A crispy day in Carsington
The Gelly Babe guide to being a Gelly Babe
One should not underestimate what it takes to be a Gelly
Babe. Gelly Babes like to meet monthly
in good weather. These expectations are
set very high given the complexities of the British weather and our eventful
lives. Today was no exception.
Organisation of military precision is essential to make a
Gelly day run smoothly. Sometimes Gelly
Babes have to sacrifice their beauty sleep and send in weather reports. Gritted roads in Wirksworth checked (tick). Views of snow from Brassington, but not in
Brassington (tick). Icy roads reported
south of Chellaston, not north of it (tick).
Final rendezvous information communicated (tick). Four ticks are good.
Gelly Babes like to park easily and for free, or at least
get value for money. The machines at the
Sheepwash car park clearly do not understand the Gelly Babe preferences. Four tickets with four different exit timings
for two vehicles, not good. Cross; not
tick. Jo likes to pretend to help out
other hapless drivers and and somehow ends up with their returned coins. Hmm. Not
to be outwitted by a simple machine the Gelly babes test out a theory that
tickets are transferable between car parks. It worked. Tick.
One Gelly Babe was so focussed on making sure the day ran
smoothly that she forgot to eat her breakfast.
Luckily Maggie had some left-overs from hers. Fortified after a sugar rush of shortcake and
kit-kat Helen J felt ready to face up to her serious duties of the day. Today’s duties included being chief weather
girl, chief birder, chauffeur, photographer, recipient of eventful texts and
blogger. This actually wore out Helen J
so much that later in the evening when making mojitos, instead of adding soda
to the rum, she added even more rum to the rum.
It was lucky that this happened on a night when she was not in charge of
anything else!
Gelly Babes sometimes go by another name. Today they are mostly being Gelly Birders.
Gelly Birders want to see lots of birds; ones they are familiar with and others
never seen. This can get quite silly. Kookaburras do not like Carsington as it does
not have any gum trees. Also it is difficult to spell, as are pigeon
and wigeon which sound as though they should have the letter ‘d’ in them. Jo is only satisfied when she spots a woodpigeon.
Jo is also very good at birding today and spots a pair of
siskins flying in a flock of chaffinches.
Gelly babes learn that other birds like to flock together too.
Long tailed tits and dunnock like to flock at bird tables.
But, some birds do not like to flock at all.
As this might spoil their chances of gaining ‘poser –of-the-day’
award.
Helen J is mindful to share out her duties and promotes
Jo to chief birder and chief list maker.
Jo likes making lists.
One of the Gelly Babes duties is to keep others informed
of their own eventful day. Today was
one of those days. When Pam texted to say she was on her way, arrangements of
where to meet were put in place. The Gelly Babes did
have to think carefully about how to phrase this as not all Gelly Babes know their front from their back.
When Pam texted a second time to say that her house was full of smoke
and she would rather wait for the fire engine, they immediately thought of
Lynn. Lynn gets very excited about men
in uniform. Gelly Babes have very long
memories. Luckily for Pam it was only
Jen’s bedroom which had caught fire. Jen
is also lucky as now she gets a new bedroom.
Pam has learned that mirrors in bedrooms are dangerous.
Helen M also texted to say she was unable to meet for
lunch. Helen M was busy mopping up after
a flood in Alex’s kitchen. Lesson no
2: if you have a drip in the house, sort
him out immediately. If only Jen and
Alex shared a house then the day may have been less stressful. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Fortunately lunch at the café was largely
uneventful. Helen J learned that posh
beans on toast includes neither cheese nor the number 57. Alison likes posh beans. Gelly Babes like to chatter about all sorts
of things. Today they mostly chatted about
how little old ladies like to buy new clothes and hide them in drawers full of
gifts of soap and perfume. This is something the Gelly Babes will look forward
to in years to come, when they are old
enough.
Gelly Birders are very determined. Having spent the morning looking at
cormorants and great crested grebes pretending to be great northern divers, the
Gelly Babes realised they could not go home without one more try. On their way to Stone Island, they stopped to
admire the weather:
Windmills having a lazy day
Which is why there are still patches of ice.
The Gelly Babes were not the only ones hunting for
elusive birds. Mr Welly, a bit fresh
from Willington, prided himself on seeing a bittern this morning. Helen J might have been impressed had he not
added that he was also hoping to see six great northern divers. Tardy research means he would likely be
disappointed.
Sadly, Helen J cannot add magician to her list of duties
otherwise she would have found a shoveller for Maggie and a treecreeper for
Alison. However, she did have one last
trick up her sleeve: patience. Patience
is a virtue. Virtues can outwit even the
most elusive of birds. And so, it is
with great pride and joy that the Gelly birders celebrated several viewings of
the great northern diver. There were several viewings because it kept diving
for long periods of time and they only had one telescope. A GB first and bird of
year. And so, Helen J mindfully regained
her title of chief birder of the day.
Today’s bird list (Jo still being entitled to keep her
duty of chief lister)
blackbird
black-headed gull
blue tit
canada goose
chaffinch
coal tit
coot
cormorant
crow
golden-eye
great crested grebe
great northern diver* (bird of the year)
great tit
greater black-backed gull*
house sparrow
lapwing
little grebe
long-tailed tit
magpie
mallard
moorhen
mute swan
pheasant
pied wagtail
pochard
robin
siskin*
snipe*
teal
tree sparrow
wigeon
woodpigeon
32 birds in total.
* are GB firsts with two being exceptionally good birds to have on our
list. 4 new birds on previous years making our
running total of 78.
