Fantastic, my Bike voucher has arrived, I can buy my bike now. Rang the shop, out of stock, won’t be getting it now until after Glastonbury. I’ve ordered a racing bike, millions of gears and carbon fibre forks, I can pick it up with my little finger. All road users, you have been warned, here comes Tour de Buckinghamshire with team Blasdale Tour in his yellow jersey.
Category Archives: Buckinghamshire
Wotton Underwood open day and Tony Blair’s pad
The country residence of Tony Blair, the Wotton fete on his back door.
Tony Blair's spy camera, monitoring who enters by the back gate.
Back view of Tony Blair's house
Visited Wotton Underwood for their open day. Looked around a few of the gardens, participated in teas and cakes and purchased a few items at the book/bric-a-bracstall. Alas this year the
trains were not running.
We had a tour around Wotton House, guided by the owner. This gave us excellent views into Tony Blair’s garden. Alas all we saw where two rather bored armed policemen enjoying the sunshine. Rosemary said she didn’t think much of them as garden ornaments. Tony Blair and Cherie Blair were not is residence at their country pad.
You are my Little Bird
Greenfinch at the feeder
Trying out some action shots with my new Canon EOS 550 on the local bird population. (Feathered variety alas.) One wonders with all those extra pixels whether a new pro lens is in order. Looks like I will have to keep on working a while.
Some more wildlife at the local oasis.
Needless to say, as soon as I went indoors, two pairs of Goldfinches arrived, but not the Greater Spotted Woodpecker who is often to be seen on the peanuts. We’ve also had Long Tailed Tits who were charming. The Greenfinches are highly aggressive and bad tempered.
Cold sweeps Buckinghamshire
Wednesday produced another inch of snow during the day. Not a nice day, always overcast, few photo opportunities. As evening came, the sky started to clear and the mercury plummeted. I have not seen minus 10 for many years. The wood burner definitely had to be run a little higher last night to keep the house warm.
This morning Rosemary went to work, she did have to walk the last few hundred yards. Steve attempted to go to work, but failed the steep hill out of the drive onto the main road. So yet again he is WFH in this ski clothes. Given a chance the camera may be aired.
Snow at last
Yesterday it started to snow at around five in the afternoon. Today we have six inches of snow, measured with a ruler and measured in several places on flat hard ground away from walls. This is not a Blasdale exaggeration, so no need to divide by 2. Nice fluffy snow because the temperature is still below freezing.
I hope the sun will come out so I can get some nice photographs, but for the moment here are some I have taken.
Snow scene taken in Kingswood, Buckinghamshire on the 6th January 2010 after overnight snow fall of 6 inches.
Snow scene taken in Kingswood, Buckinghamshire on the 6th January 2010 after overnight snow fall of 6 inches.
Snow scene taken in Kingswood, Buckinghamshire on the 6th January 2010 after overnight snow fall of 6 inches.
Plough and Anchor, Kingswood, Buckinghamshire on the 6th January 2010 after overnight snow fall of 6 inches.
The weather
As soon as it gets a little cool, and that white stuff falls from the sky, chaos ensues. Here in the UK we have had some snow, I am sure you have all heard of Eurostar and fluffy snow putting a hold on travel plans. The Eurostar operators blame a very cold France, where the weather has been the coldest for at least 15 years. Interestingly I never realised how many people now traveled by Eurostar.
Closer to home Easyjet cancelled hundreds of flights from Luton. I expect the cold will not last, and flights will be back to normal in January. Important for me, because I have some work in Scotland starting in January.
Even closer to home, there are stories of people taking 2 hours to travel through Aylesbury. I don’t understand that one, I see at most 2 centimeters of snow outside on the drive.
It is cool, last night was the coldest, going down to -6 Celsius on our thermometer. (That’s outside, not inside our house.) Google tells me Oxford was actually -9. Rosemary’s brother living over in Canada sent a cutting from a local paper where the temperature had made a record low in the nearby city of Edmonton. A minus 46.1 Celsius. This record was 10 degrees colder than the previous record. The previous record was set last year.
Europe is suffering the cold as well. I suppose with global warming, there must be some places suffering incredible heat to make up for our record lows across Europe and Canada.
Christmas is now almost on us, so on a Christmas spirit thing, take a look at Santa’s check list. This is suitable for children to view, as if I would put anything that was not 🙂 christmas-risk-assessment
Christmas is in a couple of days, rain is predicted for later today, so there will not be a white Christmas. 🙁
Butterfly Days
Despite the recent bad weather, we seem to have had some lovely butterflies in the last few sunny days, so Steve took their portraits and has posted an album of them –
http://www.blasdale.com/blog/picture-albums/blasdale-picture-gallery-2009/2009butterflies/
We have yet to add their names – Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Red Admirals (is one just faded into that “Orange” Admiral?), Comma, Painted Lady.
Cast in Feathers Buzzard
Rosemary was doing an ad hoc check of the field, when she spied some odd activity and so got the binoculars out. It looked like a large bird of prey was eating a late breakfast.
A few minutes later, large bird had gone but something remained….. the breakfast? Surely not a lamb? Rosemary went out to investigate and found, amidst some feathers, a buzzard, lying on his back, looking near death but with his stomach still going up & down. His eyes were open but his head looked at an odd angle and a bit bloody. He didn’t respond to her shadow over him. Fearing the worst, she went back to phone the RSPCA for advice. Several phone calls later, she awaited a call from them and went to check up on the patient. This time he looked brighter and moved his head and opened his beak. She assured him help was on its way and went back to the house wondering how to pick him up (to take him to the vet) without hurting him and without making contact with his beak.
But wait, Miles & his mum were in the pick-up in the field checking on their sheep. They paused by the bird. Rosemary shot out. “I dispatched him,” said Miles. Oh goodness, thought R. “He’d got himself cast, so we righted him with my stick,” said his mum, Annie. Ah! breathed R with relief. “I didn’t realize that could happen to a large bird,” she babbled to Miles. “Well how do you get up if you’re stuck on your back?” asked Miles. He had a very good point. Everyone decided the buzzard probably flew into a nearby powerline and stunned himself on impact.
R phoned the RSPCA to tell them to cancel the call and the lady on their helpline was also surprised to hear buzzards can get themselves cast.
So now we all know it’s not just sheep that need righting, keep your eyes open and binoculars & stick handy.
Indian takeaway from Chadnis
The other day we had been out for a drink in Quainton with our friends. Alas we have to travel now that the local pub is closed, and the next in walking distance, the Crooked Billet, serves a not very good pint of real ale. Anyway I digress, we decided to have an Indian takeaway for supper. Quick phone call to order our food from my mobile phone (yes, I have the local Indian takeaway phone number in my mobile, along with lots of other useful numbers). Stopped off at the said local, Chadnis in Waddesdon, on the way home and picked up Rosemary’s Chicken Byriani and my Chicken Vindaloo.
Back home I started to eat my Vindaloo, normally I am disapointed by these curries. They are meant to be hot, and generally I can’t taste any heat in them, and don’t break out in a sweat. Yes I like hot, hot food. Chadnis Vindaloo is a different kettle of curry. It was hot, very very hot. I sweated, and I had chilli burn, I was almost defeated, but not quite.
So if you want a good hot Vindaloo, you should not be at all disapointed by our local Waddesdon offering.
Easter
Easter started off with a BBQ on Friday evening. How hard is it to buy charcoal at this time of year? Tesco was saying there will be none in stock for another 2 weeks.
Slow roasted English lamb shoulder was cooked for almost 8 hours on the BBQ, then shredded and mixed with pomegranate seeds and mint leaves and served with a salad of skinned peppers and feta cheese. We had some friends around, who all stayed the night, and again it seems we and our friends drank rather too much alcohol. Gordon Brown would not be at all pleased with us. Some wag on the radio said there would be two types of activities in the future, mandatory and banned.
Sunday had a meal with my Aunt and Uncle in Warwickshire, yes again it was lamb, but this time English leg of lamb, and slow roasted. Their garden was beginning to look lovely with lots of blooms.
There was also a lot of food walking around on two and four legs, the four legged varieties which have to be fenced out of the vegetable patch, but seem to find a way in.
The two legged variety were seeking refuge from the woods on the other side of the field. M said how the shooters who stood in the field, fired at the pheasants as they were driven out of the wood. When they missed, they turned and fired at the birds towards M&D’s house, often with shot hitting their windows. Not dangerous, but an annoyance non the less.
Monday was a lovely day, Rosemary spent most of the day at Ludgershall village auction. This is an auction held once a year, and is used to raise money for the village hall. It though is a proper auction with proper items, some selling for several hundreds of pounds, not any old junk. She came away with another rug for the house.