First sightings

Sorry - no photographs this posting - I didn't have my camera handy.

On Saturday morning a woodpecker visited the suet slab bird feeder nearest the house. There was no mistaking the large beak and the red undercarriage. I don't think a woodpecker has visited our garden before but the weather is so bird unfriendly that I suppose he was having to search beyond his usual territory. He flew from the bird feeder onto the oak tree at the bottom of the garden and made his way up the trunk, beak at the ready, looking as though he would start pecking at any moment - visions of the tree crashing down - it is only about twenty years old so the trunk has quite a few years to go before its sturdy.

On Saturday night I went to the Symphony Hall in Birmingham for a concert given by the BPSO (British Police Symphony Orchestra). Symphony Hall is situated in an area of regeneration around the canal system and has become a very fashionable area. (The hub of canals, known as the Gas Street Basin, was originally built in the second half of the eighteenth century). Walking to the concert hall the canals were very icy and a group of mallards were swimming their way through a passage in the ice floes, single file, heading for clearer water.

The concert was called Proms Night Spectacular and the usual items of Proms music was played. One of the trumpeters in the orchestra just happens to be the bursar of the Primary school I retired from. We noticed that from early in the concert she was constantly having to adjust her trumpet. When the interval came, she walked towards our seats (we were in balcony seats at the side of the stage)and asked if anyone had a hair bobble. After rifling about in my handbag I produced the very same item and threw it down onto the stage. She was able to use it to make a temporary repair on her trumpet and complete her part in the concert.

I had the reputation of being a squirrel when I was teaching and of being able to find most things in my stockroom, often able to produce the quirky things that my colleagues requested. Rumour was that Lord Lucan and Shergar were hidden in the depths of the stockroom.

At the end of a thoroughly enjoyable concert, the journey back home was a slow affair. It had rained, there was no longer any ice left on the canal and no sign of the mallards. The slight rise in temperature meant that roads were now very wet and slippy and it was quite foggy so we took our time and made sure that we got home safely.

The BPSO is coming to Stafford in May - that concert is on our itinerary for next year.