Tuesday, 14 May 2013
All back up and running...honest!
OK..OK...so I've been out of action for a while with this blog. I apologise.
But what do you expect? I've been busy settling back into life with my Scandinavian Paymasters having escaped from the Japanese - OK, so call me yoyo!
However, the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to appear a little brighter so I must be finally getting fully up to speed and on top of things.
Since the last blog loads has happended. I've been to three continents and at some point over the next few months I'll head out East to Thailand and Australia.
Latest venture is that, inspired by my youndgest male sibling, I've started birding on a local patch. Its nothing amazing but it is local...infact I can see it from the window. It comprises a large hilly grass field, a wooded stream, a developing marsh/pond, and an old quarry/sandpit, which is now largely overgrown with scrub.
I've been birding the patch for less than a month and I've already recorded in 45 species - I'm particualrly pelased with my haul of warblers: Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff, Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap and Garden Warbler. Latest new addition, at last, was Swift - which was clearly despairing of the weather!
I'll try to keep you updated with my observations.
Back to the telescope!
LC James
Landlocked
14th May 2013
Friday, 14 October 2011
Most westerly cup of coffee
I'm currently sat out on the very tip of Ardnamurchan in the shadow of the lighthouse (if it happened to be vaguely sunny!) enjoying the most westerly latte on the UK mainland. Superb!
With a fresh to strong southwesterly blowing, seabird passage is pretty good today with a good steady passage of skuas south, mainly Arctics and I was lucky enough to pick out a dark phase Pomarine Skua harrying the passing Kittiwakes.
Best get back to my telescope!
L C James
At the water's edge!
With a fresh to strong southwesterly blowing, seabird passage is pretty good today with a good steady passage of skuas south, mainly Arctics and I was lucky enough to pick out a dark phase Pomarine Skua harrying the passing Kittiwakes.
Best get back to my telescope!
L C James
At the water's edge!
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Normal Service Resumed
Many apologies to all for the rather embarassing gap since my last post!
There have been a rash of life-significant events since last August.
Firstly, I've changed my job. After much soul-searching I parted company with my Scandinavian Paymasters and have rejoined my old Japanese Friends out on the Fens. I really enojoyed my job with at the Seaside Factory but it meant far far too many nights away from the Rural Shires and my Darling Wife so, in order to better balance the important things in life, I've returned to a more landlocked domain - it means regularly commuting 55mins each way but as a reward I get to sleep in the same bed as my Darling Wife. Choices! Choices!
Secondly, we had the big December freeze. This put pay to all outdoor farming activities and brough the autumn season to an abrupt end. Regular heavy snow falls throughout the month resulted in several days trapped in the Rural Shires working from home office. Worse impact was driving three hours into a blizzard up in southwest Lancashire. We drove until 1am into severe heavy snowfall the likes of which has not been seen in Southport since the last Ice Age - no kidding!! There mush have been 10in of snow - and not a salt cellar, gritter or snowplough in sight. Cars and trucks abandoned! And all in order to have a pre-Christmas lunch with my family.
Thirdly, we've had Chrimblemas. A great day here in Rural Shires and a spectacular lunch with family and friends - 12 seated afront a grand spread. Only downside was my attempt to cut my thumb off whilst seperating a button sprout from its mother stalk. Darling Wife was the perfect nurse springing into isntant A&E action and putting me all back together. Bar the odd overdone vegetable all went well. The turkey was stuffed with pheasant, shot over in Derbyshire, and the pehaesant stuffed with a vension sausage meat delicious!
And finally, post-Christmas saw a family expedition to the tropics of The Gambia. A week of sunshire and warmth amidst the winter cold and darkness. All seemed to enjoy the experience - the cultural differences hit you like a hammer! Don't really know where to start but will get round to posting a blog of my bird watching exploits ASAP - before I forget what I saw!
LC James
Landlocked
30 January 2011
There have been a rash of life-significant events since last August.
Firstly, I've changed my job. After much soul-searching I parted company with my Scandinavian Paymasters and have rejoined my old Japanese Friends out on the Fens. I really enojoyed my job with at the Seaside Factory but it meant far far too many nights away from the Rural Shires and my Darling Wife so, in order to better balance the important things in life, I've returned to a more landlocked domain - it means regularly commuting 55mins each way but as a reward I get to sleep in the same bed as my Darling Wife. Choices! Choices!
Secondly, we had the big December freeze. This put pay to all outdoor farming activities and brough the autumn season to an abrupt end. Regular heavy snow falls throughout the month resulted in several days trapped in the Rural Shires working from home office. Worse impact was driving three hours into a blizzard up in southwest Lancashire. We drove until 1am into severe heavy snowfall the likes of which has not been seen in Southport since the last Ice Age - no kidding!! There mush have been 10in of snow - and not a salt cellar, gritter or snowplough in sight. Cars and trucks abandoned! And all in order to have a pre-Christmas lunch with my family.
Thirdly, we've had Chrimblemas. A great day here in Rural Shires and a spectacular lunch with family and friends - 12 seated afront a grand spread. Only downside was my attempt to cut my thumb off whilst seperating a button sprout from its mother stalk. Darling Wife was the perfect nurse springing into isntant A&E action and putting me all back together. Bar the odd overdone vegetable all went well. The turkey was stuffed with pheasant, shot over in Derbyshire, and the pehaesant stuffed with a vension sausage meat delicious!
And finally, post-Christmas saw a family expedition to the tropics of The Gambia. A week of sunshire and warmth amidst the winter cold and darkness. All seemed to enjoy the experience - the cultural differences hit you like a hammer! Don't really know where to start but will get round to posting a blog of my bird watching exploits ASAP - before I forget what I saw!
LC James
Landlocked
30 January 2011
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Relaxing Weekend
Surprised my Darling Wife with a birthday weekend away at Fawsley Hall, over in Northamptonshire.
I haven't been there for a few years when it was superb and I can confirm that standards are as good or better than previously - it met and even exceeded my expectations. The new Leisure facilities - good length pool, sauna, steam room etc. - are superb especially on a sunny day!
Bizarrely, we landed up in the same superb room as last time we stayed - nice views across the rolling parkland. Comfortable bed. Good size en suite.
Restaurant and service was very good. And relaxing with coffee and a malt after dinner in the Great Hall was just perfect.
I would wholly recommend the hotel to all my readers! ...and I don't do that lightly.
LCJames
Relaxed
11th August 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Wot a Scorcha!
Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts recently. Work etc has been somewhat in the way!
Anyway, back to business. I've been over in the States for a few days down south in North Carolina. They've been enjoying - or rather enduring - something of heatwave for the past week with temperatures soaring to 100F - or in Euro-speak 37C! And with an incredible humdity to match. Unless you are lazing by, or in, a swimming pool its far too hot to do anything. Simply walking 400m from hotel to office yesterday had one gasping for air and dripping with sweat - sorry, its horses that sweat, men perspire.
And so you start to appreciate why everything from office to car is air-conditioned. You can't so anything in that heat. God help you if you had to hoe a field or dig a hole. Even first thing in the morning it was still warm, but more importantly, still very humid.
Let's leave the heavy jobs until the fall and head back inside for a ham sandwich. I've discovered that ham sandwich is slang for a Budweiser as both contain 140Kcals!
LCJames
Stateside
8th July 2010
Anyway, back to business. I've been over in the States for a few days down south in North Carolina. They've been enjoying - or rather enduring - something of heatwave for the past week with temperatures soaring to 100F - or in Euro-speak 37C! And with an incredible humdity to match. Unless you are lazing by, or in, a swimming pool its far too hot to do anything. Simply walking 400m from hotel to office yesterday had one gasping for air and dripping with sweat - sorry, its horses that sweat, men perspire.
And so you start to appreciate why everything from office to car is air-conditioned. You can't so anything in that heat. God help you if you had to hoe a field or dig a hole. Even first thing in the morning it was still warm, but more importantly, still very humid.
Let's leave the heavy jobs until the fall and head back inside for a ham sandwich. I've discovered that ham sandwich is slang for a Budweiser as both contain 140Kcals!
LCJames
Stateside
8th July 2010
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Stowaway Aboard!
Is it possible, in these days of heightened security and terrorist threats, to get all the way through a major international airport and on to the plane with an out of date boarding pass?
The answer is a resounding YES.
I've been off to Scandinavia once again this week, this time with my new colleague, New Boy. After a couple of days in high pressure meetings with intercontinental colleagues it was time to return back to Blighty.
We duly arrived at the major international airport where New Boy and I proceeded through security, through the airport shopping malls and cafes, through passport control - because not being signatories to the Schengen Agreement we are the great unclean of European travel - then, having checked in at the gate, we boarded the orange-and-white plane bound for Essex International Airport.
So there we were sitting comfortably - what with having purchased Speedy Boarding - waiting to set off. The cabin crew counted all the passengers and then put a call out for two people they were missing. No answer. They then did another count and, at the front of the aircraft, still seemed to be agitated and they consulted the Captain. The stewardess then announced that for some reason the passenger numbers did not tally so they needed to check all boarding passes, starting with those who checked in on-line.
Slowly but surely they worked their way down the plane painstakingly checking each name off against against a long list of passenger details.
Finally they arrived at my row. I handed my boarding pass and, after 30 seconds, I was duly ticked off the list. Then New Boy handed in his boarding pass. 30 seconds...60 seconds...still couldn't find his name. Then the stewardess noticed the problem. He was sitting on the plane with a boarding pass for the same flight at the same time but for the previous day!
It transpired that when New Boy had amended his flight, as I had done, from the evening flight to the morning flight, he'd somehow failed to notice that he'd also changed the date by one day. He hadn't even noticed when he'd printed it off.
New Boy unfortunately had to leave the flight - once he'd explained his error the Captain was happy to take him but the ground crew at Scandinavia International Airport would not let him fly.
Once he was off the plane the crew then did a very thorough check of all baggage and overhead lockers and stripped all the cushions off the seats in my row as well as checking all seat back pockets and underneath the seats, just in case he'd left a present for us - that extra check was appreciated!
What gets me is that New Boy's boarding pass, with printed bar code, was scanned when passing through the security area and then again at the gate when boarding - the ground crew even crossed someones name off a paper list as she scanned it! At no point did anyone or any computer notice that it was out of date - can anyone get on a plane with any old boarding pass?
As for New Boy, the good news is that he was able to catch the next flight home on the same day - just a delay of 7 hours.
LC James
Airside
27th May 2010
The answer is a resounding YES.
I've been off to Scandinavia once again this week, this time with my new colleague, New Boy. After a couple of days in high pressure meetings with intercontinental colleagues it was time to return back to Blighty.
We duly arrived at the major international airport where New Boy and I proceeded through security, through the airport shopping malls and cafes, through passport control - because not being signatories to the Schengen Agreement we are the great unclean of European travel - then, having checked in at the gate, we boarded the orange-and-white plane bound for Essex International Airport.
So there we were sitting comfortably - what with having purchased Speedy Boarding - waiting to set off. The cabin crew counted all the passengers and then put a call out for two people they were missing. No answer. They then did another count and, at the front of the aircraft, still seemed to be agitated and they consulted the Captain. The stewardess then announced that for some reason the passenger numbers did not tally so they needed to check all boarding passes, starting with those who checked in on-line.
Slowly but surely they worked their way down the plane painstakingly checking each name off against against a long list of passenger details.
Finally they arrived at my row. I handed my boarding pass and, after 30 seconds, I was duly ticked off the list. Then New Boy handed in his boarding pass. 30 seconds...60 seconds...still couldn't find his name. Then the stewardess noticed the problem. He was sitting on the plane with a boarding pass for the same flight at the same time but for the previous day!
It transpired that when New Boy had amended his flight, as I had done, from the evening flight to the morning flight, he'd somehow failed to notice that he'd also changed the date by one day. He hadn't even noticed when he'd printed it off.
New Boy unfortunately had to leave the flight - once he'd explained his error the Captain was happy to take him but the ground crew at Scandinavia International Airport would not let him fly.
Once he was off the plane the crew then did a very thorough check of all baggage and overhead lockers and stripped all the cushions off the seats in my row as well as checking all seat back pockets and underneath the seats, just in case he'd left a present for us - that extra check was appreciated!
What gets me is that New Boy's boarding pass, with printed bar code, was scanned when passing through the security area and then again at the gate when boarding - the ground crew even crossed someones name off a paper list as she scanned it! At no point did anyone or any computer notice that it was out of date - can anyone get on a plane with any old boarding pass?
As for New Boy, the good news is that he was able to catch the next flight home on the same day - just a delay of 7 hours.
LC James
Airside
27th May 2010
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Northbound Flights Resume
Good news enough to warm even the coldest hearts - after much delay, the weekend heatwave heralded the arrival of the Cuckoo.
Saturday morning echoed to the calls of a Cuckoo here in the Rural Shires. Not only that, the Turtle Dove also arrived in the parish its delicate purring drifting on the warm air from the nearby hedgerow scrub.
Interestingly, the Visiting Minnesotan didn't know the call of the Cuckoo - in the US they don't have our proper cuckoo-ing clock-living cuckoo, except in the very far western islands of Alaska, which are virtually in Asia anyway! Instead they have several similar shaped species none of which go "cuckoo".
So why the late arrivals? Most likely they are linked to the recent low temperatures and prevailing northerly winds - we were scraping ice off the windscreen only two weeks ago! A few birds may have pushed on northwards into the cold but most - the smart ones in my book - will have waited, perhaps sunning themselves on the French Riviera or in the Bois de Boulogne.
Saying that, the Turtle Doves prefer not to loiter in French airspace, what with them being amongst the favoured targets of le homme avec le fusil de chasse - the man with the shotgun! so they may have enjoyed a stop-over on the Costas.
As spring glides kindly into summer, keep you ears open for nature's welcoming sounds - Cuckoo, Turtle Dove, lawnmower. ice cream van, champagne cork!
LC James
Landlocked
26th May 2010
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