Carsington January 24

 Carsington not cancelled! 

11th January 2024

Having cancelled Carsington in December (owing to extremely windy weather), we rearranged for a chilly, but dry January. The plan was sent out in advance, as one does, but travel arrangements were hastily rearranged when Jo realised she would be arriving at the crack of dawn! Helen M forgot to send her message to Helen J who, by the time she received it, was actually back home. Don't we just love the dodgy signals up there! 

So, the only person completely in tune with what was going on was Pam.  Except.... she'd forgotten her binoculars and Jo had forgotten her flask. Luckily I was prepared and they both were furnished with the appropriate items. 

As I started to say, Pam was on form and gained the first bird of the day; a robin.  We headed towards the Visitor Centre bird hide and stopped to admire a pair of brightly coloured bullfinch.  The arrow on the sign pointing to the exact spot where they were flitting about.  At this point I realised my camera was in Jo's car boot.  Jo kindly popped back to get it and missed the nuthatch.  Ooops... 

Imagine the bullfinch please....

Jo takes a fabulous shot of the bird hide showing blue sky, but there was a lowish drizzle across the water which made it difficult for good views of birds not right infront of us. However, we bagged a lot of great crested and little grebes, mallards, and jackdaws doing strange things on the bird feeders. 

Notice how high the water is.  No hosepipe ban later on then? Hmmm

Wonder how the tufted duck got its name?! 

There was a teal in here somewhere.

Because we'd faffed about a bit, we decided to head towards Stone Island rather than take a longer walk. 

We've seen all these already!

Time to move on

We looked at a mound of mud which is dutifully signposted as a 'barrow'.  In fact it is the Hognaston Bronze Age Barrow, obviously named because all the plants around it are a lovely wintry bronzy sort of colour.  

Pam impersonating a 'michelin' woman! 

We arrive at Janet Ede hide and I immediately regretted not collecting the promised telescope. But by the time we'd managed to open the windows, with the catches carefully designed to be out of reach, the possible Great Northern Diver had dived.  A later check with my new chums from the Derbyshire Birders fb private group, confirmed that the GND had been around early in the morning, in that exact spot! If only we'd all been up at the crack of dawn... ho hum, another time.

It might have looked like this!

By this time, Helen M had worked out where we were and came with news of Lynn's absence.  It was quite fitting that very early on we had talked about post-menopausal-waterworks-coming-of-age problems but were saddened to learn that Lynn's issue cannot be fixed by a few 'tena ladies' and crossed legs! Hope the de-humidifiers work Lynn and that we see you soon. 

Various combinations of carrot and parsnip soup, cheese scones and bacon butties filled our rumbling tummies and Julia arrived as we all settled into our hot drinks. Our main topics of conversation were about the etiquette of being a good grandparent, missing conversation in a second language (hope that's not going to be a future GB special day!) and the scarily developing technologies in cars ( but we did agree that if you need glasses to drive, they need to be worn!).  When our usual topics cropped up, we briefly thought about Janice and Alison on slippery slopes and Charlotte in the sun.

Talking and listening!

Most of the group decided it was time to get home, leaving me to try for a few more birds but I only heard about ones we'd missed.. why do birders do that?! I did find a couple of butterflies though.

Terrifying!! 

28 birds to start us off for the year.  Hope that's a good omen.

black headed gulls

blackbird

blue tit

bullfinch (colourful bird of the day)

canada geese

coot

cormorant

crow

dunnock

goldfinch

great crested grebe

house sparrow

jackdaw

little grebe

long tailed tit

magpie

mallard

moorhen

nuthatch

oystercatcher (HM)

redshank (flying near Stone Island)

pheasant

pochard

robin

teal

tufted duck

woodpigeon

wren

Christmas 2023

 Christmas cards and Charity 2023

🤶🤶🤶🤶🤶

'Tis that time of year again when some teachers prove they can't read or follow a simple set of instructions. Haha! But, I've worked around everyone's funny little ways and we have our blog. Yay! The cards are in order of when I saw them, either in WhatsApp (well done) or in my email (ooops). 

👑👑👑👑👑

Charlotte

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and hoping that the World becomes a more peaceful place in 2024. Much love Charlotte and Ian. Xxx

My chosen charity is still supporting Satyam and Sofia through their education here. Sofia has been with us 6 years now. She is 18 and studying A level Art, History and Spanish. Satyam is nearly 17. We have supported him for 4 years. He is in Year 11 and just chosen his A levels: Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry. 

🐑🐑🐏🐑🐑

Helen

Happy Christmas to all with love from Helen and Mike and Betty.

xxx

I have struggled to decide on a charity this year as there are so many deserving causes in these troubled times. I continue to support Mind throughout the year in memory of Andrew, but for Christmas I have decided on Crisis and Betty has sponsored a guide dog puppy!

🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮

Alison

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. 

Love from Alison. Xx

My charity this year is The Smile Train. It operates in less developed countries on children with cleft palates, giving them the opportunity to live a normal life. 

🏂🏂🏂🏂🏂

Helen

Here's to lots of lovely meet ups and good turn outs in 2024! Love Helen xxx

My chosen charities this year are UNHCR as they continue to support refugees who return to their homeland in need of start up funds and UK refugees in need of help to navigate all the red tape. Plus, closer to home, the Teenage Cancer Trust for their support of teenagers affected by parents living with cancer. 

🐪🐫🐪🐫🐪

Maggie

Wishing all the Gellybabes a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

With love from Maggie x

I have made a donation this year to the International Rescue Committee who are providing food and medical supplies to families in Gaza and other areas of conflict around the world.

🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁

Pam

Warm wishes to all the GB friends for the Festive Season. Looking forward to the meet ups in 2024. 

This year I have contributed to SHELTER as there are so many desperate people without suitable homes and a crisis with homelessness. 

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Julia

Happy Christmas to you all! Hoping to see more of you in 2024 and looking forward to our Christmas get together. Much love,  Julia xx

This year my Christmas donation has gone to MSF because of the medical assistance they provide around the world. 

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Lynn 

 To my dear friends, with love at Christmas time. 

And my donation this year will be to Ashgate Hospice xx

❄❄❄❄❄

Jo

To the Gellybabes. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Looking forward to getting together in 2024. Love from Jo xx

My charity is The Children's Society. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

We've done it again.  It has been hard to choose which charities to support as there is so much need across the UK and world wide.  Here's to a more peaceful year in 2024.

🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇

Time ticks by...

 A gathering of good memories

8th November 2023

Our November meet up was a gathering of good memories of a dear colleague, Mike, aka Mick Law.  Six Gelly babes, three 'other halves' and a host of past Gell staff, ex-students, family and friends met at the rather damp and windy crematorium near Aston-on-Trent to send Mike on his way. 

It was a beautiful service, arranged by Biker Mike, who should give himself a pat on the back! We didn't learn much more about him than we already knew: a loving, calm, gentle man (in its truest sense).We all have different memories of him but will all remember his rather charming smile.  In fact the only thing we learnt, was how he was known to work colleagues as Mike, but to family as Mick.  Blame Mike North (who?), apparently!

Afterwards we descended to the Clock Warehouse in Shardlow for further chat, meeting family, a warm up and a snack on a very wobbly table. There was some head-scratching about the history of the place and which canal we were viewing.  A quick geography lesson proved someone was right! 

Trip to Liverpool anyone? 

Now, for those of you not present (and we did think of you all), apart from a bit of cropping, spot the difference in the photos!

Bit more fuzzy??? 

Having obliged us with taking our photos so we didn't have to do a selfie, Bob showed us how to properly pose.

No sideways glances here! 

Then Chris had a go with the 

hands-in-pocket look.

After lots of laughter and failing to find the dark grey safety tip from my brooch, lost on the tarmac, we bid farewell and wished for a full turn out in December. 

But, before we close, let's return to the start of the day.  As we entered the chapel, we were each given an acorn by Mike's grand-daughter.  Mike didn't feel there are enough oak trees around and asked for each of us to plant or drop one somewhere. 

So here's to Mike's legacy:  from one tiny acorn, may a huge oak be born.

 

                                      

Six Stalwarts gather at Cromford

 Six Stalwarts Gather at Cromford

12th October

On a chilly morning six stalwart members, back from their travels, gathered at the Wharf Cafe at Cromford. It took a while for us to deal with the archaic technology of the coin only parking payment machines but between us we managed to crack it.

Pam broke with tradition and arrived first and was already tucking in to her post outdoor swim toasted tea cake. She was able to reassure us that she dresses appropriately in the pool and that there is very little danger of hypothermia. Strangely there was a mixed reception for Pam’s plan to walk the Cleveland way next year to celebrate her birthday with a zero.

A warming  cup of coffee was very welcome and there was a lot to catch up on. Holiday tales and adventures were exchanged and we speculated on what our absent chums were up to.

Once we had warmed up and donned the appropriate footwear we set off to stroll along the canal.

The moss tree caught our eye as we set off

On the lookout for Thrush - who knew it lurked in the great outdoors!

Arriving at Aqueduct cottage we were relieved to find a supply of high vis jackets, just what we needed on such a difficult walk!

The cottage looking very smart.

Dodging the recently felled ash trees we headed down the Nightingale Arm. This sculpture was number 10, not sure where the previous 9 were hanging out, probably in the woods somewhere. Surprisingly we didn’t spot any otters in the river even though there was a sign alerting us to their presence. 

But we did see and hear lots of Jays and Helen J supplied us with the astonishing fact that Jays can remember where they have hidden fifteen thousand nuts but squirrels can only remember where they have hidden five. (The numbers might not be quite accurate but it was an interesting fact)

When a pretty waterside plant needs identifying Jo has no qualms about accosting a man in waders who is working hard to clear out a stream, he very obligingly helped out.

Not sure what the grumpy face is for!

Back on the canal and a welcoming party of swans and cygnets 

On the return down the canal the sun came out.

Back at the café several bowls of very good sweet potato soup were consumed. There was some discussion about what the green bits in it were: onion, leek, bits of blanket and the least appealing was dog hairs which they definitely weren’t and thankfully we had all finished at that point!

Recommendations for good telly watching were shared - someone surprised us with her enthusiasm for Cowboys! Various ways of catching spiders were discussed- apparently Chris Packham does not approve of sucking them up the hoover and feeding them to the dog is probably a better option. Maggie has been spending romantic evenings with Chris watching their pet hedgehog. We now know that baby frogs have pointy noses and according to Alison we should only worry about rats when they run across our feet when we are sat in our cosy armchairs in front of the fire. 

And finally we must watch out for Helen J on Britain’s got Talent performing her wonderful bird impressions!

Such spoilsports! We were all planning to exit via the dumb waiter!

Bird list for the day

Black headed hill

Blackbird

Blue tit

Canada Geese

Coal tit

Jay - bird of the day

Little Grebe in glorious colour

Long tailed tit

Magpie 

Mallard 

Moorhen

Mute Swan

Wood pigeon 

And a lot of squirrels 

Raindrops keep falling

Raindrops keep falling.

Friday 14th July 2023  or near enough.

A shout out to meet up, was mostly met with... 'another county or country is calling'. But having not seen each other since snowdropping in February, and  not put off by the weather forecast, Alison and I met at Allestree Park. 

With full wet kit on, we needed to find beauty on a drab day. So although Allestree House may need lots of tlc, Alison found subtle shades of pink amongst the grey quite appealing. 

Well, stone me! 

'Tis not even a pretty puddle 😆

We chatted about the cost of living and what it was like, back in the day,  paying off a mortgage of around 15%, made affordable by making up a flask and sandwiches, finding last minute holiday deals and camping... everywhere, throughout the year!  Pleased not to have to go on strike to get our well earned 10.1% state pension rise this  year though. 

Walking through the trees, a lot, meant when we got a view, albeit in low cloud, we could still see far away. And if you haven't been to the Park recently, the old greens are now brown, 

That's a fair way🤭

Back in the woods,  just to prove we'd met up, Alison obliges.. 

Yep, rain's down, hood up! 

We finally head to the Little Shed at Allestree for our well earned brunch. To the amusement of other customers in summer dresses and sandals (yep, really), we peeled off our wet kit and settled down to dry off and check out the menu. And were our eyes deceiving us?

Can't think why we gave the Puppaccino a miss!! 

We chatted about all sorts  but the only thing of real significance was Alison going off-grid; she has the app but not the sunshine, not today anyway.  🌞

We talked about where everyone else was and whether they were all faring with better weather? 

Perhaps not, Helen M in Yorkshire!

The grass is greening up nicely though. 

Wonderful Wharfedale in the Yorkshire monsoon season.

There was a hint of a rainy festival photo heading my way at one point  but I think, at the time of writing, Janice and Pam were actually not at the same one so...

🎪 👢☂💃☔👢🎪

That'll do ! 

Jo was en route back from rural life abroad and catching up a bit of culture, finding the only cool spot in Spain. 

A pretty cool building...

Charlotte, Julia and Lynn all busy too. But no one was as busy as Maggie under blue skies, again. As we know she'd already launched a rocket earlier in the week but here she is  bird watching at Rosscarbery at the exact moment Alison and I were brunching.  Maggie having a turn... 

 At watching  terns diving (our only bird for the day!)

And to round off, here's a lovely water feature

My first ever water lily!! (So proud)