A short newsletter that is surprisingly long

Where are my knitting needles? Sparrowhawks. I’ve also lost my new pen.

A brief missive today because I’m afraid that I can never write again; my son has subscribed to this newsletter despite being told he absolutely wasn’t allowed to.

Not really, but it is late on Sunday to be getting around to this, and I have better things to be doing quite frankly; like finding my knitting needles, or working on my complex system of 30 different journals and sketchbooks for documenting different areas of my life. You’re probably wondering how someone who rarely leaves the house can spend that much time writing and drawing their life, but I remind you I am extremely talented at putting things off, so rarely have to document anything at all. I enjoy thinking about it though. Also, Finn, you unsubscribe now.

Anyway. Three cormorants at the lake, all in the dead tree. The one with the white chest is there. The world has defrosted, and it made of mud. Two squirrels leap from one chestnut tree to another, the branch bouncing like a diving board under their weight, looking perilously like it might catapult them into oblivion. I stand and watch, but the tree steadies and they rush off on squirrelly business. Probably off the eat my kale. Great tits wheeze into action. Nature ticks on towards February.

I review the weeks notes; I saw some good things this week, and there’s a danger that, for ease of reading, I might fall into the nature writing trap of combining it all into one cohesive walk. I remind you again of the time my son complained about someone’s narrative an allegedly single walk at night. ‘Where the hell is he walking that all this wildlife is hurling itself onto the path in front of him? I’ve walked home from school at 10 O’clock for months and I’ve only seen one fox, and it scared the shit out of me’. (It’s not true, he often sees bats and other nocturnal creatures; just not all on the same night)

Nar the lake, a red kite is sitting on the tree where I saw that heron sitting the other week, his tail still unfolded and recognisably forked. It strikes me as odd I have not seen a kite sitting like this; maybe it’s because the tail normally folds together and looks like any other birds tail. I make a mental note to pay more attention to red kites when they are sitting on trees (which the mostly aren’t).

I could say I walked on, through the woods, spotting my first celandine of the season (I did, but that wasn’t how it happened) and then onto the pitches, where I saw a sparrowhawk, though that happened a different day, one where I didn’t see any cormorants at all.

The sparrowhawk was flying along making a noise. It is a noise that sparrowhawks make, but I have not heard up till now . I have never heard any noise from sparrowhawk before, really, just the screams of small things that have strayed into her path. In fact, the only time I have even seen one properly is that time I found and injured one on the golf course. The anger of her silent, yellow stare lingers still.

Before then, I hadn’t seen her, but I knew she was there, a fleeting glimpse of grey, the appearance of mysterious piles of pigeon feathers. Then she was she was injured, and that was it for sparrowhawks round here, for a couple of years. Recently, the piles of feathers have started occurring again. I am happy about that in a way that pigeons aren’t.

I’ve finished this sketch now but it’s too dark to bother to take a new photo.

We drive to Hungerford and catch the train to Kintbury (an arduous 4 minute journey) and walk back to the car along the canal. I see a cormorant flying, an egret, and those ducks that look almost like a mallard but not quite. Ducks that are drawn like a Disney character on the back of an ice cream van; almost the right shape, almost the right colours but a bit wonky. Knock off mallards. We enjoy a few days of reacquainting ourselves with a forgotten weather phenomena called ‘sunshine’ before it gets back to creating absurd amounts of mud with endless freezing rain.

Workings

I’ve been continuing with my secret projects, and looking for my knitting needles, which remain lost. I have a book of knitting patterns for moomin socks I received and Christmas, so this is quite upsetting. It doesn’t help that there don’t seem to be any knitting needles in the charity shops anymore- where does one even buy massive amounts of needles for 50p if not the charity shop? Anyway, the secret project has advanced from ‘oh god, what have I done?’ to ‘looks quite promising actually, but I need to start again’, so I’m not going to show off any results. There a genuine risk the third stage is ‘I thought things were getting better, but I look at this and understand I was a fool’.

That’s why this newsletter is so short. That and my son spying on me. And being a bit too tired to write the thing I was going to write about, which was to be a review of Tom’s studio pens. I have three now so can compare them but I can say right now the main flaw of Tom’s studio pens is none of them have a clip, which means at any given time I can find maybe two of them, if I am lucky. I have no idea where my most used pen (the wren) is currently. I think I am going to have to buy it a leash if I ever find it again. Anyway. I’ll try to be more organised with the writing of my newsletter next week. But probably not. I apologise to everyone I have disappointed, any give a cheery welcome and assurances the it is not always this bad to my new subscribers*. Except my son. He needs to unsubscribe if he wants to get that expensive record (or vinyl as the children are calling them) he picked out for his birthday.

Findings.

Look what I found.

Actually I found tiny baby shrimp but they were too small to photograph, so enjoy this egg wafting. In a heavily planted tank I was surprised I could find any microscopic crustaceans, but they have been living behind the heater where it’s there and snurli snurlson can’t get to the algae. It’s also black, which is great for seeing transparent micro fauna; I await your heartiest congratulations on this achievement.

*its mostly bad, but occasionally I write something I think is quite good. Anyway, the point of this is not for you to enjoy it, but get you to buy things.