge Bay, southeast Northumberland\u00a0and on Holy Island\u00a0rather than the somewhat more strenuous treks into the Cheviots or the North Pennines.\u00a0 I can’t currently use the exercise bike when I’ve got a day in the office – because I broke one of the\u00a0pedals.\u00a0 Yesterday though, I managed to find an activity which, after 2 hours left me barely able to move…<\/p>\n
I’d had a good day, stayed focused, achieved (almost) everything on my daily task list and decided to start preparing things for this coming Friday’s pelagic (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday daytime are already booked with clients).\u00a0 First task was to strip, clean, oil and re-assemble our chum grinder.\u00a0 Then the bulk of the ‘chum’; prepare 3.5kg of popcorn…that’s 35 large pans full of the stuff.\u00a0 I dropped the pan lid on myself, along with some sizzling hot oil, but not to worry…it’s a purposeful activity.<\/p>\n
Then a brief detour into a very important task; Sarah’s on her way home from work and it’s my turn to cook.\u00a0 Having checked the contents of the freezer, the fridge and the cupboards earlier in the day I decided that the all-new efficient Martin was going to serve up something special;\u00a0 Guineafowl breast, stuffed with mozzarella and chorizo, wrapped in streaky bacon and served on a bed of couscous and roasted vegetables.\u00a0 More by good luck than good judgement, everything was\u00a0ready at the same time.\u00a0 Then I cleared away the dishes, did the washing up, cleaned all the kitchen work surfaces…have I been taken over by aliens \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Then to the real work of preparing the ‘chum’.\u00a0 Slowly, painstakingly, just a few handfuls at a time all that popcorn needed to go through the grinder.\u00a0 Sarah did some work in the office, I was grinding popcorn.\u00a0 Sarah went for a 5km run, I was still grinding popcorn.\u00a0 Eventually, after 2 hours, it was all done.\u00a0 Moths<\/em><\/strong> were swarming around the patio, Common Pipistrelles<\/em><\/strong> were swishing close by my head, Red Foxes <\/em><\/strong>were calling in the woods behind the house and it was so dark that I could only just see to find my way around the garden.\u00a0 I added a mixture of oils to the popcorn, put the lid on, and there it will sit until Friday evening when it will be put to use as we continue our quest for petrels<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the last week we’ve had a few days out with clients, but gentle, short walks birdwatching\u00a0in Druridge Bay, southeast Northumberland\u00a0and on Holy Island\u00a0rather than the somewhat more strenuous treks into the Cheviots or the North Pennines.\u00a0 I can’t currently use the exercise bike when I’ve got a day in the office – because I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,107,5,139],"tags":[250,328,329,847],"class_list":["post-644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-family-and-friends","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-common-pipistrelle","tag-pelagic","tag-petrels","tag-red-fox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}