Thursday 15 April 2010
Finally the sun has come out, and the evening is beautiful, now I am not complaining, because it is still dry and has been for days now, which is great, and I appreciate it, but the east wind, which HAS been giving us stunning flying demonstrations, is nevertheless bloody cold!!! The visitors have been very brave to sit out there regardless and watch the birds fly and they seem to be happy and be having a good time.Yesterday I went to the memorial service for Lady Scott, for those of you who might not know her, she was the wife of Sir Peter Scott, of the Wildfowl Trust, now called the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. I did not know Phil well, but I did have the pleasure of knowing her and saw her last in November 2008, when I was frantically looking for any help I could get to save the Centre and the collection of birds (and myself!). She was a lady in every sense of the word, intrepid, polite, kind, charming, tough, elegant, attractive at all ages, all the things it would be wonderful to be. Her popularity was shown by the huge number of people who were at the service.
Of course needless to say I did not read my card properly and went to the wrong church first, so I asked an elderly lady where I should be, and she said, oh you mean the service for Lady Scott, go back to the A38, get to a garage on the left and turn right and keep going and you had better step on it!!! Not a good thing to say to someone who drives as I do, step on it is my normal modus operandi! It was a lovely service and it was good to see some old friends. I was enormously good though and instead of going to the do afterwards, which I would have loved to attend, I drove home to finish the owl course, help with the last demonstration and do my job (damn it!)On driving home it was good to see that the highways people have organised the roadworks in the middle of Gloucester so the traffic is held up for at least 15 minutes as usual. And I did have a slight contra ton with a white van driver (idiot! – him not me!) on the way back after getting the dog food. Whoever designed the new doors at Country Wide wants shooting as well – another idiot, they are the wrong way round.
The Owl Course finished well, the people on it were very nice and enjoyed it and learned a great deal I think and hope. Then on the last demonstration the female Turkey Vulture Alfalfa took off to fly over the hedge and got blown away, last seen with me in hot pursuit cursing barbed wire fences as I ripped my jersey off one trying to climb though, and the vulture was well above the electricity pylons!! There was no way I could keep up so Simon who was on radio grabbed a lift with Mike who was on his way home, and they followed in the car. On losing sight of Alfalfa Simon told Mike he would walk, so Mike went home and Simon walked up the track where she was last seen, by sheer chance he took the right turning and there she was on the track, she ran towards him, pleased to see him and he carried her home!!Today we had a good but cold day, I took Sorrel to the vet for a jab, and hooray she did not throw up on either trip, a huge bonus that was. I then collected 200 beech hedging plants, however the people I had thought I ordered them from where not the people I thought they were, so now I have 400 beech plants – the staff and volunteers are just delighted as we have to plant them all!! However one hedge is in, with help from the digger!! One has the spaces filled in and I have a cunning plan for the rest!
The damn volcano cloud may cause problems as I have two people coming from the US on the five day course on Monday and I am not sure they are going to get here, which will be a blow. Let us hope that it blows the other way or something useful. I hear a gin and tonic calling, better go!
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