No, honestly, there IS room for your file and me while you work. Don't mind my foot on the keyboard.

Ed called me to the dining room window this morning
"Quick! There's a duck on the bird nuts!"

Now I know those webbed feet are ideally suited to clinging on bird feeders, but I somehow didn't think he could be right.

He knew it wasn't a duck on second glance, but it was a bird we had never befoore seen at close quarters, and a brand new visitor to our garden. It was a Greater Spotted Woodpecker!

It soon flew off to the tall trees in the gardens nearby, but we were thrilled that it has re-appeared at intervals throughout the day for more nuts.

I hope it becomes a regular visitor.

PS. Let me hasten to confess the lovely picture, although exactly as it appeared, was not mine. I stole it from here.

Auntie Glad died on Thursday. She was 87 and was apparently sitting on her sofa having a bit of a sit down before she gathered the energy to go to bed, having just come home from a party!

Gladys Doughty was born in September 1919 in Everton, her parents having married in January the same year. There were unspecified complications - there were no further children for 5 years, and Gladys went to live with her paternal grandparents until she was 14.

She loved living on Everton Terrace - her grandfather was a comfortably off ship's butcher, living in a refined household with servants and Gladys learned the piano and went to Sunday school, and had nice clothes.

Her father, however, was the black sheep of the family - a ne'er do well drinker and gambler, who went to sea on the ocean going liners of the White Star line and frequently jumped ship in America and stayed away from home for months on end, leaving his wife struggling against destitution with eventually 8 children to feed.

In 1933, when Edna the fifth child was born, her mother sent for Gladys to come home and help. It was a severe culture shock for refined Gladys, reduced to a slum terrace without bathroom or running hot water and she bitterly resented the little sisters she was home to look after - especially as they grew up and started raiding her make-up, stockings and hard earned best clothes! They all became friends when they grew up, but Auntie Jean will tell you now what a witch Glad was to them when they were young. My sympathies were always with Gladys!

As a teenager she had a few run ins with her father, who wanted to restrict her outings. She would have none of it. One night, returning from a party that she had had her mother's permission to attend, her father was waiting up for her and threatened to beat her with his belt, whereupon she threw a dinner plate at him and promised she'd have him arrested if he did. He capitulated - he told her he washed his hands of her, and told her mother that with her strength of character "If anyone's touched her, she's let them" - in other words she wouldn't be taken advantage of!

She married Robert Rackstraw, a nightclub singer, after the war, and travelled the country with him, watching his gigs. He too was a gambler, and sometimes they travelled in limos and she wore furs, and sometimes they didn't! After quite a few years of this life, they decided to settle down and returned to Croxteth, where she had three sons in fairly quick succession and became a doting mother.

She was hard working all her life - acting as housekeeper for the local Catholic Priests for a long time, despite being a casual protestant herself. "It's alright" she would say "I promised not to try and "turn" them." She was the designated family home after her parents died, and often had one or more of her younger brothers living with her over the years, as well as her own brood. She enjoyed their company and blamed the untidiness of her home on them. She still did, after they all left! Mind you, she always swore it had only got like that just before your arrival and it wasn't its usual state.

In the course of time she became a dedicated Nanna as well as Mum, and was devastated when her firstborn grandson, young David, died of a brain tumour when he was only 10 years old. This horror revisited years later when her youngest son Allan suffered with the same malady; fortunately, he was successfully operated on and cured.

When as a widow, things got too much for her to cope with, Gladys went to live in Moore's House in Walton, a lovely old persons' community dwelling, where she had her own flat and facilities within the dwelling, but could also make use of the community dining room and entertainment, and a maid service.

With her lively humour, friendly nature and optimistic outlook on life, she soon made lots of friends there and her final years were very happy. She even had some elderly suitors, but she declared she was a "born-again virgin" and finished with all that! This same cheerful character brought much laughter and fun into the lives of all who came into contact with her, and she will be sadly missed.

It was a chilly, damp day - perfect running weather, actually, though not so pleasant for the supporters, who turned out anyway, as they do.
I met up with the rest of our school team, most of whom were walking, but then Irene and I separated off to the runners patch.
We didn't make the same mistake as last year, when we put ourselves towards the back of the running field, only to find that most people had overestimated their speed, and we had to manouevre our way through walkers who had thought they might run a bit. We went near the front, just making way for women who looked fitter and meaner.
Unfortunately, Irene had a bad cold and was struggling with her breathing, but we found the going better and managed to maintain a steady pace throughout.
We didn't break our 30 minute target because of Irene's lungs, but we knocked a good 3 minutes off last year's time and came home in just over 34 mins.
It was a good day. Thanks to all my sponsors, offline as well as online, I far exceeded my target, so I'm really pleased.

Remembering Edna, Iris, Dorothy, Mary and too many others.

My sponsorship page

cutting up the peace of the Sunday morning, racing about, calling and shrieking to each other.
I noticed the extra activity as soon as I stepped out of the house to go and fetch the morning paper, and then one swooped practically in front of my nose, giving me a good look at him.
Yes, the swifts are here again. It must be summer!

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a Princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

Mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.

This one isn't so funny - Ed spent the 1980's building power transmission stations in Iraq and Kuwait that were all flattened during the Gulf Wars.

To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Two engineering students together. One asked, "Where did you get such a great bike?"
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."
The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fitted you anyway."

This wasn't one of the trees we saw today; it's in Banstead Woods, but of course I didn't have my camera handy this morning. We were en route to Four Elms for the hash, and went through some glorious tree tunnels.
I tried to find a picture online, but none had quite the solidity of tunnel I was looking for, and yet the leaves were fresh and light, some in particular almost lemon coloured - stunning.
It reminded us of our time in Cairo - not that Egypt could ever achieve quite that shade of green; but still, Spring there was beautiful too, especially when the jacarandas were in blossom. Which they were on the day we thought of, when we took a bunch of Somali refugee children out for a picnic in the desert, and passed through leafy suburbs they had never seen. They were open mouthed with amazement and some even said it was the best part of the day for them.
The link was formed because of some shocking news we have heard about a child of our acquaintance; we both felt such a contrast between the glories of nature and the bleakness of some city lives...

Some of my blog friends are posting pictures of their kids. I often post ones of mine, but here's another favourite, just to be sociable!