Royal Wedding

I'm something of a agnostic on the Royal Family, not too keen on privilege but fearful of the alternative (Blair/Brown for President?)

Wish the couple well - but having to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage which is driving me MAD...

Will, however, be breaking out the BBQ on Friday.

PS Do you know that BBQ comes from the old French? Barbe et Cul - refers to sticking the rod throough the Barbe (mouth) to arse (cul). Or so I am told by a Frenchman. Seems logical.

The alignment of the pig v the clefts of the stakes in the picture has a certain Escher-like quality don't you think?

St Georges Day

Beautiful weather and much going on - our national Saints Day day is picking up in peoples consciousness.

Seems the day has been relocated to Monday May 2nd by both the CofE and Catholic Church - thereby giving St George a national holiday.

Great I can celebrate on the 23rd and again in May.

Street celebrations in Bromsgrove, entertainment at the club, a Cider and Sausage Festival (New Inn), Beer Festival (Nailers) and Folk dancing at the Dodford Inn.

Its all going on and the atmosphere is truly friendly. Just great to see many of our people getting into the "spirit".

The bluebells are out and the fragrance is intoxicating. The dawn chorus for the past week has also been deafening.

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Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower, -

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

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Deer sighted.........no mind altering substances found.

Well what a surprise.

At 6:15 am on the 15th of this month when I was enjoying a slice of toast - a movement outside my front window and guess what - a male Roe deer strolling past.

It was a moment that makes you look back to the night before to be sure you didn't take anything mind altering. But no, it was for real. Now I know I live by the Lickey Hills and, yes, there are deer but I never imagined they would regard a residential street as just another thoroughfare

Ah, the Night Garden.

Add that to the mass of dandelions, local buzzard being mobbed by crows, every day, surge in rabbit numbers, masses of frog and toad spwn (now taddies) and some signs of insect life about (though still not enough) and it seems like a wonderful spring is in the offing.

Bromsgrove top the league.

Bromsgrove 43

Malvern 10

Great result and still topping the league - although the accompanying photo is disturbing!!!

Last hunt of the season

There it was, the last of the season but the first for us.

What a lovely sight - over 50 riders by my count - and generous hospitality from the owners of the farm.

Obviously just a drag hunt but we hope that during this parliament Labours vile, illogical and oppressive anti-hunting legislation will be wiped from the statute books.

All people here - from the wealthy to the poorest - all in support of a truly English cultural sporting event.

Meanwhile......whilst foxhunting is banned (and shooting, poisoning, gassing and snaring encouraged) our government has sent in jets to bomb Libya, killing hundreds. O.K. they may be Gaddafi's troops but they will mostly be ordinary people doing what they are told - sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. And don't say that no civilians will die - they will.

Funny how ordinary people can be snuffed out with impunity whilst Gaddafi's life is being cherished.

But then again - you can't go around killing heads of state and politicians now can you - we might just get a taste for some of that in the UK.

......and be all the better for it.

Here we go again..

Lets invade another Muslim country and create a wave of crazy asylum seekers who, of course, we have to let in, house, feed, "educate" and care for.

In return we will increase the number of insane Islamist terrorists and sympathisers inside our own borders and further inflams anti-Western sentiments.

The Daily Mash has it just right here:-

http://bit.ly/hpMuyV

They say ""We got rid of Saddam not realising that, as well as being a prick, he was also keeping the lid on a big basket full of fucknuts."

How true.


How come a spoof newspaper can get it right so often when the BBC, Times, Grauniad (sic) and Sky News cannot?

This WILL not end well.

What a grey day.....

Talbot and Monty regard a wet day in 2009 and wonder when the rain will stop.

Funny, but when we first had the fowl Talbot regarded them as quarry, after just a couple of days and some gentle explanation she "got it" and thereafter regarded them as her responsibility - rounds them up and looks after them.

And who says dogs aren't intelligent?

However - if its not one of the flock - its still prey as rabbits, hares, birds and foxes soon find out.