Feeding Small Birds

I think I had feeders for the small wild birds at Fountain Lane but I began to take a really serious interest in the subject at Lodge Road.

We had a small beech tree in the garden which was ideal for hanging feeders from, I had a bird table, and I stuck bamboo poles into the ground from which more food could be displayed. By the time I had finished there was food available for every sort of small bird.

Part of the fun came from inventing feeders. This one, which worked remarkably well, was made from a plastic ice cream container. Later, particularly at Matenderere, I began building highly scientific ones which were aimed at specific birds and which also tried to deal with the problem of vermin and less desirable birds, such as starlings, taking the food.

The family treated this growing obsession with mild amusement although, with the number of voraciously hungry birds soon visiting the garden, Gill must have begun to worry about the inroads made by peanuts, seed and fat into the family's food budget. Later, too, there would be problems with who had priority on the use of the garden, David with his football and cricket, Gill's flowers, which suffered grievously from David's activities but not my birds, or my bird feeders.

Snow

As we walked the twenty minutes home from the railway station yesterday evening on the last leg of our journey back from London it was raining, a thin, cold drizzle. Later, the sky cleared and the temperature plummeted. Then it snowed - not much, perhaps a centimetre, not enough even to cover the fresh green shoots of the winter wheat. In the dark stillness it fell....

....vertically, leaving snow-shadows under the trees.

This is Eastward Ho, an area of playing fields which the council is giving up to the government's rapacious demand for land on which to build houses. At present it has several football pitches, is used for recreations such a kite-flying, and is....

....much favoured by dog-walkers. In one corner there's....

....a small kiddies' playground which doesn't seem to attract many children.

As well as housing, part of the plan seems to be to build an indoor leisure centre. Perhaps that will get more use.

Elizabeth's Christening

In 1983 Elizabeth was christened. It was her decision and we were very happy with it, and certainly not surprised, as she enjoyed attending church and singing in the choir, and was developing a very warm relationship with Canon Dunlop, the minister at All Saints church, and his wife. The canon would later officiate at her wedding.

Elizabeth's god parents were Robin and Jane Lees whose daughter, Kate, was a good friend of Lizzie's.

The clan really gathered for the occasion. They are, from left to right, Ruth Faulkner, Tania Dayes and George; Catriona McLean with Gill behind her; my father; then Katy at the front, with Lizzie and her friend Claire Hooper behind; then Kate Lees, Gordon Faulkner and Jane Lees; and at the right David at the front, my mother, and Robin Lees.

Lizzie was christened on a Saturday afternoon along with a couple of children of the usual christening age, but we felt that leaving it to her to decide when to commit herself was so much better than having an infant christened; and it was so good that she was supported by her friends.

Bird Count

We participated in the RSPB's 'Big Garden Birdwatch 2019' on Saturday, with predictably gloomy results. Participants were asked to sit for an hour and count the birds which landed in their garden, not the total number but the largest number of each species which was visible at any one time.

Our results were 1 dunnock, 1 robin, 1 blackbird, 1 magpie and, late on, three starlings which pinched all the cheese - a total of 7.

We do our best to feed the local birds. As well as the cheese, there are sunflower hearts, a mix of seeds, peanuts, oats and lard, and there's a nice little bowl of clean water for drinking or bathing. If I put out caviar and champagne, I don't think I would see many more birds. They just don't like it round here.

1983

The family rapidly made friends in Maldon and soon had a cheerful social life. Most of our new adult contacts came not from my work but through people Gill met at the gate when she walked the children to school or people we met directly through the children.

The vast majority of the photos in the family albums - of which there aren't a very large number anyway - are of the children. We have no recollection of what social event David was bound for in this picture but it must have been something rather special for him to be wearing a tie. However, he does have a rather fine police car waiting to take him there.

If the camera didn't come out often in our early days in Maldon it was dusted off for birthdays, but almost exclusively David's - apologies in retrospect to Lizzie and Katy. Judging by the candles, this is only David's fourth birthday but we already have the older children trained to run the event - that's Elizabeth at top right and her friend Kate Lees at top left.

Up until this point Katy always looks angelic in her photos but there is now a look of determination in the set of her jaw. At an early point in our time in Lodge Road she packed her suitcase and walked out - we have no recollection of what so upset her but are pleased that she did decide to forgive us enough for her to return home.

What with her long and demanding school days and her friends in Maldon Elizabeth seemed always to be busy so this picture of a pensive young lady makes a nice change.

In our life at Lodge Road we tried to make sure that the girls did 'all the right things'. So, as well as being members of the church choir - something they were not always enthusiastic about, even though they were paid to sing at weddings - they joined the Guides and Brownies. One of the things we most appreciated about Maldon was how safe we felt the children were on the town's streets even when walking alone after dark.

Nightmares

Bernard Kerr, a colleague of mine at The Plume, drew this portrait of me shortly before I left. I love it. It shows one of the trade marks of which I was very proud, the brightly-patterned ties I wore, many bought from Oxfam in Maldon high street. Then Bernard has used the worry frowns across my forehead as contours to reflect my geography teaching.

Those creases reflect the years of stress that teaching brought. Just today, Scottish teachers are being balloted on strike action while an English cabinet minister is saying that something has to be done about the stress and workload placed on classroom teachers.

I taught for 27 years but last taught over 22 years ago yet the only nightmares I have feature schools. One of the common ones is to be in a strange school knowing that somewhere - but no-one, including the staff in the front office, can tell me where - there is a classroom full of rioting children who await my arrival.

I had one of those nightmares last night. This horror took place in the exam room where I and several colleagues were invigilating. Two boys came into the hushed gymnasium and began causing problems. In the confrontation that ensued, I kicked out at one of them.

The trouble is that my body mimicked that kick. I woke suddenly fearing I had kicked Gill, something which has happened before. My violent convulsions had woken her but I had not hit her.

Teaching, for all the 'long holidays', is a dreadfully stressful job, and the consequences of those years of stress, even though they ended two decades ago, will obviously never leave me. However, I wouldn't trade my time in schools for something else. I just feel that I did the right thing in quitting while I was still ahead.

Ants

Ants are everywhere in Africa. Growing up there, they were part of the everyday, part of the landscape, part of life. At times we saw them as useful, so we would exploit their capacity to eat flesh when we buried a seashell which still had its snail inside: the ants would clean it out in days. At other times we would be cruel. A penny banger stuffed into the ants' hole would attract thousands of angry soldiers, at which point we lit the fuse.

Gradually I grew to like them, to be fascinated by them, so I would happily squat beside an ant hole and watch then go about their business. One learned to distinguish between the guards at the entrance and the workers to-ing and fro-ing, but mostly bringing in food, doing their essential job of cleaning up the countryside. Without them, the place would fester in the heat. With them, carrion is quickly and efficiently picked clean to the bone.

Most ant colonies live underground, excavating what must be vast and complex dwellings deep beneath the soil. The spoil they bring up, grain by grain, is often piled in neat volcanic mounds - on a well-tended lawn the African equivalent of the English mole.

Ants also come indoors, which they do to help keep your house clean. Unfortunately, they'll also get into the larder so, in the old colonial days, the legs of the mesh-screen cupboard in which fresh food was kept - albeit briefly in the heat - were stood in tins of water or kerosene to deter the ants.

In general ants are pretty harmless and can be ignored but....

....these ants, pictured in Tanzania, are the nasty tribe of the ant world. They're safari ants, a whole colony perpetually on the move, hundreds of thousands of them seething in a long line across the countryside looking for a meal. If this tribe moves in to your house they'll pick it clean: there are horror stories of infants left untended in their cots when the siafu ants arrived.

Bernard Mizeki Leaving Card

Tucked away in a box I found the leaving card which we were given by the staff at our farewell party at Bernard Mizeki College in Rhodesia in 1970. Most of the people who signed it are easily remembered - the Hunts, the Davises, the Katedzas, Aggrey Mtambwanengwe, Ephraim Watambwa, the Armstrongs, Norman Kuwengwa, the Ndaworas, Richard Inglesby, and Mr Mbanga - while our memories of the others have faded.

Some continued to keep in contact. Ephraim sent us a Christmas card the year we left. Pauline Davis kept in touch for several years, for some of which her husband Leslie was headmaster after Andrew Hunt left, though they were forced to leave when the guerrilla war became dangerous. We still exchange Christmas cards and news with the Armstrongs who now live in the north of England.

The card came with a water colour of a group of eucalyptus trees, a painting which we had until we left Matenderere in 2017. It was a bit of a disappointment since eucalyptus aren't native to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and our memories of the country are much more of the beautiful natural miombo woodland, mainly musasa and mdondo trees, which blazed in shades of red in the spring, just before the rains came. This picture, taken from the summit of a granite kopje, shows the scenery around Bernard Mizeki in summer - the roofs of its buildings are visible in the middle distance.

Alterations at 4 Lodge Road

Almost as soon as we had moved in we had some work done on the house. The first thing was to provide some extra support for the roof which was covered with 11" clay tiles which overlapped so they were, effectively, three deep. Although the rafters were suitably massive, our friend George put in some strengthening timbers.

The second job was to knock through the walls which divided the kitchen, breakfast room and small pantry to make a big family room which ran from the front of the house to the back - its front window is on the left in the top picture.

The only pictorial record we have of the room we created is from photos of various parties. This one, which looks towards the front of the house, is David's third birthday party in 1982 which featured a cake which was repeated several times by popular demand, the chocolate hedgehog. Lizzie is on the left, her friend Annabel on the right, Katy is beyond Annbel, and the back of David's head in the foreground.

This is another of David's birthday parties, for his fifth birthday, and the picture looks towards the back of the house, with the back door into the yard on the left. Lizzie is obviously in charge, leaning against the freezer; the big Prestcold fridge is hidden in the remains of the small, open, walk-in larder behind her. We still have, and use daily, the oak table with its six chairs.

Just visible in this picture is the colourful, geometric, predominately yellow wallpaper which we chose, which is better seen....

....in this picture, along with the matching yellow curtains which we had made for the house in Fountain Lane. The event is my fortieth birthday - hence the four candles - with some of the Christmas decorations visible. Behind David is a small plastic fish tank which was the home of various goldfish at different times.

Lizzie's friend, Katherine Evans, is at left, and Daniel Rigby is in the blue sweater.

This is 1987 and David's eighth birthday. To the left, the wooden doors are the airing cupboard. Just visible beyond it is the Tyrolia solid-fuel stove which did the hot water, central heating and which Gill used for all the cooking. Look carefully beyond Gill and you can see me doing the washing up. The door leads down some steps into the back yard.

The full glory of the decor is visible, with the wallpaper matched by yellow gloss paint. It was a very cheerful room.

Along the Banks of the Deben

Yesterday we had skeins of geese flying over us, heading south, greylags as best I could tell, so today we walked into the countryside and back along....

....the seawall that controls the Deben in its estuary in the hope of seeing more geese, which we didn't. Compared to this time last year there seemed to be fewer wading birds, the only group being....

....of a dozen redshanks busy probing in the mud.

It seemed to be turning into a disappointing walk when we spotted this bird, an avocet, a species I haven't seen since David and I made an expedition to the RSPB reserve at Minsmere when we lived in Maldon, when we saw several.

Avocets were extinct in Britain until they returned in 1940, after which their numbers, with human encouragement, have steadily increased.

This one seemed very content alone, preening itself, until....

....it was disconcerted by the arrival of another wader. This one was much more difficult to identify but may be one of the godwits.

The differences between the bar-tailed and black-tailed species are slight, and even less evident if the bird is not in flight. That said, this one seems to be a black-tailed specimen.

Well-satisfied with the sighting of two unusual waders, we repaired to the local pub to celebrate.

The Wallet

I was given this leather wallet by my Uncle Sandy, my mother's brother, on my 21st birthday and I have used it ever since. It's looking a bit worn now, after over fifty years' use, but it has done me extremely well, which isn't surprising as my uncle's gifts were always very good - this wallet comes from Harrods and the gold clips round the edge are real gold.

In it I have kept some precious and some rather odd things, the former including a 3cm x 3cm photo of Gill which was part of a Polyphoto sequence her parents had taken. I'm pleased to say that she still has the pendant.

There's also a small envelope which comes from a jeweller in Cheltenham. It's the envelope in which I bought Gill's engagement ring. In those days one didn't seem to pop the question in exotic places or ways but, having agreed to marry, we went out together and chose a ring. Its main stone is a small but very pretty blue sapphire.

Then I have a cutting, I think from the 'Daily Telegraph', announcing our wedding. If my memory serves me, my parents insisted on this being done as a way of informing their scattered friends of the happy event.

In the jeweller's envelope is a silver-coloured thrupenny coin which dates back to our days in Rhodesia between 1967 and 1970, though the coin itself dates back further to the colony of Southern Rhodesia. I have no idea why I kept it.

Then there's a small piece of brown paper covered in sellotape which holds a four-leaf clover. I can't remember where I found it but at least I know why it's there - to bring good luck.

Lastly, there's a cutting from a local paper in Ludlow with a picture showing one of my Ludlow Grammar School A level students, David Webster, who found a most unusual fossil which went by the name of Osculocystis monobrachiolata. Again, why this should be in my wallet is a mystery.

Until recently, the wallet also held a small, red lucky bean which I bought from a curio shop in Mombasa. It was less than a centimetre across but it had been hollowed out and contained five tiny elephants carved out of ivory. It has gone, not because of the current revulsion against ivory, nor because the small African children who carved the elephants often lost their sight, but, sadly, because its contents had grown mouldy.

Maldon 1982

A few years prior to this picture Elizabeth, seen here on the right with her friend Kate Lees, was swimming in the Caribbean. In Maldon, before the opening of the town's swimming pool, she did what generations of Maldon children had done before, swim in the muddy waters of the Chelmer & Blackwater canal.

David seems also to have gone in, though I can't believe he knew how to swim, but he may have become wet because just to his right in the picture is the model yacht we bought him. I kept it for years after he'd finished with it; its last resting place before being consigned to the rubbish tip two years ago was on the windowsill in the shed at Matenderere.

This picture was taken at Warwick End, where Gill's sister Pauline and her husband Gareth lived with their four children. Fortunately, the weather was warm. We used to rather dread visiting the family as in winter they kept their house at even lower temperatures than we kept ours. I remember sitting at lunch in their marble-floored kitchen and losing contact with my feet.

We have no recollection of this play but photographs never lie so Katy was, once, the star of a show. It was at All Saints, her primary school, and....

....we were obviously so impressed that we took another picture, of the whole cast.

Elizabeth was also a star, in this case by being chosen as Maldon's carnival queen. She's seen here being crowned by Canon Dunlop who ministered at All Saints church, just down the road from our house, where Elizabeth, Katy and David were all choristers in their turn. Lizzie built up a warm relationship with the Dunlops so, years later, she asked Arthur to officiate at her wedding in Cambridge.

1982 was the year in which Elizabeth who, with Katy, was at All Saints primary school just round the corner from our house, passed the 11+ exam and was allocated a place at Chelmsford High School. We seem to have made a point of taking pictures of our children on their first day at a new school but whoever took this one seems to have thought the uniform more important than Lizzie's head.

Going to the grammar school involved a very early start to catch a bus to Chelmsford and another from the town centre out to the school, and all sorts of extra problems getting home in the evening if she had to stay for any after-school activities, after which she had to do her homework, yet Lizzie never complained.

Solar Photovoltaics

At the beginning of last week CJ Solar, an Ipswich company, installed 32 photovoltaic cells on our roof, each with a microinverter so its individual production can be monitored. The company was optimistic that the amount of power we would produce should be good. At 285w each panel, the array should easily produce its maximum of 9.12Kw on a sunny day because the roof is south-facing and at an almost ideal angle. So far, our highest production has been 6.14Kw.

The EnPhase microinverter system enables us to monitor our production on-line, so....

....with today mainly sunny, we have so far produced over 20Kwh with a peak of over 6Kw. Since all the electricity produced is, effectively, free to us, we've installed a hot water controller which means that, as soon as the PV array starts to function in the morning, the electricity is used to heat the hot water cylinder using the immersion heater. This morning the cylinder was hot within a couple of hours so, since then, we've used the washing machine twice and had a Dimplex heater on in the study.

Since Tuesday a week ago we've produced a total of 135Kwh. We should receive two payments for this, one a Feed in Tariff based on the number of units we produce, the other an export payment based on the size of the array. In theory, we should pay for the system within ten years but this will depend, in part, on how successfully we exploit the power we produce.