The Continuation of Covid Capers at Carsington

 Carsington Cafe

14th October 2020

With some of us unable to meet last week, a second October meet up was arranged.  Same setting, slightly different venue, slightly different babes, slightly different weather! We missed Helen who was braving the east coast, Jo doing a lot of cuddling, and Alison and Maggie has probably been called up to accompany an emergency humanities field trip... as if!

Staff at the restaurant were wonderful and allowed us one table outside and one inside, so we tried out both, because under the latest restrictions, we still can. 

 

Charlotte proved to be better at group selfies than Helen

We all had to sign in.  Some of us chose the NHS app; others, the old-fashioned way

I'm sure Lynn was sticking her tongue out concentrating!

Our outside chat was largely catching up on when we all thought we may have had Covid but none of us are sure but that darn flu has had several different lasting effects. 

Whilst the sun lasted, so did we, but then it went in and so did we!

Same view from inside and outside! 

Masks, wearing glasses and going back inside do not go well together.  Indoors was a bit foggy!

Julia asked a very interesting question and Charlotte answered.  We now know a lot about 'hosting' students from around the world and the peculiarities of managing this through a global pandemic! It was fascinating and hats off (not masks off) to you Charlotte, you've been very brave!

 

Charlotte in full flow! 

Pam discovered what a swiss ball is and perhaps in the future, we could all have a go on whoever has managed to pump theirs up!  Then as Charlotte was hot-lunching, she suddenly disappeared in whirl.  Hope you found your elegant scarf? 

So, we chatted about Les' extraordinary collection of vehicles and 'stuff'  and are secretly hoping for a ride in the fire engine before it gets sold!

With time pressing, because none of us could pinpoint the exact second we arrived in the car park, we battled with the queue at the pay-on-exit machine hoping that we weren't going to be charged a full day; we didn't!  

We blew kisses behind masks and reminded ourselves that we meet in Whitworth in November.

 Oh, we do love to be beside the seaside...

Saltburn looking good Helen M! 

Bird watching was abandoned in favour of chatting but we did add to last week's count of 21 with 

whooshy sparrows. 

buzzard

crow

which brings this year's total to a measly 48 with a running total of 103.  Maybe some winter visiting birds next. 

An addition later in the week... wonder who will notice? 

Covid Capers at Carsington

Carsington 

October 8th 2020

As the grey clouds and rain cleared six intrepid babes and two very excited dogs followed  Jo’s instructions and gathered at the Sheepwash Car Park, social distancing was very carefully observed. Unfortunately Lynn and Helen J weren’t able to make it but at least that meant that we didn’t have the problem of walking in relay teams to keep to the rule of six.

Betty and Bob were very disappointed that Eddie wasn’t able to join us but then he is only a pupppy and might not have been able to keep up so perhaps he will make it next time.

We made the decision to set off walking and see how far we got, there was much to catch up on as we hadn’t managed to meet for some time, no foreign travel tales to tell but lots of explorations of various corners of our own fair island to share.

No one felt important enough to occupy the big chair or was it just that they weren’t certain how recently it had been sanitised!

The pace setters seemed determined that Betty and Bob shouldn’t always have pole position and of course humans don’t have to stop and sniff stuff and leave their scent at regular intervals.

A stop for elevenses was a good opportunity to remove layers and bobble hats as things had warmed up considerably. This was the point of no return and we had to make the decision whether to turn round or complete the circuit, feeling full of beans we voted to carry on.

Bob seems to be taking social distancing extremely seriously - he could certainly teach Betty a few lessons!

Spot the birds - we had to keep reminding ourselves that we had been set the task of a good haul of birds for our bird list - if only some of us could be bothered to get our binoculars out of our backpacks! At least some of our feathered friends are easy to spot with the naked eye, although perhaps Julia needs to make a return to Specsavers after she posed the question ‘are those people or birds?’ 

We were also careful to follow the advice of a friendly twitcher and watch out for migrants - hopefully he was referring to the feathers types.

Thankfully we had Maggie’s flask to help us identify any birds that we were unsure about. Although Jo took cheating to another level and shamelessly chatted up all the birders that she came across.

After almost losing Pam at the visitor’s centre we made it back to our starting point for a late lunch, much to the relief of Alison who is a firm believer that lunch should be eaten at midday.

 Maggie was a little worried that she might have to jog to make her rendezvous with Chris but we all stepped out and we’re back in good time but no sign of a white Skoda!

Please can I have a bit of your sandwich.... hard to resist that face!

Here is our bird list for the day:

Mallard

Canada geese 

Greylag geese

Great crested grebe

Tufted duck

Robin

Magpie

Coot

Moorhen

Pochard

Black headed gull

Black swan

Cormorant

Jackdaw

Bluetit

Little egret

Common gull

Lesser black backed gull

Mute swan

Siskin

Pied wagtail

Chiffchaff

Black cap

Bird of the day is the black swan.

A lovely day was had by all and really good to be able to catch up with everyone. (Hopefully  Maggie isn’t still waiting for her lift home!)