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Wildlife Diary and News Blog 2007 - notes from a small wood Observations from Groves Bank, Groves Dyke and Groves Coppice, Whitby, England.
(Always click 'Refresh' for the most recent version, then scroll down): December 2007 Weather Summary Max 12°C (54°F). Min -5°C (22°F). Rain 60mm (2⅜ inch). This morning: 6°C (42°F). Cold and raw until mid-month, when a high pressure system became established and gave clear, dry, sunny days and clear, cold and starry nights. Some fog again just before Christmas (but only enough to disrupt just a few Christmas flights from Heathrow this year). 31 Dec 2007 A good day's hedging today when SA and I managed about 5 yards in reasonable weather. 28 Dec 07 While SA laid the little Beech hedge with a roll-edge basket weave technique, four of us went off to Wakefield to spend a few hours with Andy Goldsworthy's exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It is excellent - but due to end on 05 Jan 08, so you had better be quick! Best of all was a giant, upright, 15 feet high 'egg' (he calls it a 'cone' but it is definitely an egg) built of interlocked Oak branches. I want one! But perhaps just a baby one... 27 Dec 07 Switched the computer on for the first time in several days, so apologies for the gap. Happy Christmas! The dry, sunny and frosty weather just before Christmas gave way to grey and mild with very occasional showers. The rain gauge now stands at 1¾ inches and the mild, grey weather continues. There were some magnificent sunsets around Christmas itself, the sort that would delight whole flocks of shepherds. (Are these the same ones as in the carol: 'Wild shepherds wash their socks by night')? On Boxing Day SA and I spent a very pleasant morning swapping stories with JW the wood-carver, and watching up to 9 Long Tailed Tit on the feeder, before setting off after lunch to lay a bit more hedge. This time we were accompanied by Bill Hook, Ma Shetty, Whet Stone, Lum Palmer and all the others we missed so much last time. By late afternoon we had laid another few yards and chatted to lots of passers-by, most of whom recognised what we were doing. This is in great contrast to when I first laid this same hedge in the winter of 1988/9, when almost everyone asked accusingly 'Are you cutting that hedge down?', several said nothing at all and only one person (a local primary school teacher) said 'Nice to see the forgotten art of hedge-laying is still alive and well in this area!' 23 Dec 07 A 15-minute bird count from my conservatory gave: Long Tailed Tit 5, Blackbird 4, Bullfinch 2, Coal Tit 2, Dunnock 2, Great Tit 2, Marsh Tit 2, Robin 2, Chaffinch 1, Magpie 1, Nuthatch 1, Wood Pigeon 1 (1045 -1100, ⅝ thin high cloud, calm, cold and dry). 22 Dec 07 Yesterday I caught up with all of SA's work, including the de-brambling of the little Beech hedge by the car park and also of Wasp Nest Corner at the very far end of the orchard. BC joined us and after lunch we started siding-up this hedge in preparation for laying it (now that the Wasps have gone and the birds have eaten almost all of the Haws). We soon found that the easiest way to remove all the unwanted side growth was just to begin laying the hedge anyway, which we proceeded to do (handicapped only by not having brought a bill hook, a machete nor a lump hammer). Still and all, we managed 3 or 4 yards next to the corner, bending the tall pleachers around the corner post and working them into the adjacent hedge which we laid two years ago. This season's hedging has finally begun! 20 Dec 07 Back from a short break and very nice it was too, thank-you. I see that the BBC Natural History Unit at Bristol have very kindly sent me a DVD of the filming they did last year of my feeding station here, for their BBC 1 'Nature of Britain' series with Alan Titchmarsh. 14 Dec 07 This morning SA checked the newly repaired fence for any more pony problems (none) and then we sawed up all the Scots Pine branches into firelogs and stacked them in the woodshed, before up-dating all the chalk and slate labels on each section. These Pine logs should be ready in 1 year, along with any Cherry and Silver Birch, as these quick growing species seem to deteriorate if seasoned for a whole 2 years. Groves Dyke orchard was again hotching with 4 and 8 Blackbirds (sorry, not quite the full 4 and 20) feeding on the fallen apples. The sun has gone today and the cold wind is very lazy. It claims to be a SW, but I suspect that the S actually stands for Siberia! Minus 4°C last night and a good ½ inch of ice on the doggie drinks dispenser (bucket) in the yard. Restocked Dunsley House Hotel with more Unique Walking Sticks from Groves Coppice. They had completely sold out and were good enough to phone for more stock in time for Christmas. Production has fallen a bit as I have been waiting for the long promised new chimney to be installed in the Stickery before I spend too much smoky time in there. On a trip to the laundry this evening, Flag disappeared at high speed into the orchard and could be heard crashing about as he pursued Something up in the wood. Seconds later, a Roe Deer came galloping at full tilt past the pole barn, across the tarmac, through the open gate into the yard and then up and over the closed gate at the other side and away past my conservatory. Good thing it didn't jump the dry stone wall just to the right of the gate, or it would have been ice-skating across my pond! Flag reappeared a few minutes later, panting hard and very pleased with himself - but still no venison for my freezer. Congratulations, though, to Sustrans the sustainable transport charity which has just won £50 million of National Lottery funding to extend their National Cycleway throughout the UK. This was the same £50 million that we in Whitby were bidding for a couple of years ago, to rebuild Captain Cook's Resolution in Whitby harbour, reviving local traditional boat-building skills (with apprenticeships), at the same time as providing a fascinating visitor attraction. Once built, we planned to retrace Capt Cook's final voyage around the world, but then extend it beyond Tahiti where he was killed and bring her back home to Whitby via the North West Passage, thus highlighting the changes and dangers of global warming. Sadly, we only got as far as Round 2 in the Lottery bidding process, but we were the only community-led project in the final stages of the competition. Strange coincidence that the winner is announced today - the same day that the USA is busy scuppering as much as possible of the international agreement on reducing CO2 emissions in Bali. 12 Dec 07 A very hard frost last night, now that the cold, wet and raw weather has passed. The mud was all frozen hard and the grass was all 'crispy' as I walked around in bright sunlight this morning. Another surprise was a tuft of long blond hair on the barbed wire at the top of Dykeside and several hoof prints and heaps of horse dung on the path. Someone has squeezed under the top strand, trampled down the pig net fence and wandered about in the wood amongst the many (poisonous) Yew trees, before walking down hill and onto the main road by Sleights bridge or else (hopefully) squeezing back through the fence to rejoin all the other ponies in the fields above the wood. SA spent the morning repairing the fence left behind by Bethel and / or the other contractors employed by NEDL to replace the electricity wires several months ago. I had reported the baggy fence, the big hole they dug underneath the fence line, the gap they had cut and not rejoined, etc months ago and was assured that they would be called back to make good the damage. Guess what? Nobody ever appeared. Moral: Buy lots and lots of shares in NEDL because they use contractors and sub-contractors to do all the work at minimum cost, don't bother to supervise or check-up on them properly, creating lots of damage & problems in the process, make lots of promises, don't bother to fulfil any of them and then rely on the landowners to supply all the labour (2 man days), materials and equipment needed to make the repair themselves. With a corporate policy like that, no wonder NEDL declare £ multi-million profits every year and keep their shareholders very well satisfied! Buy! Buy! Buy! Better still: Bye-Bye-Bye! By late afternoon SA and I had completed the fence repairs (and found another previously undiscovered one caused by NEDL's contractors), the neighbour with the horses was informed and hopefully the wood and the horses are now safe from each other once again. Throughout the day over a dozen Blackbirds feasted on the carpet of fallen apples under Dyke orchard, with occasional Redwing and Fieldfare seen or heard up in the wood. Another hard frost expected tonight... 10 Dec 07 Winter draws on (or duvets, at least). The rain gauge now reads just over 1 inch of rain this month and the forecast is for some proper frosty weather at last. A 15-minute bird count at my feeding station (and the woodyard beyond) this morning produced 5 Blackbirds, 4 Blue Tit, 3 Dunnock, 2 Bullfinches, 1 Coal Tit, 1 Jay, 1 Marsh Tit and 1 Robin (8/8 cloud cover, F3W, wintry showers, cold and raw). This morning SA and dog Bruno worked in the pole barn as the wintry showers continued. After lunch we completed the final, final section of Bruno's Banisters with a few more lashings and now the Scot's Pine handrail is done and dusted (if not polished). This will make the descent from the top of Dykeside much safer than ever before. Dear Niall [and 1,000s of others], 08 Dec 07 Ok, so where are we now? Another meeting yesterday morning (I think every single organisation I belong to has had at least one meeting this week 'before Christmas arrives'). The meetings met, the joiner turned up unexpected in mid-afternoon and joined that which had become un-joined. Also yesterday SA dug in another 2 posts, so in the afternoon we dismantled that which had been temporarily mantled and then re-mantled it and lashed all together and now the handrail on the steep muddy bit of the descent is another section longer. Only one more to go and it will be complete. Yesterday we finished early to prepare for the switching on of the Christmas Lights at Whitby's Dock End. As Stewards for the Whitby Chamber of Trade and Commerce we helped to set up the public address system, helped push Santa's mobile grotto (a horsebox, but shouldn't that be a reindeer box?) into position, helped hand out carol sheets, helped to rattle tins (no we didn't, we just held them - it was us shivering that made them rattle), etc, etc. A good time was had by all, but the most memorable bit will probably be the moment when the Master of Arms on the Grand Turk fired the ship's canon to mark the event. Since we were practically under the bowsprit at the time, the noise was very impressive. Today it was dry until late morning and then the wintry showers arrived and lasted for much of the day. 05 Dec 07 Meetings most of yesterday. Meetings most of tomorrow. You'd think that Christmas was coming... Today I rolled cardboard logs in the pole barn while waiting for the joiner to arrive 'after 10'. SA planted another Scots Pine post to complete the woodwork for the upper section of handrail, but was then rained off and joined me in the pole barn. After lunch I rang the joiner, only to be told that it would now be '11 tomorrow', which freed us both to go and add a few lashings and the upper handrail section is now finished. It has been cooler and windy, with occasional showers. The rain gauge reads ½ inch so far this month. 03 Dec 07 SA and I delivered some more Scots Pine and Cherry to the local wood-turner and admired some of his recent work. Their craft fairs over the past few weeks have made over £500 for charity. A Pied Wagtail picked its way around my Spatio and several Blue and Coal Tits almost threw themselves onto the new fat cake hung out in mid-afternoon. After lunch we worked on the new handrail near the top of Dykeside, SA digging another 3 very precise, narrow post holes for the Scots Pine posts to support the Scots Pine handrail, while I looked and learned and occasionally lashed another section into place. Another 3 posts are still needed, plus another 7 lashings. Note to self: Must buy another 70 feet of rope tomorrow... 02 Dec 07 Wet. Stayed indoors preparing the new Study corner of my Lounge, ready for when (!) I finally dismantle the Office and return it to its original Dining Room status (for the first time since the CJS took it over about 1995). 01 Dec 07 Have a look at Groves Dyke Giggles for some new jokes, courtesy of DH who stayed here recently. November 2007 Weather Summary Max 14°C (58°F). Min -3°C (26°F). Rain 93mm (3⅝ inch). A week of fine autumnal weather ended with a severe NE gales, a Spring High Tide and a storm surge along the southern half of the North Sea. After several wet and windy days, the weather settled down to mild and overcast with occasional showers. 30 Nov 07 Just back from a few days in the Lake District, the highlights being Ambleside's switching on their Christmas Lights (over 150 kids in the parade, each with a DIY lantern on a stick and a lighted candle within, Santa in a Land Rover, a 'penguin' on a unicycle, a stilt-walker and the very impressive Staveley Carnival Drummers - I don't know who had to write the dreaded Risk Assessment for this very impressive event, but they certainly deserve a medal!); walking over High Close to Grasmere for Sunday lunch and back by Loughrigg Terrace (2 female Goosander on the village beck squabbling with the Mallard for handouts); a spectacularly wet 24 hours (when I wrote all my Christmas cards); the walk over Loughrigg to Ambleside with lunch at Lucy's (Game Casserole followed by Tiramisu and home on the school bus); etc. More to follow, when I have caught up with the heap of post and the c350 Unread emails... 22 Nov 07 A graceful Grey Wagtail flounced onto my pond this morning and danced around the edges and even pirouetted on the pondweed in the centre. The weather was dry enough to get several loads of washing onto the line before lunch - and then it rained all afternoon. Great. 'The Nature of Britain' series with Alan Titchmarsh on BBC1 television is now well advanced, but I have been told that the sequence filmed in my back garden, of my bird feeders in the snow earlier this year, was actually shown in the first or second episode. Pity I missed it, but I gather that the day and a half's filming was edited down to less than 1 minute of airtime. Never mind, who wants fame anyway?! My rain gauge is now reading about 3 inches so far this month (having stuck at less than 1 inch for the first few weeks). A single soggy Siskin, the first I have seen for many a month, visited the soggy peanut feeder this soggy afternoon. 21 Nov 07 Through the low cloud on the moortop to Pickering, across to Helmsley, up to Sutton Bank (very poor visibility) and down into the Vale of York (poor visibility), through Thirsk and Ripon to Fountains Abbey National Trust property. There BW was meeting a colleague who works there and after a great very local produce lunch (Fountains Abbey Venison Casserole) we had a wonderful exclusive tour of part of this massive World Heritage Site. As we passed a small ruined building just inside the Fountains Hall entrance, we watched the works team building a giant framework of green Oak to create a new exhibition space within the ruin. Great 9 inch square beams some 10 feet long already formed 3 sides of the new roof to be, while another was being winched into position. This giant lintel it was slowly lowered onto the 2 vertical timbers, only to be lifted up again so that one of the 2 giant mortise and tenon joints (with half-scarfed return joint at the corner post end) could be trimmed up with a carpenter's saw, hammer and chisel. A shaving off here, a slightly deeper cut there and the whole ton of green Oak was lowered back down again for another fitting. A few gentle thumps on each end with a massive rubber sledge hammer and the job's a good 'un. By tomorrow morning the green wood will have twisted just a little and it will have settled neatly under its own weight, ready for the next span to be added. Once the timber frame is completed, a single pitch roof will be added and the whole structure will be invisible from outside the ruined walls. All that modern kit, the chain pulley winch, the Rigid Steel Joist cantilevered over the side of the mobile scaffolding tower, the giant steel clamp that holds the suspended ton of timber - how on earth did the medieval joiners join all those giant abbey roof timbers without all this kit? Amazing! 20 Nov 07 Still damp, but time to get out and have a bit of a walk on one of the few 'all-weather' paths: the Rail Trail from Goathland down to Grosmont along Stevenson's original railway track. The footbridges washed away in the June Monsoon have been replaced, but some of the minor side routes are still waiting for their new bridges... And then it started raining again. We braved the rain for an absolutely superb meal at The Wheatsheaf at Egton Top - and were very glad that we did! Afterwards, going back up the Groves Dyke drive the car headlights caught 2 Roe Deer standing under the Apple trees, presumably eating the carpet of windfalls. 19 Nov 07 Still raining. We abandoned any attempt to go out and do anything useful in the wood, so instead we all went off on a Works Jolly to Kilburn (near Sutton Bank) to admire the works of The Mouseman. The showroom was open (wonderful) but the visitor centre, gift shop and cafe weren't (closed Mons & Tues in winter). Even the pub next door was closed for a kitchen refit, so we all had a nice bowl of soup at the National Park's Sutton Bank Visitor Centre before driving back to Sleights. Not exactly a Christmas Dinner, but as near as we can manage for now. 18 Nov 07 No ill effects this morning, with Flag up and about as usual and trotting happily on his morning walk in the pouring rain. It feels as if winter may have arrived and it's time to settle down for a relaxing indoor day by the woodburner. The clever new smoke alarm has finally overdone itself by peeping when it didn't need to peep. So, after a year of having 2 smoke alarms (the old style battery one screwed to the ceiling and one new style one plugged into the landing light socket), the trial is now complete and the annoying new one has been removed and rejected. In fact, I did the same with my own new version, when it sounded unnecessarily in the middle of the night and I threw the damn thing out of the window! 17 Nov 07 A wild, wet and windy night, with an additional ½ inch of rain now added to the ¾ inch from the storm surge low pressure of over a week ago. Two Roe Deer strolled through the wood as we walked around this morning. By late morning the wind had dropped a bit and the rain had gone. We walked on Danby Beacon with several Red Grouse around and Flag on a long lead. An excellent lunch was had at The Board in Lealholm, with wonderful 'fat sandwiches' (ie very thick) and superb soup by the wood burning stove. By afternoon the sun was out and off to the Toll Road from Egton Bridge to Grosmont. Flag and I set them off, walked with them a bit and then doubled back to collect the car and drive around to meet them at the other end. This is the most walking that Flag has had since earlier this year when he was unable to get to his feet unaided, but this wonder drug has certainly helped to rebuild his joints. Can I have some? An great evening meal with B and EW at the Egton Bridge Horseshoe rounded off a lovely day. 16 Nov 07 The Bank Vols started to dig a big hole for the big post (cut from the big Scots Pine) which will be the main support for the new handrail, while I rolled a few more cardboard logs. BW arrived in time for lunch and afterwards we all went to admire their handiwork. By late afternoon the big post was planted and, subject to a few minor adjustments, will soon be ready for the handrails. EW arrived later that evening by train. 15 Nov 07 Oh dear, more computer problems. Sorry about the delay, but I seem to remember that the past few days have also been very busy, very windy and very enjoyable. T&C came to stay for a few days and we had several great birding days out. A not very Long Tailed Duck drake (& 2 ducks) at Seal Sands, right in front of the hide. Not to mention 2 Little Grebes (so I won't), plus divers Divers, 6 Goldeneye, 3 Seals and, just as were were leaving the hide, a near miss from a low flying Merlin. Home via Saltholme Pools where 2 Little Egrets stood guard over the steel framework of the new super hide and visitor centre being built there by the RSPB and due to open in Spring 2008, before crossing the Tees on the magnificent old Transporter Bridge (very exciting if you are first in the queue)! Before that was a trip to Scalby Mills (ie Scarborough Sealife Centre) to watch the waves pounding the rocks where just 3 Wigeon swam in the rock pools, while a big ship 'way out on the horizon bucked and reared in the might seas. It's not often that you can watch a major container ship with bows up and out of the water one minute and then the stern and then the bows again. Poor things! Somewhere after that was a nice run out over the moors to Stoop Brow. No sign of any Hen Harriers (but then we didn't see Prince Harry either), followed by a magnificent afternoon tea at the Raven Hall Hotel, followed by a superb late evening meal at Greens (www.greensofwhitby.com) to cap it all off nicely. Yesterday SA tidied up again and then we sorted out more handrails from the felled Scots Pine, tidied up the stacking and decided which bits could also be used as posts to fix the handrails to. (Yes I know it is, but never mind)! It's calm, dry and sunny again, but with a good hard frost overnight. 08 Nov 07 It was wild and windy in the North Sea last night, with strong Northerly winds, a very high tide, a 3 meter storm surge (very low pressure over the sea which lets sea level rise) and thousands were evacuated from coastal East Anglia as a precaution. This morning John Gummer (MP for the area and former Sec of State for the Environment) praised the Environment Agency for the flood alert and pointed out that climate change will increase the frequency of such events from 1 in every 50 years (the last N Sea storm surge in the 1950s drowned 300 people in Norfolk & Suffolk, plus 3000 in Holland) to a 1 in every 15 year event. But never mind, the news was full of the Metropolitan Police's response to terrorism instead. But didn't the Prime Minister say a year ago that 'Climate change is a greater threat than terrorism'? Still, government ministers have since said that 'obesity is as big a threat as climate change', so I may be a bit confused by now. Anyway, the sea was still so wild this morning that I could hear the sound of the surf on the coast, even though I was in my bath some 3 miles inland. No sign of any terrorists around here, so I ate some extra toast for breakfast, just in case. And sure enough, high pressure re-established itself over the UK and sea level returned to normal again, so I had an extra sandwich for good measure. Still no sign of any terrorist activity in Whitby, so all this government advice must be working... Big Mac 'n Fries, anyone? SA de-brambled the small self-sown Oak copse next to the felled Scots Pine and then all three of us dropped the 2 young Cherry Trees which tried to take it over. This not only lets more sun get to the young Oaks, but it also creates a suitable space for our latest Earth Art installation, as we created a giant bird's nest from the lovely curvy branches of the Scots Pine lop and top stack. Eat yer heart out, Andy G! 07 Nov 07 A change in the weather is forecast for later today, so I cut the lawns this morning, as well as the woodyard. By late morning it was raining hard, I was soaked, the grass was getting claggy and I stopped with just the lower lawns left uncut. After lunch the rain was past, the sun was shining again, the wind was stronger and the temperature was lower. As I put the strimmer away I noticed a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly feeding on a purple Knapweed growing on the wildflower bank alongside the Stickery steps. Just let me summarise that: today I have been cutting the lawns while a butterfly feeds on a wildflower - on 7th Nov. Odd? Then a nice run out to the CJS office for a bit of catching-up, one year since I retired. Everyone is working hard (as ever), the business continues to go from strength to strength and I am more certain than ever that I retired at the right time. Do visit www.countryside-jobs.com if you want to see our 'memorial' - its far more use than a statue and anyway, you just can't get that nice Italian marble anymore... 06 Nov 07 The Bank Vols tidied up the Scots Pine site, while the good weather and the midges continued. Rather than split the knotty trunk, SA used the chainsaw again to cut out each 'rosette' of branches for the wood turner, who so appreciated yesterday's delivery. The sections between rosettes were rolled aside and stacked for splitting into firewood. Then we stripped the smaller branches to separate them into useful cordwood, handrails or brash. Even some of the brash was saved for the latest Andy Goldsworthy imitation, which may appear soon(ish). What remains is a very tidy site with the stump (a seat), stacks of various firewood types, potential handrails, a very neat habitat pile of lop and top and a happy wood turner working for charity. Not a bad week's work at all. 05 Nov 07 This morning SA dropped the Scots Pine neatly into a clearing and we began snedding the branches. This is one of 12 little trees from Castle Howard tree nursery which were given to us as a Christmas present in 1984/5, each in a medium-sized plastic flower pot. Seven survived, one I dropped a few years ago, and this one is now too close to its neighbour and both are suffering as a result. By felling this particular specimen we encourage the other one and create more space for the neighbouring Oak trees. Once down, the big stick is a good 18 inch butt diameter and c20 feet long before it begins to fork into several leading shoots. That will provide a good 'gatepost' from the upper section (for the new handrail down the steep muddy path), plus 2 cord lengths which will have to be split before they can be moved, not to mention numerous long, bendy 'handrails' from the branches, as well as lots of firewood. As a special request, one big, knotty section of trunk went straight to the local wood turner, who likes a challenge. His work will be available at a craft fair this Saturday in Sleights Primary School (all profits to school funds / charity). 04 Nov 07 A couple of squirts of Rescue Remedy on Flag's tongue yesterday evening settled him down nicely and the few fireworks in the village went off without too much trouble. This morning I stacked the Tilhill logs near the top bridge a bit closer to the path, all the while being bitten by clouds of tiny midges. In November! D'you think something is going on? By late afternoon 200+ Geese flew high overhead, again moving from NW to SE. At one point they broke ranks and swerved to avoid what looked like a large Gull on a collision path, before getting back into a proper v-shaped flight pattern. A few more fireworks and another squirt of Rescue Remedy and it look as if I may have to admit that herbal remedies do work... 03 Nov 07 Fifteen Swans flew high over the house at lunchtime today, heading NW to SE and calling loudly. I imagine that that makes them wild Whooper Swans on migration, perhaps even moving from the Solway (Caerlaverock?) to the Wash (Ouse Washes?). I wonder if they follow the A66, like I do? Varnished the outside windowsills while the sun shone and since the timber has dried out almost completely. By mid-afternoon 100 Geese (sorry, no idea which, but noisy) flew over from N to S, perhaps from Lindisfarne or even the Firth of Forth to the Humber? Then I took the poor unsuspecting dog up onto Aislaby Moor for a good walk to tire him out before the annual Night of Terrified Pets begins. The Silver Birch on the moortop are now bare of all leaves but the Rowan are still colourful and lower down the hillside there is still a full range of autumn colours. Across the dale, the traditional heather burning swiddening fire on Sleights Moor sends smoke high into the clear, still sky. He had a great walk and came back exhausted, which is just as well since I haven't dared to tell him that it may be more than one Night of Terror... At least this time I have been given a bottle of Rescue Remedy Spray which says it 'provides support at times of emotional demand'. Oh good. Better still, it also says 'suitable for all the family'. 02 Nov 07 Another lovely dry, mild and sunny day with magnificent autumn colour on all the trees right the way up the dale. After lunch we Bank Vols used the pole saw to remove a few more lower branches / handrails from the forking Scots Pine, as well as the 2-person crosscut saw to remove a major side branch. From our newly cleared vantage point, we were able to see through the wood towards the other side of Hollywood and took the opportunity to go exploring this neglected corner. Luckily, Tilhill Forestry hadn't neglected the bit under the electricity wires and we discovered another goodly pile of their lop and top in need of sorting for firewood. The first of the winter's peanut flour and tallow bird cake was hung up today (from CJ Wildbird Food then Food then Fat Products) and hopefully the local flocks of Long Tailed Tit will find it as irresistible as ever. 01 Nov 07 Today was going to be grass cutting all the lawns for the very last time this year, but it rained, so I didn't. Yesterday's work included a very impressive de-bramble of the 1984/5 Scots Pine which is now crowding its neighbour. A safe working area has been created around the base of the 2 foot diameter trunk and some of its lower branches removed and saved as potential handrails for the slippery bit of the path. From Sleights village car park opposite the shops there is a good view across the dale to Groves Coppice. The range of autumnal colours within this one small wood is really very striking, from a few trees still in full green leaves, through all shades of yellow to brown to crimson red to bare branches. October 2007 Weather Summary Max 19°C (66°F). Min -1°C (30°F). Rain 22mm (⅞ inch). A real Indian Summer for much of the month with mild, dry, calm and sunny weather day after day after day. With just a few wet days towards the end of the month, before the fine weather returned again. High pressure and a Southerly airflow brought dry and exceptionally mild days and chilly nights. 31 Oct 07 Another lovely day wasted on near pointless meetings, but luckily the Bank Vols were available to do something useful: starting to de-brambl Wasp Nest Corner, as well as sorting, carrying, sawing and stacking felled branches from the top of the wood. By dusk I was back again to admire their progress and to watch a couple of dozen Redwing pile into the wood as the sun set and the temperature dropped. I think it is time to start lighting the wood burning stove again this evening. 30 Oct 07 Yet another lovely day, again ruined by an all morning meeting, a working lunch in Whitby, a belated dog walk up the drive (lots of autumn colour now, right the way up the dale) and then a brief sit down at dusk before off to another meeting this evening. What a waste of a lovely day, with the temperature at 60° F (15° C), the sky all blue and the sun shining warmly all day. 29 Oct 07 Another lovely day for being outside, but report writing ruined the morning. SA sorted out another pile of lop and top and later BC & I also helped to carry more recently felled wood down to the woodyard and add cut it to length for the new cord of the woodshed. Later we all went into the saleroom in Whitby to look at a Mouseman cheeseboard (old style with the mouse carved on the board rather than the handle) and a very unusual pair of wooden nutcrackers with the mouse carved on the end of one handle. Each item was expected to sell at auction tomorrow for about £150... 28 Oct 07 A wet and windy night with the rain still clearing this morning. This is the first rain for at least a couple of weeks and it didn't really amount to much. My rain gauge is still only showing 1 inch so far this month. A 15-minute bird count from my conservatory revealed: Coal Tit 2, Dunnock 2, Great Tit 2, Blackbird 1, Blue Tit 1, Marsh Tit 1, Nuthatch 1, Robin 1, Wren 1 and a Frog croaked unseen from the pond. (10-10.15am, 8/8 cloud cover, drizzle clearing, calm and mild). Later, as the sun shone again, 6 Blackbirds and a Redwing searched the back lawns for worms and grubs. 26 Oct 07 Today we checked the wood, looked for our next jobs, stacked more felled timber, coppiced the last of the Sycamore (and a Hawthorn) in the big orchard, wove a bit more fence, de-Convolvulus-ed the recently laid hedge (now that we can stand in the uncovered ditch again), felled a dead Apple tree and finished coppicing the Sycamore behind the woodyard. Enough already! My computer, which had been poorly for a few days, was returned today in full working order, so: Hello again! 25 Oct 07 Strimmed the Groves Dyke orchard (1 hour) and also the ditch alongside the hedge which we laid last winter (another hour). All orchards are now fully strimmed (bar the Wasp bit), which is very good news. But the lawns all need cutting again... Several Blackbirds and a couple of Redwing continued to strip the Hawthorn just behind the woodyard. 24 Oct 07 Orchard preparation this afternoon, with a full compliment of Bank Vols once again. We removed all Brambles and fallen branches from Groves Dyke orchard, which will make it much easier to strim tomorrow. 23 Oct 07 Another 3 hours today and the big orchard is fully strimmed - apart from, of course, Wasp Nest Corner which will just have to wait for much colder weather! Yesterday there was a very large Wasp battering my sitting room window to get out... 22 Oct 07 Yet another dry, calm sunny day so I managed another hour of strimming in the big orchard. This is almost enjoyable. And such a contrast to the usual 'I have to get it all done today 'cos it's the first dry day in weeks and it's forecast to rain again tomorrow.' It now looks well under control and I may even finish it in the next few days. BC arrived in time for lunch and afterwards we coppiced another two Sycamores made accessible by this morning's work. We added the lop and top to the Baked Apple Tree bonfire site, trailed Honeysuckle from a much reduced Sycamore onto a young Apple tree instead, carried weaving poles and firewood back to the woodyard and wove the one and stacked the other. So, yesterday's 'File on Four' (BBC Radio 4) was all about Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and how they fail to keep track of hundreds of millions of pounds of EU Regeneration money - despite of all their excessive bureaucracy. This programme featured the RDA for the West Midlands (the one that sponsored last month's RuralNet conference which I attended), but 2nd worst in this respect is the RDA for the North West and 3rd worst is (you've guessed it) Yorkshire Forward. Oh dear god, if they can't keep track of £100m each, just think how much more bureaucracy they will claim they have to introduce in order to find out where it has all gone! The upshot, let me predict, will be that they RDA will each give another RDA millions of pounds of our money in 'consultancy fees' to check up one one another in some kind of grand 'Monitoring and Standards' exercise... Will this be the fore-runner for the ultimate Department for Departmental Affairs from Yes Minister? 21 Oct 07 What a perfect autumnal day for the Captain Cook Memorial Service in St Mary's church at the top of the 199 Steps. Well attended, the Bishop of Whitby said several kind words, Cllr Clegg read from Cook's sea log, Marske Male Voice Choir sang seafaring hymns, the pupils of East Whitby Primary School gave us a sea shanty, then we had a cup of coffee and a biscuit at Abbey House Tearooms before crossing the river to lay a wreath or two at the feet of his statue, as hundreds of visitors looked on. But nobody sang 'Happy birthday dear Captain Co-ok, happy birthday to you'. 19 Oct 07 A near frost overnight but it soon warmed up again once the sun rose in the clear blue sky. A scattering of Blackbirds, Redwing and possibly even Fieldfare were 'chiree', 'seep' and possibly even 'chakka chakka chakka-ing' in the wood this morning as they feasted on the Hawthorn berries. BC and I completed the coppicing of the unwanted Sycamores at the bottom of the steep Bank orchard, piling all the cuttings up in the Baked Apple Tree bonfire site for later. This is a much easier and safer job while the ground is dry, than when it also becomes wet, slippery and even more treacherous underfoot. As we cut the springwood, saved the Honeysuckle and built the bonfire we were being bitten by small clouds of fiercely biting midges. Glad to escape their attention, we moved off to weave a few more Sycamore rods into the woodyard fence, before sawing up and stacking more Tilhill produce into this winter's cord. 18 Oct 07 Spent the day at York Racecourse for FOOTSEY 100, the largest social enterprise (any organisation somewhere in between a not-quite-charity which can not legally make a profit and a not-quite-plc which legally has to maximise profits but only for its shareholders) event in the UK. I've no idea what the FOOT stands for, but the SEY is for Social Enterprise Yorkshire. With well over 100 exhibitor stands and 800 delegates, this was a big, expensive event backed by Yorkshire Forward (our Regional Development Agency or RDA), the Regional Forum (backed by Yorkshire Forward) and Charity Bank (funded by central government). Far too expensive an event for small local charities like us to attend, at over £50 per head, but luckily a new organisation sprang up weeks beforehand to dish out £200 per person in travel, admission, lunch, etc to enable us all to go to the event. Which seems remarkably generous, until you remember that this is what local government officials would be claiming in expenses to get there for the day. That generous local organisation is, of course, funded by Yorkshire Forward, which gives them the money to give to community reps to enable them to go and see all the Yorkshire Forward funded stalls. The 100+ stall holders are big, middling and small community social enterprises all offering services to the punters like us. It is very expensive to take a stand for the day in such luxurious surroundings, but I suspect that some generous government department or 'agency' or local group will have sprung up just in time to provide them with sufficient funding, too. So, since the stallholders are part or fully funded by Yorkshire Forward or some other government department or 'agency', and the punters are part or fully funded by Yorkshire Forward or some other government department or 'agency' - then why don't they just make the whole damn thing free to all exhibitors and free to all attendees?!? That way there would be no need for endless grant application forms, endless correspondence, and the whole bureaucratic round of invoices / cheques / receipts / accounts / auditors and not forgetting all the glossy Annual Reports showing how much each organisation has 'achieved' in the last 12 months. Almost all of it very expensive admin, just for the sake of it. Not to mention keeping lots and lots and lots of bureaucrats very well employed, trying to cope with all the admin they generate. It all has to be so very expensive, of course, because the super new and very plush venue at York Racecourse is very, very expensive. So expensive, in fact, that if I ever find that it too was funded by Yorkshire bloody Forward... But don't worry, every single UK region has its very own Regional Development Agency, so you too are paying for exactly the same sort of excessive admin for the sake of it, no matter where you live. Come back Victor Meldrew, you were right all along! 17 Oct 07 A Grey Wagtail visited the pond as I was having my breakfast this morning, the first I have seen for a while. Minus one Bank Vol (on a short term migration) BC and I continued to stack and glean the Tilhill Forestry piles below the high voltage wires at the top of the wood. The day was warm and sunny and the work was hot, so we cleared away 3 more sites before returning to the house for a nice long, cool drink and an ice cream. Yes, that's right, trying to keep cool in mid-October. Very odd. As we recovered, a Frog hopped across the patio and leapt up at the dry stone wall surrounding the pond. With a little bit of (human) help from on high, it got into the water and swam downwards. Then we were off to the big orchard to slither down the freshly strimmed slope to the Sycamore and Ash stumps which were in need of coppicing. One day, when the young fruit trees we planted 20 years ago have finally become established with extensive root systems of their own, these old self-sown stumps can be removed. But until then, I suspect that it is only their long established root systems that stop the bank from slumping in really wet weather. We coppiced four or five medium sized stumps, stacking and sorting the produce into either potential firewood, weaving rods for the wickerwork fence, or lop and top for the bonfire site just below the Baked Apple Tree. The eight weaving rods were added to the Groves Dyke fence and the firewood added to the new cord in the woodyard. 16 Oct 07 The good weather continues and so does the strimming, interrupted only by the rescue of a rather desiccated Smooth Newt. Once put on the marginal vegetation of my pond and with one foot in the water, it began to recover and walked, slowly but gratefully, below the surface. Long Tailed Tits visited the feeding station, as did a Nuthatch, while Jays called up in the wood. The big orchard, after a total of 4 hours strimming on the more than 1:3 slope, is almost half complete... 15 Oct 07 The grey clouds cleared and the sun shone, so I did another couple of hours strimming in the big orchard. Now it is beginning to look as if somebody is getting serious, with a sizeable chunk (¼?) now under control again. 14 Oct 07 More perfect autumnal weather for stacking the freshly cut logs and gleaning through the piles of lop and top. The Jays are calling loudly as they ferry acorns across the wood and the Nuthatch has reappeared at the feeders. 13 Oct 07 The calm, overcast but mainly dry weather continues, with very mild nights and even milder days. Today was a housekeeping day (mine, for a change!) while the gasman completed the annual safety check and maintenance of all the Groves Dyke appliances. My little Beech Hedge by the pole barn was the first to turn and now has more autumn colour than anything else in the dale. A young Ash tree by the drive is now completely yellow, while elsewhere its cousins only sport an occasional yellow / green branch. A Wild Cherry in the wood is still holding bright orange leaves, which will drop with the first (still very unlikely) frosty night. Flag spent the day chasing each and every ripe apple when it dropped from the trees and by late afternoon he had gathered up a goodly collection at the mouth of his backdoor lair. 12 Oct 07 The last few days were spent at the RuralNet Conference at The Belfry in the West Midlands, with a very impressive collection of interesting people and big name speakers. Lots more conference details at www.ruralnetuk.org and then click on RuralNet|2007 for the Conference Blog. Lots of quotable quotes, which I will add later, but in the meantime, here is a conference anecdote: The first supermarket opened in the village, threatening all of the traditional shops. One shop-keeper put out a big sign 'Sirloin steak £15.99 / kilo' and next day the supermarket displayed a bigger sign with 'Sirloin steak £14.99 / kilo'. The shop sign was changed to '£13.99 / kilo' and within 24 hours the supermarket retaliated again with '£10.99 / kilo'. Undaunted, the shop-keeper changed his sign again, this time to a mere '£5.99 / kilo', which soon brought the supermarket manager into the shop for a little chat. 'This can't go on' he said. 'If we keep this up, one of us will go bust' and the shop-keeper replied 'Well it won't be me, since I don't sell any meat...' Tilhill Forestry have been and gone and seem to have done a proper job, dropping whole trees instead of just trimming a couple of feet off the tops. They even managed to saw them into useful firelog lengths and stack them neatly - good lads! Us Bank Vols sorted our way through the neatly stacked lop and top, gleaning a few more useful bits of firewood and potential walking sticks. We re-stacked everything up off the ground, so that it would season rather than just rot. By late afternoon we had completed a couple of sites near the viewpoint, with 2 or 3 more still to work on another day. 08 Oct 07 Tilhill Forestry arrived to survey the work required in clearing trees from anywhere near the high voltage wires at the top of the wood. They hope to complete the work this week! Today seems to have been a 'better prune the apple trees now that the sheer weight of apples has snapped the branches' day... and that was after we winched-in the floppy hedge alongside the Groves Dyke conservatory. 07 Oct 07 What a lovely day for a trip on the steam train from Whitby, through Newtondale Gorge to Pickering. The autumn colours are only just beginning to show on the wooded sections and will be near perfect in a another week or two. 06 Oct 07 Bright sun again today, calm and warm - so Flag and I had a stroll in Mulgrave Castle Wood before an outdoor lunch at the Bridge Cottage Cafe in Sandsend. We weren't the only ones making the most of this 'last of the summer wine' type day, as every single outdoor table was fully occupied and the poor, end of season staff were run off their feet (but they still managed to produce a lovely lunch in an idyllic setting). A short walk upstream to the Mulgrave Estate sawmill revealed a secret world of massive woodyard with massive windrows of massive trees, all seasoning gently by the beck. The sawn wood is then converted into a full range of garden seats, tables, arbours, trellises, etc, and all from 'a local, sustainable and carbon positive source', as the notice proudly proclaims. What could be better than that? 05 Oct 07 We completed the Rescue of the Rowan by dropping a fair sized Sycamore nearby. It was already Grey Squirrel damaged (Tree Rats!) by bark stripping and the leader shoot had died back as a result, with side branches growing out horizontally and starting to shade the poor little Rowan alongside. But not any more! Once down, the 2-handed cross cut saw went through it like a hot knife through butter and it is now stacked on site to season - unless, of course, we rearranged the timber into a 16 foot tall standing egg shape, just like the Andy Goldsworthy one I saw in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park yesterday... During 3 o'clocks the Bank Vole continued to store bird seed for a rainy day, a Frog purred in the pond and a big, dark Dragonfly patrolled the airspace above it. Just another couple of months of this weather and winter won't be so bad! 04 Oct 07 Off to see the world and discover if it has already invented the wheel... Called in at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Sheffield in time for 10 o'clocks (what a disappointing breakfast menu) and a flying glimpse of the Andy Goldsworthy (my hero!) exhibition, which was far more than enough to convince me that I need a much longer visit on a far more leisurely day. Then on to Edale in the Peak District to be shown around their superb new Moorland Centre, complete with Sedum roof, overhead waterfall, passive heating (big south facing windows with a concrete block wall / display board just beyond), ground source heat pump, interactive touch screens (which actually work) and, best of all, a large and very accurate 3-D table map of the whole National Park - correctly orientated, of course (unlike far too many display maps elsewhere). We also heard about their environmentally friendly local produce logo scheme which lets the consumer reward good farming practice, etc by choosing to buy their goods, and how we might apply something similar to Whitby and district. Then off again to the Derwent Valley to see their traffic management scheme near the Ladybower Dam, including a visit to the small log cabin visitor centre there (which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually) to hear the plans for a new, bigger and much better integrated eco-centre to be built into the hillside. Home again by early evening, safe in the knowledge that we are not alone, the wheel has already been invented and it just needs to be rolled out in this area, too... 03 Oct 07 This afternoon us Bank Vols cleared several young Sycamores and even the occasional squirrel-damaged Oak from around a self-sown young Rowan tree (the only one in the whole wood) near the First Hazel Coppice. Since we hadn't managed to carry up all the necessary tools, this proved interesting - until one of us volunteered to go back down for the rope, the big bow saw and the big loppers. Later we continued to coppice the slope just behind the wood yard. Flag enjoyed some genteel digging and a fair bit of lying next to the hole and staring at it intently. 02 Oct 07 Pleasantly normal housekeeping, shopping and gardening this morning, followed by a bit of office work while the warm sun dried off the long grass in the orchard. By mid-afternoon it was ripe for strimming and I managed to make a bit of an impression on the big orchard. Only another 4 hours (some other day) and I should have it done... 01 Oct 07 Yesterday I heard the first Gabble Ratchet of the winter. It sounded big and fairly low, but this particular flock of migrating geese didn't over fly the particular corner of sky that I could see from the bath where I was lying at the time. Later I discovered a redundant length of 'temporary' pig net fencing which was put up in 1982/3 and then abandoned (but not removed) in 1985/6, when the final quarter of the field / wood was fenced. Since then it has stood forlornly and pointlessly, a potential hazard to life and limb, and more and more bramble festooned with the passing decades. So today SA and I decided to remove it, which was much easier said than done. We slipped and slithered down the steep slope, got ourselves caught on assorted Briars, Brambles and Hawthorns, snipping, clipping, hammering and swearing at the fence, the posts and the surrounding vegetation until, thank goodness, it was finally freed and dis-combobulated. The result is a fence-free corner of the wood, a couple of 25-year old tannalised and absolutely perfect posts, a 20 yard length of pig net in pristine condition and two Bank Vols heavily scratched, stung, muddied, bloodied and still unbowed. Almost. The good weather has returned, with warm, sunny, calm, dry days and cold nights, with almost a touch of frost. We also removed various lengths of barbed wire from the boundary fence between the wood and the garden, just for good measure. In late afternoon I strimmed the path around the wood and then enjoyed the Nuthatch on the peanuts and the 26-strong Tit flock which moved through the woodyard. September 2007 Max 26°C (78°F). Min 1°C (34°F). Rain 45mm (1¾ inches). The good weather returned once the school holidays were over. Warm, dry, calm and sunny for much of the month, with a couple of very stormy days around the autumnal equinox (as usual). High pressure returned towards the end of the month, with clear sunny days and clear chilly nights. 30 Sept 07 A fifteen minute bird count from my conservatory produced: Magpie 3, Chaffinch 2, Coal Tit 2, Dunnock 2, Great Tit 2, Blue Tit 1, Kestrel 1, Robin 1. Not to mention Bank Vole 1. Cloud cover ⅝, Bright, calm, dry and mild. 10.25 to 10.40. And then the Nuthatch arrived to feast on the peanut hanger. 8 Sept 07 We sawed up and carried away the dead Apple trees which SA had felled a few days ago. The bigger tree had been overhanging my phone wires and the smaller one was the young Apple we had planted dangerously close to the best bonfire site in the orchard. The result, years later, was that it got repeatedly scorched and became known as the Baked Apple Tree - until it all got too much for it and it just gave up. Note to self: Remember to bake the apples and not the tree. The biggest bit of long dead Apple tree found its way straight into my woodburner (with a bit of persuasion) in time for our 3 o'clocks (lovely smell) and the second biggest bit went to the local wood turner. He and his wife are holding 3 Exhibitions and Sales of their 'turned wood, beads and bits' in The Institute at Thornton Dale (near Pickering) on Thursdays and Fridays 11 & 12 Oct and 17 & 18 Nov, and also at Sleights School on Sat 10 Nov 2007, raising funds for charity. I recommend them as their work is superb and I get many of my Christmas presents from them! We also sawed and stacked the Apple wood, coppiced the few remaining Sycamores from behind the woodyard, sawed & stacked them and wove the rods into the Groves Dyke fence. 27 Sept 07 Yesterday was spent at the annual Heritage Coast Forum, held this year in the teeth of a full Northerly gale at the Northern Lights Suite of Whitby Spa on top of the West Cliff - an ideal place to appreciate the full majesty of the autumn equinox at full power, with the back doors blowing open in the wind, the whole bay flecked with white horses and the wind howling all around. Wonderful! It reminded me of the Mussenden Temple on the coast near Castlerock, where I worked as Warden for the National Trust. This was an 18th Century 'Greek' temple perched on the very cliff edge so that the wildly eccentric Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry could enjoy following the words of the inscription around the top: 'Tis pleasant safely to behold from shore, the rolling ship and hear the tempest roar.' Funny man. Peculiar, that is. Today was much calmer down here in the shelter of the dale and I managed a bit of genteel shopping followed by some genteel gardening. After lunch I threw caution to the winds and got the strimmer out to complete the lawns and almost managed it - but I seem to have missed one terrace (it was the rain on my safety visor, honest). The woodyard is done and the path along the top of the big orchard is almost done. Then the rain just got heavier and heavier so I gave up and retreated indoors to keep the newly lit woodburner well stoked. 25 Sept 07 A meeting this morning to de-brief after the CREST conference, then a leisurely lunch in the conservatory before tackling the grass cutting for the first time in well over a week. By late afternoon Groves Dyke and all the back lawns were done, which just leaves my 3 terraces at the front, the woodyard and all the path around the wood. When (if!) they are done, then all that remains will be the Groves Dyke orchard (c1 hour) and then Groves Bank orchard (c5 hours, wasp nest willing)... 24 Sept 07 Dry morning yesterday, followed by a wet afternoon. The trap happy Wood Mouse had lifted the lid of another seed bin and was rescued again, this time just a little fatter and a little thirstier than yesterday. That's another seed bin to empty, wash out, dry and refill with new seed and a heavy weight on top of all seed bin lids from now on. The day before, a very impressive Great Diving Beetle (Ditiscus marginalis) set off walking across the back yard in an effort to seek its fortune in some far off pond. Well over an inch in length and about ¾ of an inch across, this fine beast was clearly quite capable of looking after itself. Earlier, I had startled a young Roe Deer which dashed into the pig net fence at the top of the wood, bounced back with a resounding metallic 'BOING' noise and then tried it again. And again. And again. With no sign of Flag, I manoeuvred myself around until I was between the panicking deer and the fence, when it took the hint and dashed off in a different direction, showing two clean pairs of hooves long before my staghound arrived. Today is just the opposite, so we drank a lot of coffee in the conservatory before taking some of the scrap piping to the recycling centre, buying more masking tape for cardboard log rolling and then checking the excellent all day breakfast at Victoria Farm Garden Centre - yes, well up to standard, thank-you. After lunch we started to coppice behind the woodyard again, but were driven under cover by the rain. By late 3 o'clocks we had reduced the corrugated cardboard mountain in the pole barn to a neat stack of cardboard fire logs, which we quality control tested in the wood burner as we dried out and warmed up over (another) leisurely coffee. 22 Sept 07 Ok - now where was I? The EU CREating Sustainable Tourism (CREST) conference is over and I am just catching up. We hosted the event at the new Whitby Youth Hostel in Abbey House (wonderful) and had representatives from 4 other small ex-fishing towns around the North Sea, from Orkney, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The similarities with Whitby are striking - all are holiday destinations with a short season, a low wage economy and high winter unemployment. We now realise that more and more and yet more visitors are not the answer, as their sheer numbers will only destroy the very things they come to enjoy - the peace, the relaxation and the unspoilt beauty. Now approaching the end of the 2-year CREST 1 project, we have complied an 18 point checklist of sustainable development and proposed a weighting scheme for each box to be ticked, together with a minimum threshold value to be scored, before any proposed development would be accepted. Perhaps this way we can avoid the 'We will build an office block in Whitby Harbour because it will create jobs and so we can tick our boxes - even though it will also destroy the historic setting of Whitby Harbour Conservation Area, but since there isn't a box for that it won't matter'... The weather was wild, wet and windy the day they arrived (SA rebuilt the Honeysuckle Tripod in the wood)and we dragged them around Whitby anyway. It was warm, dry and sunny for our visit to the National Park's wonderful new Danby Moors Centre and walk through 'Aidensfield' (Heartbeat is very popular in Scandinavia, but now they also know the true cost to the original village of Goathland and its residents), back to Whitby on the steam train to be welcomed by Whitby's Mayor, who led us back up the 199 Steps to Abbey House. Wed was an indoor day, spent deep in discussion groups, with just a bit of real life in the form of a talk by our local Heritage Coast Project Officer. Thursday was indoors again, apart from a stroll down the 199 Steps to visit the Cook Museum in Grape Lane and (they insisted) an hour of shopping. And what did they buy? Well, they wanted things found / made / produced in the Whitby area, but found this very difficult since almost everything is mass produced in China and over-stamped with 'Whitby' before being shipped across. Whitby jet jewellery is one good local example, but even the 'Whitby kippers' are Herring flown in from the Baltic before smoking them here! So what are the other delegates doing? Norway and Sweden are co-operating to create a huge, cross border Marine National Park linking their two communities, safeguard the marine wildlife, promote educational and recreational guided tours from the shores and by boat. Denmark has already re-established its medieval salt-making industry on the island, deliberately labour intensive to employ many local young people, each of whom is also a trained guide and can escort the visitors around the site and explain all of the process, stage by stage. They sell tiny little souvenir bags of local salt (c£10 each) to the visitors, raising over £1m every year and are currently creating a Health Spa complex to use the salt-enriched waters (previously a waste product) and employ even more local young people. Orkney is working on its proposed Boat Museum as a new visitor attraction, linking it to the local archaeological World Heritage Sites and to the islands' Viking past. And Whitby? What about Whitby? Well, Whitby is still recovering from the Battle of the Carbuncle in the Harbour, trying to establish a working relationship with Scarborough Borough Council and Yorkshire Forward (our Regional Development Agency), 'consulting' with North Yorkshire County Council over its plans to waste £2m on a new Park and Ride by Stationary Shuttle Bus, trying to save the railway station from apartment blocks which would scupper any future rail expansion, and generally running flat out to stand still long enough to convince everyone that any development MUST be sustainable, otherwise the whole town will just become one big traffic jam between all the apartment blocks that nobody wants to visit anymore... Wet yesterday (just ¾ of an inch so far this month), so after the conference departed and the tidying-up had been done, the Bank Vols converted some corrugated cardboard into fire logs and burned the bonfire heap to ashes. It was still smouldering just a little on the following day, which was very appropriate on this 6th anniversary. My farmer neighbour (with the breeding rams still miles from the breeding ewes) tells me that the National Sheep Association has suggested to DEFRA that the best place for their leaky Veterinary Research Lab would be as far away from any farm animals as possible - and ideally in the middle of London, where farm animals are least likely to catch any escaped virus. I agree. Right next door to the 'ever so safe' nuclear power stations and spent fuel storage facility underneath the Houses of Parliament, I would suggest. 15 Sep 07 On our usual pre-breakfast stroll around the wood this morning Flag and I encountered the first tit flock of the autumn. A couple of dozen Blue, Great, Coal, Long Tail Tits and probably a few other odds and sods by way of Warblers, Treecreepers, etc, were all moving and feeding through the trees while keeping together in a loose flock with a constant background of contact calls. I stopped to watch and listen, before trying out an old trick we used to use in our bird ringing days for the British Trust for Ornithology. 'Pish' is the human sound nearest to the flock's contact calls, so the next time you are lucky enough to find yourself near a tit flock, just stand still, purse your lips and go 'Pish, pish, pish!' in a very high voice*. If you get the pitch and the frequency just right, this acts as a Super Contact Call which is almost irresistible, especially to the younger and less experienced birds. This morning I got it almost right and was soon rewarded by a couple of close inspections, including one by a tiny young Goldcrest, just a couple of feet from my head. Suitable rewarded, I carried on walking - accompanied by a completely mystified Flag! *It's OK constable. I can explain everything... My neighbour's rare breed Teeswater Sheep are in the field next to the wood. All his prize-winning rams are there - but his prize-winning ewes are in another field a few miles away. Under the present Foot and Mouth Disease restrictions for the whole of England, farm animals can be transported only to abattoirs for slaughter. So how do you get the ewes pregnant within the remaining 3 weeks of the breeding season? You can't - which could mean no lambs will be born next spring. So what can thousands of farmers do with their champion breeding stock if they can't mate them nor sell them off, while they steadily lose condition as the grass slows down for the winter and the feed prices escalate? Well, I suppose they could just slaughter them for meat... Well done Ministry of Agriculture. Sorry, DEFRA now, isn't it? Still if it gets really bad, I suppose DEFRA may just have to change its name. Again. And for exactly the same reasons as last time. Except this time it was DEFRA's cost cutting and mismanagement which actually caused the current outbreak of Foot and Mouth. Good, innit? DEFRA: the Department for the Elimination of Farming and Rural Affairs. 14 Sep 07 The Millennium Statue (or Y2K+1 actually) SA sank a new shaft by the Willow arch this morning, ready for the raising of the Millennium Statue. About 18 inches down he met a rather large rabbit hole, not a million miles away from where Flag already had a well established minor drift mine. A bit of brick now seals that end of the shaft and we mantled the dismantled statue once again, but this time right beside the hole. Then, like the giant stone heads of Easter Island (well, almost) we raised one end and tipped it gently into the hole. A little bit of levelling, a couple of bags of gravel, a little bit more levelling, lots of tamping with a punner, a few photographs and shovel the spoil back in. Only then did we think of putting a penny of the right date underneath the statue... Damn! Never mind, we checked our pockets and found, even better, a 2001 two pence piece and pushed that well down between the two uprights. The statue is now in place and makes an dramatic visual statement at the entrance to the wood. So when is my hero, Andy Goldsworthy due...? After well earned cool drinks and celebratory chocolate biscuits on the patio (yes, I can see it from there, too) we dragged down some more Sycamore rods and wove them into the wickerwork fence alongside the drive. A nearby Apple tree branch has cracked and collapsed under its weight of apples and will need some surgery, but not until the apples on it have ripened! Apart from some rubbish to be removed tomorrow, the plumber and the plumber's apprentice have completed the work and made a very nice job of it all. Now I have a modern loo, too and all the external pipe work around the whole house is now black plastic, which looks so much better than the previous odd assortment of pipes in green metal, rusty metal, white plastic, grey plastic and black plastic. All I need now is a proper chimney on the Stickery before the winter comes. Anyone holding their breath? 13 Sep 07 Flag and I walked the route from the always under-used Abbey Headland car park to the Youth Hostel / Abbey / St Mary's Church / 199 Steps / etc, in preparation for next week's CREST Conference (see http://www.crestproject.com ). In fact, we walked several routes, several times, in various directions. How very confusing! Would it be a good idea to pave it properly, cut back the overhanging grass verges, put up a few more sign posts, the odd safety barrier here and there and even some lighting? No? OK then... after all, it will only be assorted civic dignitaries, MPs, MEPs, etc, etc. So if they don't need all that 'unnecessary' work and expense, why should poor old members of the public complain? After a lot of walking in oddly shaped circles in the midday sun (yes, I know), we found a lovely shady cafe table just outside the Abbey House Tea Rooms (which doubles up as the dinning room of the new Whitby Youth Hostel) and, with lots of other members of the public, enjoyed the magnificent views down over Whitby. Flag and I also enjoyed a deliciously cold traditional lemonade and even more deliciously very (very) hot ('Do be careful, I have only just made it!') quiche full of locally grown produce. I must do this more often... There are still a few Swallows flying around the old buildings, even though I haven't seen a House Martin for several days. 12 Sep 07 Still very warm and sunny, so the Bank Vols finished coppicing the Sycamores under the low voltage wires behind the woodyard, sawing and cord building as we went. We even managed to add a few more weaving rods to the wickerwork fence alongside the drive and tidy up the Twigwam as well. The plumber will be back again tomorrow to complete my new pipe work, loo and cistern, as well as various other minor works to bring my house up to the same standard as Groves Dyke. 10 Sep 07 Today SA and I removed the last of the one year old cord wood, sawed it into firelogs and stacked them at the lower end of the woodshed. Now that the cord frame is empty again, we started to build it up again using the newly coppiced Sycamore. I think this means that I am now 3 years ahead of myself, as far as fire wood is concerned! 07 Sep 07 Now, where was I? A recent guest at Groves Dyke has kindly offered this link to his holiday photos, which gives me a whole new appreciation of my surroundings - Many thanks, Ian! The Plum trees in Dyke Orchard are heavily laden and Flag enjoys eating the fallen fruit on the ground. As did a Badger which I surprised late one evening as I drove home. The House Martins left a few days ago. There was some weather during August and the belated summary for the month was: August 2007 Max 25°C (76°F). Min 2°C (36°F). Rain 67mm (2⅝ inches). A less than hot and sunny month, which even had a 4-day cold snap in the middle when I lit my wood burning stove in the evening and added my winter duvet at night. Very odd! Since the end of last month I have attended a 'How to be a Town Councillor' training evening, a meeting to finalise arrangements for the CREST Conference in Whitby later this month, a Town Council Meeting, a Whitby Gazette photo call (full story see http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/11060/Marina-scheme-is-scuppered-again.3181102.jp?articlepage=1), had a swim and even done some shopping, some grass cutting and a little hoovering. The plumber arrived to replace the rusting pipe work outside Groves Bank and us Bank Vols even mantled the Millennium Statue (and then dismantled it again, until it is cool enough to dig the hole) and began to coppice the 10-year old Sycamores behind the woodyard. We started work on the Northern edge, to get the shade from the yet-to-be-cut trees further down the slope. Yes, that's right: now that the holidays are over, the real summer weather has finally arrived! 03 Sep 07 Ok, we can all breathe again! Late this afternoon Scarborough Borough Council (SBC), after nearly 3 hours of intense debate, voted overwhelmingly to sink the Marina Carbuncle Office Block planned for Whitby harbour. It was almost unanimous, with just 2 Councillors still swimming against the tide. Now we all go back to the drawing board and just build what we all wanted years ago - a small single story building with better facilities for the boaties, public toilets and proper landscaping with riverside paths, so that everyone can continue to enjoy (as one Councillor put it) 'the best view in the world'. Thank-you! To everyone who wrote to SBC to object to their plans - a huge Thank-you from all of us who are lucky enough to live here, and also from everyone else who loves Whitby. It seems the Town Hall in Scarborough was inundated with emails from far and wide, all of which were circulated to all 50 Councillors, which really made them all sit up and pay attention. So the moral of this story is: Beware the Regional Development Agencies and lots of other government QUANGOs (QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations) which award multi-£m grants to local government projects provided they create JOBS, because JOBS are much more important (to them) than any planning law or conservation area, far more important than any local opinion and far, far more important than anything as old fashioned as Common Sense. Is this Democracy in action? No, I don't think so. In fact, if this is how our country is run (and I suspect it is) then we should all we very, very worried. Vitally important decisions are made by remote and completely unaccountable QUANGOS which encourage (perhaps even bully?) local government officers into feeding their Councillors just enough information to 'help' them reach the decisions which give the best results for the QUANGO's Annual Reports: 'Just look how many millions of pounds we have spent creating hundreds of new JOBS in the UK this year! Aren't we absolutely wonderful? Can we have even more £m for next year, so that we can create even more JOBS?' It is sad that all kinds of valuable things (including democracy itself) just gets swept aside in the process... 31 Aug 07 Yes, we did do something - but whatever it was, Scarborough Borough Council occupied my mind throughout & I can't remember. Oh yes! We used the new pole saw (only just long enough) to remove a couple of high Ash branches and let the sunlight get to the recently rescued young Oak behind (which needs all the help it can get). 30 Aug 07 Every successful local community depends on hundreds of local people all putting in thousands of unpaid hours of voluntary work every week, just to keep their local community healthy and vibrant. But I wonder how many hours of Whitby's voluntary effort have been lost from everything useful and everything constructive, and just wasted on objecting / obstructing / fighting all the pointless and destructive projects promoted by and persisted with by Scarborough Borough Council over the past several years? We've had to fight them every step of the way as they just won't take 'NO' for an answer... If you haven't emailed them yet, please see yesterday's entry below and, if you prefer Whitby Harbour Conservation Area unspoilt by a thinly disguised office block, please email them asap. Only 1 working day left... If you already have, then Thank-you from everyone in Whitby and from everyone who loves Whitby. 29 Aug 07 Ok, it's crunch time: Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) are now rushing through their decision to build their thinly-disguised office block (the Water Resource Carbuncle) on Whitby Harbour Conservation Area, and their decision will be made in less than 3 working day's time (on Mon 03 Sept 07). Clearly, they are hoping to get approval from all their councillors as soon as possible and before the protest grows any further. Just to summarise what they are hoping to approve: To build a big new 2-storey office block (with 14 letting units to give them a nice annual income), in Whitby Harbour Conservation Area (that's a bit odd!), on a Zone 3 Flood Plain (that's a bit silly!), at right angles to the flow of the river in major spate (that's just reckless!), using public money (your local, national and European taxes), against the wishes of Whitby (80% Against in a poll), and against the wishes of Whitby Town Council (unanimous Planning Committee rejection), by accepting the cheapest bid of 4 tenders (all 50% more than SBC estimated), after being asked to re-tender 2 of these tenders were withdrawn, 1 was increased by £½m and the other one accepted (only after they had undercut themselves by £½m), but leaving out half the landscaping until Phase 2 (never, never time), leaving no money at all for a contingency fund but that won't be required because (in the words of SBC Head of Harbours and Engineering) it is being built on an old landfill site therefore 'I don't expect any unforeseen complications''. 'I don't expect any unforeseen complications'!!! (On a 1970s landfill site? What about asbestos? Or toxic chemicals?). If you also think that this is just too daft for words, please email Scarborough Borough Council with your objections before they make the final decision on Mon 3 Sept 07 (yes, just 2½ working days away). Contact details: John Freeman, Chair of the Whitby Marina Action Group asks as many people as possible to please email Jim Dillon, Chief Executive of SBC and / or copy to Gill Wilkinson, the Council Clerk. Please ask her to forward the email to ALL the SBC Councillors and to copy you in as well. Email addresses are: Jim.Dillon@scarborough.gov.uk and Gill.Wilkinson@scarborough.gov.uk. Gill can either forward a straight email or a letter attachment. If you like beautiful unspoilt Whitby, then please email SBC asap and help us to keep it that way. Thank-you all. Before all that, the Bank Vols completed the handrails on the top bridge and boardwalk, chatted to the nice man delivering the extra fencing ('Ten years ago we had 125 local dairy farmers on our books and now there are only 25.' Also 'Why is the British Army buying all its beef from overseas, when the MOD could be supporting British farmers instead?'), added the extra rail to the loft of the pole barn for storing extra cardboard logs, had lunch and started work on a duff duckboard. After lunch we all left poor BC to carry on alone, as we variously went off to the vet (with Bruno's ear) or off to save Whitby from Scarborough Borough Council (see above). Later some of us came back to assist BC in replacing a duckboard, sawing logs etc. Bruno's ear is progressing nicely (lampshade for another week) but Whitby's future is much less hopeful... 28 Aug 07 Grass cutting this morning (half of it) ready for tomorrow's (long delayed) hedge cutting - but only if Scarborough Borough Council stop trying to ruin Whitby long enough for us all to have a little bit of Garden Leave from endless meetings to try to stop them! This morning a Green Woodpecker yaffled in the wood for ages and then this afternoon I tracked down some very strange noises to a particular tree, only to have its occupant finally reveal itself by reverting to standard Tawny Owl 'Ke-wicking' and 'Whoo-whooing'. 27 Aug 07 Minus Bruno the Bank Vol dog and his handler, we carried the last materials up to finish off the boardwalk handrail. After lunch he suddenly appeared, with lampshade (on Bruno, not his handler) and a poorly ear. We had a sedate afternoon in the pole barn cutting up the new supply of heavy duty cardboard (some of it very heavy duty!) and rolling it up into fire logs for the winter. This required new techniques for cutting (rechargeable reciprocating saw) and for rolling (preliminary weakening by bending it across a table edge), not to mention additional storage... 26 Aug 07 August Bank Holiday weekend, the weather is fantastic and the traffic is horrendous. We toured Whitby with a video camera, recording the 3 miles of standing traffic heading towards Whitby Marina car parks - but backed up all the way from the town centre, up Down Dinner Hill, all along Mayfield, all the way from Four Lane Ends petrol station back to Sleights roundabout and another ½ mile up the road towards Guisborough - every last one of them convinced that when they actually reach the town centre car park there will be 'one available space just for me'. Sorry, folks, but the sad reality is that there won't. Park and Ride by shuttle bus will be equally impossible, with the shuttle bus route as blocked solid as all the other roads. But the good news is that there is a railway line that avoids all the traffic jams & runs straight into the town centre (just as long as we fight to keep it)! 24 Aug 07 Today was the Works Outing for the Bank Vols and we had a lovely Jolly, with a behind the scenes guided walk of Castle Howard's monuments. Led by the Curator, we got inside the Pyramid, crossed the bridge, entered the Mausoleum (hard hats on) and the Crypt below (keep them on), then off to the Temple of the Four Winds before returning to the Big 'Ouse for afternoon tea with cream scones (OK, so who ate mine, 'cos it wasn't me?). Afterwards we toured the house itself before heading for the Stableyard Cafe, where we bumped into I&D again! Look out for 'Brideshead Revisited Again', as we were told that a sequel has just been filmed at Castle Howard and will be in a cinema near you (but there isn't one near us) next year... 23 Aug 07 Glorious, warm and sunny weather again as I&D set off for Scampston Walled Garden and Cafe, near Malton. My car said it was just over 20°C and we enjoyed a pleasant stroll around the garden before a superb lunch, another garden stroll and then into Malton for a bit of window shopping (try that very interesting little wooden things shop at the top of The Shambles. Very interesting. Then home via Lockton, Levisham and what used to be the Forest Enterprise's unadvertised Forest Drive towards Stape. The little ticket seller just over the Levisham level crossing has gone, all signs have gone, even the one telling you which way to turn in the middle of nowhere, just before the tarmac runs out! Another mile or so of increasingly pot-holed dirt track and, if you guessed left, you are out on the Stape to Egton Bridge road. The purple is still in full purple mode and the drive back over the moors, past the Roman Road and back to Goathland was magnificent. 22 Aug 07 By afternoon normal summer weather was returning and us Bank Vols admired the new top bridge duckboard, snipped a few brambles, sawed and stacked a few logs. 21 Aug 07 Ok, I admit it. Yesterday my car said it was just 14°C, yesterday evening I lit my wood burning stove (an August first!) and last night I added my winter duvet (another August first)! How very odd. Today is not much better, with a strong onshore wind bringing a cool sea mist over Whitby and all its Folk Week performers and crowds. What an ideal day for a seemingly endless series of meetings, enlivened only by an afternoon drive around Whitby's developing bits with D&I followed by an excellent afternoon tea at The Stables restaurant a mile outside the town on the A171 Guisborough road. Based on a family farm wiped out by Foot and Mouth Disease in 2001, the livestock have now all gone, the farm buildings excellently adapted to a Restaurant with Rooms and the menu specialises in meat from Yorkshire farms 'Without compromise'. Well done The Stables! 20 Aug 07 Cool and windy on the coast, so we retraced yesterday's route but this time in glorious sunshine. As we crossed Egton High Moor D&I kept muttering 'Purr, Purr, Perfect Purple', which summed it up purrfectly. Up Chimney Bank at Rosedale, with a bracing stroll around the old ironstone kilns, then on through Helmsley to Riveaux Abbey for a good local lunch in their nice new cafe. Talk of a new kitchen led us on to Thirsk to admire the wooden craftsmanship of Treske Furniture. We fell for everything they had in the showroom, all in native and sustainable Forest Sustainable Council (FSC) Oak or Ash, and left empty-handed (but full-walleted). Again we followed yesterday's route home, but this time even the car engine was purring up Blakey Rigg for a coffee stop at the Lion Inn at the top, with magnificent purple views of mile after mile of purple moorland heather in all directions. Unbeatable Purple Max! 19 Aug 07 Great to have D&I back in Whitby for about the 18 year in succession. Their timing is, as ever, immaculate and the blooming heather on the North York Moors is at Purple Max this week. We drove through low cloud from Egton Bridge to Hartoft, the cloud thinning and the sun strengthening as we left the coast. Morning coffee with cream scones at The Grange Hotel in Lastingham was well up to standard, then a short stroll up onto Spaunton Moor until the mizzle descended again. Into Helmsley for a potter around the village before returning in thick mist over the top again via Blakey Rigg to Castleton. 17 Aug 07 Us Bank Vols started work on the boardwalk to the top bridge, which involved lots of carrying heavy things uphill (especially SA!), hammering heavy things into the soft ground with even heavier things and then sawing and nailing lighter things across the heavy things, before carrying the heaviest things back down again. No, you are right, I'm not really very technical... The job is only part complete, with yet more sawing and hammering to do, not to mention adding an extra step to make life easier for little legs. A Surprise Achievement by SA that morning had been to improve the steps above the Second Hazel Coppice, which are now vastly better than before. 16 Aug 07 Lampshade off today, ear fully recovered and the stitches in the head are due out on Mon. Great! And how is the dog? A pleasant sunny day recovering, with Flag relaxing and enjoying the freedom of not having to wear a lampshade to stop him scratching at his ear. After lunch I strimmed the Groves Dyke lawns and the path around the wood, before relaxing in the sun again to recover. A Green Woodpecker yaffled up in the wood and the well grown young Elm tree (which I hoped might just be the one with natural immunity to Dutch Elm Disease) has finally succumbed and is now dropping more brown leaves every day. It had managed to grow to about 25 feet tall and 8 inches in circumference, which is more than most young Elms ever manage. Pity. 15 Aug 07 Heavy rain overnight with another ½ inch in the gauge. After lunch we took advantage of the low fire risk and lit the bonfire, as well as bedding down the slate spatio tabletop on a layer of heavy duty carpet underlay 'reclaimed' from a nearby skip. An email enquiry from an Australian reader of this website trying to track down an antique fiddle-drill remembered from a now defunct antique shop in Sleights has led to the location of said agricultural implement still for sale elsewhere in the village and the possibility of a long distance trade exchange in the near future. Interesting place, Sleights... 13 Aug 07 Sunny and showers for yesterday's Whitby Regatta Sunday, with less traffic than expected. The first rain of the month fell yesterday and my rain gauge now reads ¼ inch. Today was dry, mild & sunny for a quick run to Goathland and back (purple moorland almost at its best...). SA had fixed the droopy gates and after lunch we examined the step and duckboard situation, before I cut half of the lawns and SA cut half of the badly split Yew tree. 11 Aug 07 Still, hot and sunny for Regatta, with the Red Arrows going past to perform in Whitby. Flag enjoyed his stroll, complete with lampshade, to the River Gardens for a cool drink and a scrap of cake by the river. His headgear was much admired, but he carried it off with great aplomb. 10 Aug 07 Breakfast at the spatio table, but soon it was just too hot. SA checked the wood (removing 2 Ragweed plants) and after lunch us Bank Vols all sawed, split and stacked the last of the Sycamore in the pole barn. Then we found a few old Poplar drums that had refused to split last summer, so we attacked them until they finally surrendered. We even found a 2 year old Whitebeam fork, which also surrendered. Eventually. This means that every single stick of wood in the pole barn has now been dealt with and it all looks remarkable clear and tidy. With all the heavy duty sawing and splitting now completed in the hottest season of the year (mad or what?), that just leaves the Millennium Statue to prefab into a Y2K+1 installation for the woodyard, and a tiny bit of cordwood to saw and stack in the woodshed - and then the decks will be cleared for the next batch of wood, wherever it may come from. After strawberries and ice cream we had a pleasant stroll around the wood, snipping brambles, checking on the Grey Squirrels' (Tree Rats!) bark-stripping damage and planning the winter's management programme. The few red berries on the young Rowan have all disappeared bar one, but this evening I noticed the first two Lords and Ladies (Arum Lilys), complete with their own red 'berries'. 09 Aug 07 The head bandage was removed this morning, the ear inspected (all ok) and the stitches checked (no problems). So now it is just a case of ear drops every day, complete the antibiotics, let the tied-back-ear neck bandage fall off in due course (2 or 3 days...) and return in a week to have the stitches removed. And the lampshade stays put until then (sorry Flag). Despite all that. he is as bright as a button and chased young Jet all around the garden this morning (and regretted it afterwards). NB: For any new readers, Flag is a dog and he has a poorly ear. As the vet said, Flag is well aware of his aching joints, but blissfully unaware of his failing kidneys. Too damn hot for grass cutting, but I did it anyway just to keep on top of it. If the grass continues to slow down, I may even get around to trimming a few hedges... 08 Aug 07 After a short stroll around the garden the convalescing patient enjoyed a hearty breakfast of mixed normal food and new kidney diet, before receiving a lovely Get Well Soon card from young B next door, hand drawn and with highly appropriate flags of celebration drawn on the front and back. What a kind thought! By afternoon Flag was 'helping' the Bank Vols saw and stack the dead Sycamore they had just carried down, and rolling his tennis ball down the inside of his lampshade and under the sawhorse. I had built the pole barn with the intention of using it to saw and store wood in wet weather, but today it was equally useful in providing us with much needed shade as we worked. The reciprocating saw earned its keep this afternoon and by teatime we had stacked enough fire logs to form the wall of over half a bay, or almost half of ⅓ of one side wall. (Yes, I know, but I can't find the symbol for 1/6th)! 07 Aug 07 The pre-op blood test indicated a kidney problem, so no general anaesthetic for Flag. Just sedation and a local to drain the haematoma in his ear and remove the lump on his head. One groggy doggy was glad to be home again and sleeping it off, before trying on his least favourite lampshade for the night. 06 Aug 07 Still recovering from yesterday and almost as hot, I helped SA start to build my new table for the South Patio and we were joined later by BC. After lunch they stacked the Sycamore branches next to the path around the wood and carried some more firewood down to the pole barn. I, meanwhile, was discussing local politics and eventually we all completed the table, carried it onto the Spatio, topped it off with the big slab of slate which was once the side of the old bath in Groves Dyke, and drank large volumes of Elderflower Cordial. Flag injured his ear a few days ago, probably on one of his mad late night stag hunting dashes through the wood, and will be having a minor operation tomorrow. While he is out for the count, the vet will also do some less urgent dentistry and remove the little benign lump on his forehead. See? I told you not to go stag hunting in the dark! 05 Aug 07 The hottest day of the year - and it felt like it! Standing for hours in Goathland asking visitors to help with our* Visitor Survey was very enlightening, but bloody hot as well. (*Whitby Beacon Town Forum - sustainable tourism for coast, moor and village communities). This evening the max and min thermometer had been up to 29°C / 84°F and that is quite hot enough for me, thank-you. 04 Aug 07 Afternoon tea in the coolth of the River Gardens at Sleights, sitting by the now well behaved River Esk and noting where the water level was about a month ago. Just up to the top concrete step of the cafe platform. Wow! What a difference a month makes. A restful afternoon gave me the chance to tidy-up this website and archive the past 6 month's Wildlife Diary. That should speed things up a bit! Foot and Mouth Disease reported in Surrey. Deja vu again, or what? Just 6 years since the 2001 UK outbreak, which cost the UK economy over £6b (yes, that is £6,000 million), killed off 6 million farm animals, as well as thousands of farms, quite a few farmers and huge swathes of the rural tourist industry. Just in case some damn fool politician tries to put their foot in their mouth again (a nasty disease), the countryside in NOT closed, footpaths are not closed, rural visitor attractions are not closed and life outside the 2 mile exclusion zone near Guildford just carries on as normal. So how come the UK is having its second outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease, while not one single other EU country has had even one outbreak for decades? I wonder... but I bet this Guildford farm is not an organic farm. The big supermarkets which now control 70% of UK food sales attract the poor unsuspecting shopper with promises of 'cheap food', 'low prices', 'special offers' - all of which squeeze the farm businesses which supply them. When forced to cut their production costs year after year, good animal husbandry soon suffers with over crowded conditions, forced weight gains, maximum births in the minimum time, and then - guess what? Infectious diseases break out, we all look surprised and we have very expensive chaos all over again. Come back Florence Nightingale, all is forgiven! And long live Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and any other chefs who think that good animal welfare makes far better long term sense than low supermarket prices in the short term. Still, what's a mere £6b loss, as long as we can have 'cheap' supermarket food? In the absence of chocolate, click here for some light relief with fresh Groves Dyke Giggles... 03 Aug 07 The larger Sycamore branches were cleared by SA by the time the rest of us Bank Vols arrived. We fitted a new shaft to the flying wedge and then tried to split the remaining heart rotted drums. By the time we had managed to split the first one, avoiding the spongy tissue in the centre as much as possible, we had very little useful timber to show for it but we had expended an enormous amount of energy. In other words, the calories we burned to obtain the firewood far exceeded the calorific value of ever burning it! So we abandoned all the mouldy drums and just settled for sawing the sound branches into manageable lengths. Once sawn, we tossed the cabers over the fence line to where we could carry them through the wood and down to the woodyard over the next several visits. Large volumes of orange squash and several Fat Rascals were required to aid recovery. 02 Aug 07 The fine weather continues and I completed the grass cutting for this week. It is nice to be back on schedule again. Off to Goathland after lunch, where I was delighted to see that the moortop is purple-ing nicely. Opposite the Grosmont turn-off a couple of JCBs seem to creating a new road across the moor, probably upgrading the old bridle track towards the head of Littlebeck, so that the Forestry Commission can start extracting timber from the nasty Sitka Spruce plantations which have occupied the moor for decades. 'Send them back to Alaska, where they belong' I hear myself shout 'And do get the Forestry Commission to block up all the millions of miles of upland drains they created over the past 80 years of damn fool exotic conifer planting, so that the hills can go back to being proper peaty sponges again!' Still, Tewkesbury and all the lowlands, what did you expect would happen if you let a misguided government agency spend almost a century encouraging as much water as possible to drain off the uplands as quickly as possible? Apart from central government encouraging, nay insisting, that all local authorities must build houses and industry all over all the natural flood plains in the lowlands, of course. Just where the hell did anyone think all that water would go?? The sad answer, of course, is that nobody did think - but it is all a bit obvious now! Still, we are going to Carry On Regardless with building the tens of thousands of new houses in the Thames Gateway, where they already have a shortage of fresh water every summer and will soon be having rather too much salt water... Good, innit? 01 Aug 07 A fine, dry, warm and sunny morning, with bright red berries on the young self-sown Rowan tree near the Lieutenant Oak (it's just a little bit less senior than the Major Oak). Near the top footbridge half a dozen Common Spotted Orchids grow tall and thin amongst the long grass, while in Bank orchard the Meadowsweet is in full flower. Probably because it has been too wet to give it its usual cut at the end of May, when all the spring-flowering plants have all set and dropped their seed. SA rolled up some of the 1982/3 barbed wire from the crushed fence by the fallen Sycamore tree. In the light of Flag's nasty accident a few years ago, I think a top strand of barbed wire can be dispensed with in future. Anyone with stock in the neighbouring fields is welcome to add their own top rail or plain bull wire if they wish. This afternoon all us Bank Vols moved the big drums of good Sycamore down the steep hillside (don't ask) and lifted them over the locked gate and onto the drive. Another half dozen even bigger drums remain, but these are devalued by lots of the heart rot which killed the tree. Each of the sound drums (up to 18 inches long, 15 inches diameter and probably weighing a hundredweight) was split into firelogs with the splitting axe. So big was the job and so expert and strong were we, that we even split the axe handle in the process! Numerous passers-by stopped to admire our work and we even considered selling tickets, but by late afternoon we had taken 2 car boot loads full of logs up to the pole barn and stacked them neatly undercover. At dusk a Heron flew high across the garden towards the river, but was mobbed repeatedly by a Gull. It duck and dived, swooped and side slipped, tumbled and twisted, but still the noisy Gull mobbed and mobbed again until the sparring pair flew downstream and out of sight. Poor Heron, I do hope it finally got to the river in time for a fish supper. 31 July 07 Another perfect summer's day - except that I was indoors all morning at one meeting and then indoors all afternoon at another one... 30 July 07 I caught up with the grass cutting (Groves Dyke, the wood, upper woodyard and 2 terraces) while SA winched the tufty end out of the tree. After lunch I helped as he sawed the dumb end into drums, ready for rolling down to the drive before splitting & transporting by car. The hot sunny weather continues, which is a lovely change, but it is not really ideal for heavy duty tree work. 29 July 07 It's sunbathing weather again, so I made the most of it! A 15-minute bird count from my conservatory revealed: Blue Tit 3, Dunnock 2, Wood Pigeon 2, Great Tit 1, Nuthatch 1 and Great Tit 1 (10.15 to 10.30, 6/8 ths cloud cover, dry, sunny and warm). Later C dragged excess pondweed from my pond while G and I weeded the raised bed alongside and pruned the Pyracantha. 27 July 07 Yes, the fallen tree is finally on the ground (mostly), thanks to SA taking the very simple and sensible step of carefully removing the staple from the barbed wire fence on which it was resting! Now why didn't we think of that? The big stick was soon sawn into several drums, according to just whose big, medium or small fireplace they are destined for, and these were stacked to keep them off the damp ground. That just leaves the dumb end still lying on top of the crushed pig net and barbed wire fence, and the tufty end still snagged up on a young Sycamore. The plan now is to carry the winch up to the site and winch the two ends towards each other - either one or t'other end will move to the central ground where we can deal with it and that will just leave the remaining end to be sorted. As we basked on the patio two Green Woodpeckers yaffled themselves into the top of the leaning Ash, soon to be joined by a third. Mum, Dad and Our Kid? The sunny weather continued well into the evening so we celebrated with a very pleasant and slightly alcoholic BBQ... 26 July 07 This morning I took G & C to Danby to see the newly reopened National Park Visitor Centre there. Having been partly closed for several months, the refurbishment has been very successful. A different entrance door, new shop, wonderful new exhibits, new studio / gallery space under massive horizontal wooden beams with superb natural wall lighting, new riverside paths with willow sculptures, new children's playground, new paths around the wood and a new hide overlooking the feeding station. Excellent! And well worth a visit. We had lunch out of doors, with only one light and quickly passing shower to dilute the super soup and dampen the butties. 25 July 07 Lots of deer slots in the muddy bits of the path around the wood this morning, but I still haven't actually seen who is making them. A useful morning meeting (3¼ hours) when Scarborough Borough Council's Whitby TIC Task Group was finally persuaded to abandon their plans for a 30 year lease on two thirds of our Tourist Information Centre as a cafe. This daft plan is now a dead duck and will not be recommended as a way forward. It was the Visitors' Survey results which done it, proving beyond doubt that the best plan for Whitby Tourist Information Centre was to concentrate on being a Centre for giving Information about Whitby to Tourists. Wow! Brilliant! Now why didn't we think of that...? This afternoon SA & I took a look at the fallen Sycamore tree and were delighted to see that our earlier work had made it settle much nearer the ground, although it is still snagged at both ends. We used the brand new super wonderful telescopic pole saw (from a safe distance) to trim off a few more supporting branches and the tree settled down even further. Perhaps if we leave it another couple of days it will sink the last few inches to rest firmly on the ground and then we can start work on sawing it up safely? 23 July 07 A spontaneous management meeting on the patio this morning required pots of coffee and the big parasol to keep the sun out of our eyes. Very pleasant, too. A Great Spotted Woodpecker flew over, 'tchick-ing' loudly as it went. Grass cutting this afternoon, while waiting for the gas man to cometh to changeth the meter 'Between 8am and 8pm'. It's now 19.40 and still no bloody signeth of him, so I think I may giveth upeth and take the poor long suffering dogeth for a walketh. 22 July 07 A dull but dry start soon brightened to full and glorious sunshine from midday onwards. Lovely! 21 July 07 All right, all right, already! That may be enough now, thank-you: Barry, Birmingham, Tewksbury, Stratford on Avon and parts of central London have just had up to a month's worth of rain in 24 hours and 1,000s were stuck in their cars for hours on the flooded M5 motorway and elsewhere 1000s were in emergency overnight accommodation and several 100 were rescued by RAF helicopters. In fact, the RAF say that in the last 48 hours they have carried out their 'largest peace time evacuation' in the UK. And the Prime Minister has now promised local authorities 100% compensation for flood costs. And the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency has blamed 30 years of building on flood plains. And she has challenged the UK to decide if we would rather change our ways and also pay up front to create bigger and better flood defences, or just go on and on paying for all the mopping-up afterwards, for years to come, as climate change gets worse and worse... Here there was another inch of rain last night and my rain gauge is now reading just over 3 inches - add that to the 6½ inches from the last half of last month and that gives a total of 9½ in the last 5 weeks. Not bad, when the average monthly rainfall is about 2 inches! The Esk is flowing brown and fast and the sun was shining again by mid-afternoon. I even had a coffee and chocolate cake on the river bank in the River Gardens. All very odd, but perhaps we have now actually got the attention of the chattering classes, the national media and the politicians? I wonder... 20 July 07 Yesterday there was a tornado on the moortop just above Sleights. Honest. Still don't believe me? Then visit the Whitby Gazette webpage, click on 'Tornado over Blue Bank' to read the whole story and then click on 'Video'... See? I did tell you so! Cooler but bright and dry as us Bank Vols tackled the fallen Sycamore in the neighbour's field. We cut through the small Elder which seemed to be supporting the fallen trunk (and it did go with a twang!) but the Big Stick remains in mid air, a few feet above the ground and still snagged at both ends. The good weather continued and we sawed more than half of the 2-year old cord into firelogs and stacked them in the woodshed. A Green Woodpecker called in the wood and the Nuthatch fed on the peanut holder. It seems it has been raining heavily in the South of England (and not 'just' the South West) and many areas are flooded, roads closed and railway lines disrupted. Sorry, folks, but it does seem to be the only way to change public opinion in those parts of the country where the decision makers and ⅓ of the UK population actually live. I came to the conclusion years ago that it was pointless flooding New Orleans, it would have to be New York. Similarly, there is no point in flooding Carlisle / Sheffield / Doncaster / Hull / Pickering / Filey / etc. It will have to be London... Sorry London. 19 July 07 Grass cutting - and no sign of any rain! Now that all the lawns are back under control again, today I strimmed the path around the wood (for the first time in ages, it was actually dry enough). I see that Filey, just 30 miles south of Whitby, made the news tonight with its flash flooding. Ok, we have had enough up here now - and Westminster isn't really very interested. When will it be the turn of the Thames? When will 20% of London's housing be 2 or 3 feet under sewage-laden flood waters? Boy, we'd soon see some meaningful Climate Change legislation when that happens! And I hope it never does, but somebody had better start taking this whole thing seriously, or else... 18 July 07 Log cutting with the Bank Vols (until the rain started again). Flag pounced on a little baby Wood Mouse which tried to dash across the car park, and maimed it so badly that I had to put it out of its misery. Triumphantly, he carried it off to play with the remains while we got ready to saw more cordwood into firelogs. This included some Blackthorn, but my nice new leather gauntlets protected me from the spines. However, as we worked, I became increasingly concerned about the strange 'thing' which kept rubbing the end of my thumb... It took a bit of extracting, but there, jammed right into the top end of my left gauntlet thumb, was the very dead baby Wood Mouse! What a nice dog I have, laying his fresh kill as an offering on top of my gloves, which I had left on the ground while I fetched the bow saw, etc. Ugh! 17 July 07 Grass cutting (until the rain started again). 16 July 07 This month the rain gauge reads 2½ inches already, but add that to the 6½ inches which fell in the last 2 weeks of last month, and that makes 9 inches of rain in the past 4 weeks. Today has been nice and sunny, with the Groves Dyke guests returning from Sandsend slightly sunburnt (thank goodness)! Yes, it has been wet, but yes, the sun has shone strongly in between the wet days. Last week, the Whitby Hoteliers' Association had got so many holiday cancellations that they issued a News Release pointing out that this part of Yorkshire (in fast, almost all of Yorkshire) is NOT flooded and is carrying on as usual. Just goes to sh |