Friday 6 May 2011

Grebe's nest in reeds on Godfrey's pond 6 May '11, a photo by Roger Bunting on Flickr.

Walked to town & back (cat food) via pond & canal, finally saw the grebes' nest I knew was there.

A narrowboat (Aisling Gheal) was approaching Morse so I stopped to snap it.

I'm afraid that I put the willies up 'em with my tale of NB Charlotte sticking in Stret lock (the next they'd meet).

Aisling Gheal is Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) for "Bright Vision". It's a well known (apparently) song. More nice people. All the narrowboaters I've met are friendly folk. Gotta see if I can con someone into carrying me the full length of the canal with camera 'cause I'm gonna find it difficult to do the West Stockwith to Clayworth section on foot using my bus pass to get there.

Huffler

T'other day I found this blog. Went out to see in the morning and took some pics of the rescue. They've got 3 boats (and three dogs!) and cruise the waterways all spring and summer, nice people. One boat went on to Norwood tunnel portal, leaving the other two just below Sandy Lane bridge. They're meeting up again at Retford, possibly today (Thursday)

I walked up to meet them on the way back - met them at Turnerwood and had a cup of coffee with them.

Trevor the BW man, he of the hairy face, was there - if there's anything he doesn't know about the Chesterfield then it's probably not worth knowing.

The Mandarin duck was on the pound above Feeder lock, beautiful bird. It had apparently adopted a brood of mallard chicks - it was defending them from other drakes.

Our own (great crested) grebe is still sitting on eggs at Godfrey's pond (aka Sandhills lake!). This is their second nest, the first was near a coots' nest who they were kicked out by. I think there's another nest at the other end of the pond but it's hidden in reeds. There was a pheasant strutting around screeching in the reeds on Monday. It's quite a little wildlife haven in this scruffy place.

Start

So what to blog about?

I didn't know cats (well, some cats (well, one cat out of the three who deign to inhabit my palatial abode with me)) like cheese. Kipper loves mature cheddar.

I've got a whole load of pics on Flickr.

There's loads from travels in a motorhome, chiefly round Scotland but since getting flooded out in 2007, I've been in a council flat.

I'm now spending my time walking, mainly up and down the Chesterfield Canal

.

Trouble with digital cameras is that you aren't discriminating enough so I've started picking out the few that I really like and putting them in their own collection.

I've got a Nikon D80 camera with a Nikon 18-50 and a Sigma 70-300.

So far this week I've walked from Chesterfield to Staveley and Ranby to Retford. I did the Chesterfield one on Monday, I'd forgotten, if I ever knew, that it was a Bank Holiday and the bus was running to Sunday schedule: it took about one and a half bloody hours to get there! The only possible reason for going to Chesterfield, assuming you've seen the twisted spire, is to buy stilton (food of the gods) from the cheese shop. £5.00s worth is about four times what you get from M&S - terrific.