Pica pica

It's quite a while since I regaled you with some nature notes, so here goes once again.

The magpie (pica pica) is not the most popular bird in the country.  Although scientific research does not back up the claim, many people assert that the decline in song birds over the last couple of decades is due, in no small part, to an increase in the magpie population.  The magpie is a member of the crow family and, like all crows, is an omnivore, quite happy to raid other birds' nests to take eggs and chicks.  Far more than most birds, and certainly more than any other crow, the magpie has customs and tales associated with it.  In some parts of the country - or maybe across the whole of the country - there are people who insist that a magpie should be greeted with a respectful, "Good morning, colonel".

Then there are the rhymes, with at least two slightly different versions of this none:

1 for sorrow
2 for joy
3 for a girl and
4 for a boy
5 for silver
6 for gold
7 is a secret never to be told
8 is a wish and
9 is a kiss
10 is a bird you must not miss. 

In Scotland the magpie was once believed to carry a drop of the Devil’s blood under its tongue which perhaps stems from another belief that the magpie was the only bird not to wear full mourning at the crucifixion. One seen flying or croaking around a house or sitting alone symbolizes that misfortune is present.  If one is seen on the way to church it signifies that death is present, and some folks believe that it is best to cross yourself to ward off evil or negative energies whilst saying, 'Devil, Devil, I defy thee’.  Then there is the old English tradition that if one magpie flies by, you should take your hat off and bow, saying the Devil, Devil bit.

But what really got me going on about magpies is the fact that as I was leaving the park, I counted no fewer than 24 of them sitting in one elm tree, with others close by.  What, I wondered, is the collective noun for a group of magpies?  I know of a charm of goldfinches and a parliament of rooks, but apparently the collective noun for magpies can be a tittering, a murder or a tiding.

So there you have the trivia for Tuesday.  Except that today is Wednesday, so I'm a day late.

Tidings of . . .

. . . well, whatever.  It is at Christmas that many people write down what has been happening to them and theirs and send out the missive with the cards.  I do miss the round robin that my mother received every Christmas from a cousin of mine far away.  I always enjoyed seeing what he and, more usually, his children had been doing through the year.  I smiled and sometimes laughed out loud at the boasting absurdities but, as I said, I always enjoyed reading those two or three pages.

Some, possible many, people sneer at those round robins.  Yes, of course they need to read with a man-sized pinch of salt, but I always think it's flattering that the sender thinks the person who receives the news is interested enough to read it.  I see it as a sign that the writer thinks well of the addressee.  Yeah, I know, I'm being a bit - well, as if I've swallowed the milk of human kindness or some other noxious substance.

But are we not all, each and every one of us, just a little bit interested in what our friends and relatives are up to?  And not only friends and family; some people (not me, I hasten to add) pour over the gossip columns in the newspapers.  And some of us - heaven help us - read of the activities of people we have never met and who are known to us only electronically while we write about our own lives for others to read!  A sort of every day round robin.

So you can stop your sneering right now!

Ready to go

Well, that's it.  I'm ready for Christmas.  I put the decorations up, brought the tree in, and checked the lights.  Wonder of wonders, they worked!  I strung them on the tree - and they looked lost.  I had bought the smallest tree I could find, but even so, it is bigger than we usually have and that string of lights is, well, just a little on the short side.  We do have a second string, but the Old Bat has vetoed their use for the last umpty years, that second string being multi-coloured.  She has insisted that the lights be all white.  Personally, I prefer the coloured lights, but who am I, a mere male, to argue?  Anyway, She Who Must (usually) Be Obeyed agreed: the string of white lights was just not enough.  So I got to test the coloured lights as well - and they worked, too!  Then I was even allowed to put the decorations on the tree - but only as the Old Bat handed them to me with instructions about their placement.

I don't know if it's a Mars and Venus thing - I've seen that suggested - but the Old Bat decides on a colour theme for the tree.  It might be red and gold or, as this year, silver and green.  That's why she prefers the white lights.  Me, I'm all for bunging on glass baubles of all colours, along with the coloured lights.  But perhaps I've just got no taste.

I even written all my cards (all four of them) and posted ours as well as mine.  (You will gather that I feel it necessary to send cards to some people that the OB has crossed off her list, plus a couple where she doesn't have the addresses.)  And I have ALL the presents bought.  I'm just waiting for my granddaughter's to arrive.  The nearest shop to have what she wanted in stock was 53 miles away so I went online.  I just hope it arrives in time.

Oh, there's just one present I have yet to buy - for the Old Bat.  But I know what I'm buying her.  It occurred to me as I was washing up yesterday evening.  Or, more specifically, as I emptied the washing up bowl.  That was when I spotted the split in the bottom of the bowl.  So I shall buy her a new one for Christmas.  And a matching draining rack as well.  Asda might be the cheapest place to get them.  I'll have a look when I do the shopping tomorrow.

Getting up

I really did not want to get up this morning. The pink in the sky was scant consolation, especially when all it did was to light up the frost!

But get up I did, and I walked the dog after breakfast. There is an old wives' tale - or maybe it's an ancient mariner's tale - that the wind gets up with the tide. Well, I have no idea of the times of the tides - this is something that is of no concern to me so I take no interest - but by the time I left the park the wind had definitely got up and the previously clear sky was practically 10/10 cloud cover.

And now I must think about getting up into the loft.  The Old Bat says she wants the Christmas tree brought in today and I have to get the decorations down - and then up!

Everything stops for tea

I actually made it on time yesterday evening so I suppose it was a case of third time lucky.

Today I have a touch of luxury in my life.  For a start, I will not be walking the dog this afternoon.  Not that I have any objection to a little gentle exercise like that.  Indeed, I approve of it most heartily; I find that gentle exercise like walking eases the muscles and gets rid of arthritic twinges.  If only the wind would drop and the temperature rise a little!

The real luxury is that I will be having afternoon tea.  Afternoon tea does not usually feature in my life, except as a mug of the nectar somewhere between three and half past.  Today, though, I shall enjoy sitting down to sandwiches and cake - along with the essential liquid, of course.  The occasion is the annual pre-Christmas party organised by the Lions for some of the old folk of the city.

[OK, that's enough of the sarky comments, thank you very much!  I'm one of the organisers, not one of the invited guests!]

That, of course, means that I will be enjoying my tea in the company of a whole load of old codgers, several of whom will be younger than me.  We have an entertainer booked so tea will be accompanied by a host of corny jokes.

'Afternoon tea' generally conjures up images of dainty, triangular sandwiches - cucumber or egg and cress - with the crusts cut off and one of those two- or three-tier cake plates (which I understand have come back into vogue).  There will, of course, be a silver tea pot and milk jug.  In the really posh places there will be two tea pots - one with China tea, one with India.  There will also be a few slices of lemon along with the milk and sugar lumps in another silver bowl, together with silver sugar tongs.

But should the milk be put in the cup before or after the tea?  That can be the subject of prolonged debate, although it doesn't make any difference as far as I can tell.

A rough night

As King Lear had it, a naughty night to swim in.  You might gather that I'm not referring to the amount of alcohol consumed but to the weather.  We were promised winds of 70mph at exposed headlands along the south coast.  I don't really think our house would generally be thought of as being on a headland, exposed or otherwise, but it certainly sounded as though the wind was pretty near that speed.  Shoreham port recorded 55.8 knots - about 63mph - so perhaps it wasn't far short of the predicted speed up here.  There was plenty of rain as well.  When I was up the Waterhall valley on Sunday afternoon I noticed that the dew pond was about as full as I have ever seen it and the one at the top of the Wild Park, which I passed this afternoon, is close to overflowing.  The sky appears to be darkening as I type - which doesn't augur too well for this evening's bingo.

I am, once again, on bingo duty at a block of retirement flats just over three miles away.  When I am on duty I try to leave home 20 or 25 minutes before the session is due to start.  That has, in the past, always proved to be enough time for me to drive there and set up the bingo in good time for the 7.30 start.

Not last time.  I left, as usual, at 7.05 - and it took me 35 minutes to drive the three miles!  That time it was simply the volume of traffic.  I started by taking my regular route, which involves driving into the city centre and then heading east parallel to the sea front.  As I was heading down the hill to the city, I tagged onto the end of a queue - which I could see stretched a mile.  I turned rtound and took the alternative route.  But I had forgotten that the council, in its wisdom, is making "improvements" to a large gyratory system - which no member of the general public wants or expects to make for safer driving and cycling.  However, the roadworks only made my journey longer, hence the 35-40 minutes to drive three miles.

The time before that I gave up all together.  That evening I sat in a queue and after ten minutes realised that the only reason I was slowly edging forward was because other drivers were turning round and coming back!  I did the same - and tried the alternative route, which was just as bad, so I gave up and came back home.  That time there had been flash flooding down in the centre as a result of heavy rain.

So, will I or won't I?

An unhappy Christmas

Events yesterday afternoon - which I need not trouble you with - reminded me of the worst Christmas I can remember.  At the time, I was working as the general manager ( a sort of downmarket description of CEO) of a newspaper company.  I realise now that I was probably a bit of a soft touch when it came to staff management but it paid off in many ways.  Most of the time, anyway.  Not that being a soft touch really has anything much to do with what caused my miserable Christmas.

It must have been either Christmas Eve or the day before, 23rd December, when I discovered that the advertisement manager, who reported to me, had lied to me about something he claimed to have done and had lied to a regular advertiser about the same matter.  In my opinion at the time - an opinion I have not had cause to change - this warranted instant dismissal.  But my soft touch came into play.  I told him he had a choice: either his letter of resignation would be on my desk immediately after Christmas - in which case I would allow him to take gardening leave, pay him during his notice period and give him a very anodyne reference - or I would sack him with no notice pay and no reference.  Of course, I realised all the time that he really had no choice.  But that wasn't what caused my unhappy Christmas.

During both Christmas Day and Boxing day, I kept thinking of him and his wife trying to make it a happy Christmas for their two young daughters, knowing all the time that he was out of a job.  I knew full well that I had acted not just correctly but even generously - but that didn's do much to assuage the guilty feeling.

I told you I was a soft touch.