A Peregrine in a Pear Tree

A couple of Saturdays ago Christmas preparations were boiling up to frantic. Every year I feel a strong pull to make my way into town and shoulder my way into the scrum. Like a salmon swimming upstream.

Could I resist?

Birdwatchers had been tweeting. A rare hen harrier had been sighted in a rushy river valley close to St Albans. 

So instead of going into town, we walked along the River Ver until we spotted a cluster of folk in bobble hats clutching binoculars and the odd outsize ‘scope.

The little flock of bird watchers was friendly and communicative.
The hen harrier had been through earlier but was nowhere to be seen now.

Nigel and I stood for a while and saw red kite, heron, egret and all manner of titmice.

And then, flying over, a large falcon. Everybody whooped. (Quietly - they are bird watchers after all.) They trained their scopes on the sky. It was a peregrine. Nowhere near as rare as a hen harrier but still worth a restrained cheer.

Even better, a hapless buzzard flew into view and the peregrine began to attack, stooping from a height, swooping like a bullet, until it drove the larger bird away.

We never did see the hen harrier but neither did we get caught up in the Christmas consumer madness. And I won’t ever forget that peregrine.

Birthday Surprise

Nigel’s birthday was coming up just at the very end of Lockdown.  There weren’t many options for celebrating.  As a family we are largely vegetarian, so scotch eggs were out.

I proposed to the children that we meet up with just a few old friends to have a surprise Zoom quiz for Nigel.  I arranged the call and the kids came up with rounds on topics which would interest Nigel – growing fruit and veg, lightbulbs, getting arrested while sitting in the road and ‘What was Nigel doing in that photograph?’

The day dawned and Nigel was none the wiser.  I personally defrosted a lovely birthday supper and unwrapped his birthday cake.  (I go to endless trouble on these occasions.)

Then we began what Nigel expected to be a call with the kids.  As his friends rang in, he said umpteen times ‘I wasn’t expecting this’.

And there was a surprise for me too.  Apparently I had forgotten to tell the kids that it was supposed to be a surprise, but somehow nobody had blown the secret.

Over the Zoom call with friends, I said to the children,

‘But didn’t you wonder why I’d set up a new WhatsApp group to make the arrangements?’

‘No Mum,’ said Carenza, ‘I just thought it was some sort of manipulative behaviour.’

Thanks, Girl.

Who Stole the Road?

 

On Monday afternoon, Nigel strode into my study.

‘Clare!  Look outside! Somebody has stolen the road.’

We live at the end of a very long cul-de-sac.  Both of us working at home.  For the last month, most of our interactions whether work or social have been via Zoom or the phone.

I didn’t think we could get much more isolated until the road resurfacing team came and took away our route to anywhere.  Where once there was asphalt now there is only a lumpy, uneven surface.

Perhaps tomorrow I will look out of my window and see only mist and clouds, indicating that finally we have been entirely cut off from all time and space.

Like the tardis. 

I shall remain stoical, as long as the wi-fi still works.

But the promise is that by the end of the week, we shall have back not only our road, but some of our freedoms.

For a while anyway.