fly by night

I finished off my butterfly pictures this morning, breathed a sigh of relief as I hit the upload button, and went for a ride on my bicycle.

They're for the Bristol Downs wildlife book. I've very nearly finished all the pics now. I can then devote myself more single-mindedly to What The Heck To Do Next.

In the meeja.... I got some money from Neon, a German magazine, today, for use of my photos in a feature they did which was more or less the same as the one in the Guardian. Except in German. So hurrah, and I think I may have to buy a new pair of shoes. You know how it is.

I found this copy of the article on monanotlisa's LJ. Thanks for putting it up, Mona! It was nice to see some more of Neil Drabble's photos, too.

So I mail Richard, and he mails me and tells me that he likes the butterfly pictures and that the cricket balls that I posted to him last week have still not arrived. (They are hard to get hold of in Strasbourg, apparently. Maybe the French are still a bit prickly after that business with Henry V and the Dauphin.)

And Richard also mentions the Olympics.

I was going to try and get through this whole Olympics business without ever mentioning it. Damn.

No, that was me saying that. What Richard said was this:

I notice in the Olympics the swimming stroke 'the butterfly' no longer exists. Has been shortened for idiot sports-people, so we now have the 50 Metre Fly etc.

...and that in turn reminded me of a horrible incident from the 1970s. I was at RAF St Athan, for an Air Cadet swimming competition. God knows why I was there, as I only ever do a very slow breast stroke, although I could do the doggy paddle or even floating on my back at a pinch. OK, I know why I was there. Coercion. You know how it is with insanely sporty adults in charge of things.

So I get entered into something called Freestyle. Somehow I get the idea that this means that I have to swim using the butterfly stroke, something which I have never before attempted.

Gosh, you can swallow quite a lot of water doing that.

And take a long time to get to the other end.

Much longer than anyone else.

Oh well, it was probably character building.

*****

I fulfilled a long-held ambition today, and managed to download the wailing call of the Great Northern Diver onto my mobile phone.

Next week I'll sort out world peace.

One careful owner, or close the toiletgate door

The war is over, and we won. Well, someone did.

Enough with this story, already. But before moving on, here's a link to Commander Steve Allan's letter about the Trafalgar Square incident.

It seems to cover all the bases; the right noises are made; there's nothing much more to be said. I just picked up on

We have taken ownership of the issues at a very senior level...

...because I have watched this turn of phrase come out of nowhere in a very short space of time. Well, out of nowhere for me, anyway. It takes a little while for new buzzwords to alight in the rarely-frequented corner of the forest where I live.

Has it been around for ages? -it seems to be a useful way of admitting responsibility for something while making it seem like you've been in the right all along. I quite liked it when I first heard it; it sounded buzzy and refreshing. I woke up. I smelled the coffee.

Anyway, having read this letter, I get the feeling that "taking ownership" is dead in the water. It is an ex-parrot. It is no longer robust.

hunting the deer

Summer's gone with calm days
Ungentle now is Biscay Bay
A cold fear claims my heart
God save all sailors from the cruel waves

Some years back there was a sailor who set off on a round the world race but didn't actually go round the world. He just sort of hung around the Atlantic for ages, sending off the occasional false position report relating to his imaginary voyage. I think he ended up killing himself, but I'm not sure about that bit.

Hum. As for my wonderful and adventurous summer holiday, it didn't exactly happen. A week after my falling-off-the-bicycle-while-reaching-for-a-conker incident, I got some quite severe pain in my chest, which was diagnosed as a broken rib. So we had a quiet time at home.

We had a little expedition to Warleigh Weir, one of K's absolute favourite places. But the rain we've been having lately had swollen the river to dangerous levels, and swimming was out of the question. When she saw this, K started crying. Sometimes life doesn't do what it says on the packet. I felt helpless.


...and we went hunting the White Hart of Coppett Hill, up in the Wye Valley. We'd spotted this as we canoed down the river, painted on a rock face high up on the hill, and I wanted to see what it looked like close to.
...didn't make it to the rock; too wheezy. But it was a nice place to walk in, and we saw a couple of real life deer and observed the sociable pooing habits of the local badger population. So it was a good expedition, in that it contained serendipity and unexpected stuff. And it didn't rain until we were back in the car.

getting on

I've been staying away from the blogosphere lately as I've been trying hard to finish the pictures for this book so that I can go off on hols. Last night I finished the main flower section. Phew.

0524, dark outside, Shipping Forecast on the radio, shoulder stiff and creaky. Feels like autumn already. Silence outside. Only six weeks ago it was midsummer and it would have been light by now and the blackbirds would have been singing for an hour or more. Apparently, this is the time of year when the birds moult, so they skulk away and abstain from singing. I learned that from Geraldine Taylor's nature slot on Radio Bristol the other day. She speaks to the city on Tuesday mornings at 0520ish. Another early riser.

Toiletgate 2: swishing the mop

You may be wondering what ever happened after that business with Roz Kaveney and the no-trannies-in-the ladies'-loos thing at Pride. Wonder no longer, for here is an update.

Here's how it went:

Roz Kaveney was refused access to the womens' loos at Trafalgar Square.

An impromptu protest was held.

Roz was allowed into the womens' loo.

The impromptu protest dispersed, believing that the "no trannies" policy had been reversed.

It wasn't reversed, and a short while later a transwoman was assaulted in the mens' toilets as a result of this policy.

Criticism has been levelled at the stewards in question, and the Metropolitan Police LGBT Liaison officer who was present, and at Pride London in general.

There has been much heated discussion about whether there is, or even should be, a T in LGBT.

Auntysarah was at the big meeting to discuss this stuff, and here's her write-up on LJ.

per ardua ad conker

So we're out cycling on Friday morning and we're riding across the grass under the conker trees and the conkers are looking quite big now so i stand up to try and clout one off the branch as I pass under the tree and.... the front wheel slips on the wet grass and I take a really heavy tumble.

I lie there for a while letting the waves of pain work their way through, while trying to reassure K, who's extremely worried. Heck, so am I. I can still move everything, though there's a lot of pain in my left hip area.

Worst fall I've had, that I recall (the motorbike accident when I was concussed doesn't count, as I lost my memory. Likewise the time I had my skull fractured by those nice football enthusiasts in Portsmouth...) And, as I realised later, it happened during the eclipse. Scary.

I hope the full moon hasn't got anything in store for me too.

Oh and the conker stayed in the tree. I've got little puncture marks in the palm of my hand from its spikes. Serves me right. I guess.

unforgiving minutes

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

...unless you're a woman, of course.

We're a bit short on unforgiving minutes at Schloss Marland. I am working hard at getting the illustrations finished for The Bristol Downs: A Wildlife Year, while trying to fit in more adventurous stuff as K is on hols now.

Well, we did go swimming at Warleigh, near Bath. We arrived in the evening just as everyone else was leaving, on what must have been the hottest day of the year so far. So it was nice and warm, even for me.


Catherine, at Broadcast Books, suggested the other day that I might like to exhibit some of my pictures at the book stall during Bristol Harbour Festival. So I had a frantic time finding timber and building display stands and getting frames and framing up and... realising that I'd
not really taken seriously the exhibiting of my pics before now. So it was about time.

And we got down there, to the Boathouse on Phoenix Wharf, yesterday evening, and set up the pics. Here they are...


...I could have done more but I ran out of frames. Maybe better go to IKEA.

The Boathouse is a scout and guide hut. It's a really old, wooden building, with the boats and workshop on the lower floor and this surprisingly light space reached by external steps. The window looks across the harbour to the amphitheatre where, a chap drinking a cup of tea explained, someone called Buoyancy is playing on Saturday. I think he meant Beyonce. But I like the sound of Buoyancy, especially for a Harbour Festival.