Birds on the balcony

I feed the birds on my balcony!  I have a bird table and loads of hanging feeders.  Throughout the winter I had chaffinches, a robin, sparrows, bluetits , great tits and blackbirds all enjoying the seeds, suet pellets, dried mealworms, fruit and stuff I put out for them, but now I just have the occasional bluetit, no chaffinches, no robin, not even a blackbird, but there are several pairs of sparrows, a couple of starlings - pigeons and crows!  The crows, big as they are, have managed to master hanging on the feeders, and the pigeons do their best to get onto the table, under the little slated roof, though mostly they just forage around below the table picking up what’s been dropped by the other birds!  It’s great sitting in the living room  which is behind the French windows.   This is a view from the sofa, on the left, and  of course I can watch the birds, and try to take the occasional photo!  Not so bad when the doors are open but I really do need to wash the glass soon!  You can hardly see the sparrows on the feeders through it! 

The bluetits like the coconut full of solid fat and seeds, but unfortunately, so do the greedy starlings who mange to hold on at the top and lean out over the overhang  to get their beaks into the shell.  It’s quite an acrobatic feat!

The balcony rail is a good perch and I often have a couple of pigeons, a starling and some sparrows resting there.  The pigeons often settle as if on a roost, looking like they are sitting down rather than standing as this one’s doing here, peering through the open door.

The starling got camera shy and turned it back on me.  I’d never really looked at one close up before but the “stars” for which it is named look like little white spots, on its sides.  Hundreds of them roost at night in the “crown” on top of the church tower.

I’m hoping that the other birds come back later in the year.  It is so lovely to watch them.  The chaffinches are aggressive little so-and-so’s, but the sparrows, although they have the occasional little spat, are generally quite placid.  The male chaffies always amused me when they came to feed as they always announced their arrival with a tweet!  I can’t say I’ve noticed the other birds doing that, though there are the odd chirps, tweets and occasional squawks going on most of the time as they appear to be talking to each other!

All is quiet out there at the moment, as it’s dark  - only the full moon looking in right now – but as soon as it gets light the activity will start again.  I’ll probably have to top up a feeder or two tomorrow!

Talk again soon.

less than 24 hours

  I was sitting writing yesterday’s blog, in the evening, in the living room, balcony door wide open, when I became aware of a sound outside.  I didn’t really take much notice at first but then all of a sudden realisation hit!  It sounded like a hot air balloon being fired up.  We often get the colourful balloon gliding past the window, or over the rooftops on a calm summer evening.

Camera at the ready I went out onto the balcony and waited.  More firing up roars followed before the balloon suddenly appeared from beyond the trees on Tweed Green.  It flew over the top of my house and was already over the High Street and disappearing fast beyond the buildings, by the time I got through the house to the front door.  I’m still waiting to hear from Virgin about the voucher for my balloon flight from Biggar. 

Tuesday morning was my stint in the charity shop for this week.  As it was the 50th anniversary of the British Heart Foundation that day, Karen wanted us all to dress in red – but I don’t have any red clothes!  Luckily I found a jersey that would fit me amongst the ladies knitwear section of rails, so changed into that for the morning, deciding too that I’d better actually buy it so I’d have something to wear on the next WEAR RED day!  There was birthday cake and nibbles for staff and customers as we went through the morning and music from the past 50 years played on the music system.  Here’s Karen, the manageress, cutting the birthday cake in the back shop, and below, with some of the volunteers!

In the afternoon, I met up with Amy who drove us down to the Gardens at Kailzie for a game of Petanque  - I’m really getting into this game !  We were to meet Carol there, but as we were early we had a little wander round the gardens to fill in time.  Amy hadn’t been in the Walled Garden before so that’s where we headed, as usual, camera to hand!

 

 

 

 

 

There were some beautiful flowers, and imagine the yellow blossoms on the laburnum walk, left.  Too bad I missed them flowering!

The mauve cat mint and lime greeny  ladies mantle flowers as well as green hostas, combined with red and pink climbing roses looked fabulous along the garden wall.  The fountain was playing, and the whole atmosphere of the place was calm and relaxing.

 

There’s a piece of driftwood sculpture on the plinth on the right.  It looks like a bird – merlin, I think was its title!

The roses were stunning!  I just love the blousy climbing - or are they rambling – roses like the ones around the arbour above the statue of Eros.

Soon it was time to go and meet Carol for our game of petanque.

(Just a wee shot tucked in there of the fuschias in a barrel!)We had a lovely afternoon, finishing up with tea and chocolate cake in the tearoom – and I forgot all about the camera while we were playing – but then, one game of petanque is much like another - even if I did win this time -  and you’ll probably see more another time anyway.

Talk again soon.

Our hottest day for quite some time

It really was  beautiful day yesterday – right for being outside, so I phoned around the petanque ladies to see if anyone wanted to go down to the piste at Kailzie.  That’s what the petanque court is called, I discovered – a piste, same as in ski slope!   There was no-one available – tennis on TV from  Wimbledon – so I just went by myself with the plan that if there was anyone else there I would make friends and join in, or if not, I would just practise by myself. 

I love the back road that goes to Kailzie with its views of the hills  and lots of green trees and hedges.  It’s a real privilege to live in such a beautiful area.

Not having my own set of boules, I borrowed some from the shop at the entrance to the Gardens and headed out across the little bridge, over the ground where the big house used to be, and between the trees and a huge rhododendron bush to where the piste is hidden in a corner of the garden. 

I could see that there were some players there already, so got ready to introduce myself. “I’m a new member,” I told them. “I’m Evelyn.  Just thought I would come down and see what was happening!”  They introduced themselves as Irene and Tommy, Davy, another guy whose name I can’t remember, and then - lo and behold – Michel popped out of the little green hut that acts as a shelter, to shake hands in the French way!

They were in the middle of an ‘end’, a game, but as they were playing 3 against 2, they said I could join in the next ‘end’, making the odds even.   I think I’m still suffering from Beginner’s Luck (thankfully), as I seemed to do pretty well again.  Tommy, discovering I was a beginner, gave me a couple of wee tips for throwing the boules, which was great – and obviously worked, as I didn’t disgrace myself!

In between my turns to play, or when I had thrown my two boules, I had to take shelter under the trees.  It really was too hot for me!  I think it must have been in the high seventies, maybe 80s,  twenties celsius, which I guess is quite average for some of you who will read this!  I’m really not tolerant of heat in any form, be it weather, food, spices, tea, water…. I was so glad I had thought about taking a hat with me, but will remember sun cream and a bottle of water next time too!  Luckily Irene had sun cream with her so offered it to Michel and me. 

This is Michel with the cream all over his face, not rubbed in as I had done!  Not that it bothered him!  Wearing sandals, his toes were getting pretty burnt so he slathered on another half inch to protect them!   On we played, the score keeping fairly level throughout! 

The plan of the game is that someone standing in a small circle drawn in the gravel,  throws the small jack – cochonnet in French, meaning piglet – about 6 – 8 metres ahead, then proceeds to throw a boule to land as near to it as possible.  The arrow in the photo on the left shows where the cochonnet was in this game.  There is quite a bit of a camber on this bit of the piste, so boules and cochonnet tend to roll over to the edge of play!

Then the next player takes a turn, with the idea of getting closer than the first player.  This player or team mate can continue to throw his or her boules – two or three, depending on the number in the team – until theirs is closest to the cochonnet. 

First team plays again, to get closer still to the little piglet.  If you can knock an opponent’s boule out or hit the cochonnet nearer to your own team’s boule, so much the better.  And so it continues till all boules are played.  Well that’s the basic description.  I guess there’s more to it than that really!  There is certainly quite a lot of deliberation as to whose boules are closest, 

Points are then scored by the team whose boules are nearest to the cochonnet.  It may be only one point but clever play can make it several points!  Sometimes even the measuring tape has to come out to determine if a boule is a millimetre the right or wrong distance from the jack – and it’s the team to reach 13 points first that wins the match. 

The scoring board is a short wooden plank with two vertical rows of holes, one for each team to fit the scoring pegs in.  It wasn’t until Davy remarked at some point that the score was level pegging that – Duh!  Palm of hand hits forehead – it suddenly dawned on me that that was how the expression came about.  Both teams had the same score and level pegs!  Well it could have been any game with pegs for scoring that gave us the expression, probably a card game, but fancy not consciously realising that before!!!  Duh, I say again!

We played two matches, finishing up about teatime, but even though I bouled? well, I was on the losing team each time!  Oh well, it was only a game! 

Talk again soon.

Friday 1st July – already?

No photos today – basically because I forgot to charge up the camera battery and it died on me before I got where I was going!

The other night I went out with the U3A Italian group for a meal at our local Italian restaurant.   Kathy had organised the outing but I didn’t tell the group that I had forewarned Franco, the owner, that it was my Italian class.  Sara, the new waitress is Italian, unlike the previous one who was Polish – it’s only a small restaurant – so I told her too and said the group would like to try out their new language skills.

There were eight of us, Pat, Kathy, Gill, Trevor – the only man in the group – the two Jenny’s, Anne and myself, and Sara was tremendous!  Right from the start, she welcomed us in Italian, commented on the fact that it was the Italian class – in Italian – and asked everyone what they would like to drink – also in Italian!  She took the order – in Italian… no English allowed – and was very impressed, she told me later, when Anne said “Vorrei un bicchiere di vino rosso.”  I would like a glass of red wine.  In the end we plumped for un bottiglio instead of bicchieri. Gill ordered acqua and one of the Jenny’s chose vino bianco.  Did Trevor have una birra?  I can’t remember! 

Anyway, complete with drinks, we studied the menu – what was this? and what was that? – and made our decisions.  Again Sara had us ordering in Italian, asking a few pertinent questions that gave the group something else to think about!  She spoke slowly and clearly enough so they all got what she said!  It was great!  We had a wonderful evening amid much fun and laughter, and everyone said they had enjoyed themselves – even Sara!

Even Franco who had been cooking came out to see us, and to tell us that Sara needed to learn more English!  She’s pretty good really, but has an ambition to be an air hostess, and needs to be able to speak better English.  I bet you’ve guessed what’s coming next – yes, I volunteered to help out!  I have to say I’ve always fancied teaching English as a foreign or second language, but have never got round to doing the training course!  However I think I have a good enough grasp of the language to have a go at teaching it.  After all I have a greater knowledge of English than I do of Italian and I’ve been teaching it with reasonable success!

So yesterday morning I met up with Sara, a couple of lessons prepared based on some of the things I had observed she was having problems with, but in the end we just sat and chatted, with me correcting some of the more obvious mistakes, and explaining various English constructions – I need to do…. I want to see… I have to go… instead of I need to doing, I want see, I have to going.  and adverbs quickly, slowly, neatly , loudly, softly….. Sara taking notes as we spoke.  We had quite a laugh over the pronunciation of some sounds that are quite alien to an Italian – th, ch, wh – in Scotland wh is quite different to w.  Wales and whales are quite distinguishable as wh sounds like you are softly blowing out the candles on a birthday cake!  You can’t do that with a w sound!  I think the nearest we got to that was fw!   Oh and there was the missing H that makes the Italian English speaker sound very sexy!  I ‘ave my book.   I comb my ‘air…  You ‘elp me…  That h is quite hard for Sara!  We didn’t touch on the Scottish (Gaelic actually) ch, as in loch, the Scots (Gaelic actually) word for a lake.

We ended up agreeing to do the same sort of thing again soon, depending on her shifts at the restaurant, and then I was off to get changed into choir gear – tartan kilt skirt, black v-necked (colla di V in Italian, Sara told me) top, black tights and black shoes – for a trip to Edinburgh to sing at the Scottish Parliament.  We’d been primed some time ago to be prepared for strict security, and had also been asked to fill in a form about dietary requirements as there would be refreshments. 

We gathered outside the building at the required time, and were all ushered inside where our jackets, coats and bags were put into trays – as at the airport – and sent through an x-ray machine.  The men had to take off their traditional silver-buckled belts and sporrans and have them put through the x-ray too, before walking through the “doorway” – I can’t think of a word for it – that scans for any metal objects on your person.  Some of the men even had to take their shoes off.  Most of the men were “bleeped” anyway, probably because of buckles on kilts, and had to be hand-scanned – with the clothes brush look-alike.  I had to remove the clip to hold my hair up, and others had to remove jewellery…. but eventually we were all through and off to the desk to collect passes on green tape to wear around our necks.  Staff have mauve tape – thistle colour!  Now there’s a word for Sara to try! Thistle!

A steward led us through the building  - up stairs, along passages, round corners, till we came to the Garden lobby where we would be singing later.  The 120-strong Lothian and Borders, and Tayside Police choirs with Peebles-based choir, InChorus, were singing as we arrived – what a great sound – We by-passed them, going up another flight of stairs, across a landing, through a door, along another corridor, round a corner and finally into a meeting room where we could get ready.  Remember I said we’d filled in the dietary requirements form?   We’d expected maybe a buffet tray!  We got small round chocolate-covered marshmallow cakes – made by a well known Scottish firm – and diet Irn Bru – a traditional Scottish fizzy soft drink in its full sugar, non-diet form!  There wasn’t a vol au vent, a sausage roll or a sandwich in sight!  Nor was there even a jug of water to wet our thrapples (Scots throats)!  We did get one eventually……. after a request was made!

So after a run through of the songs we had practised, it was time to be taken back round the corner, along the passage, through the door, across the landing and down the stairs again.  We arranged ourselves as practised on the stairs; John gave a wee introductory speech in Gaelic then English to explain who we were and what we were going to sing; Jackie gave us our notes - from her i-phone (marvellous the apps you can get for these phones), one-two- three – and we were off!  First song over, much clapping from the audience - the general public, tourist visitors mainly, I’d say!  On to the second song, and before we knew it our 20 minute spot and seven songs were over!  Back up the stairs, across the landing, through the door – well, you remember all that – to pick up our belongings from the meeting room.  Our passes were collected by our steward and we were told we could now just wander around the building like all the other visitors if we wanted! 

It might have been nice just to do that, but another refreshment, of the sort you get in a pub, was what we needed so for that we had to leave the building and walk a little way up the Royal Mile.  After a couple of rounds, the group split into two: the teachers to go off to join in their “Teachers’ New Year” – their end of the school year /beginning of the six-week summer break  celebrations – and the rest of us to find somewhere to eat.

The Turkish restaurant a little further up the hill was the choice, so I went along with that!  Nice place, jovial owner – so like my friend Ian in France, in appearance – lovely meal, plenty of wine – not that we drink a lot, you understand – and great craic, as the Gaels as well as the Irish call it!  It’s pronounced crack and is nothing illegal.  It just means we had a good time with a lively atmosphere.  No doubt if Jackie had been there we would have sung a song for the Ian look-alike and his staff, but the rest of us were a little more reserved!!!

Time to go home, and for me it was a bus journey back to Peebles.  It wasn’t worth  bringing the car to town as parking is pretty impossible in the centre at any time, and besides, we had been led to believe the area around Parliament would be closed anyway.  (It wasn’t, though it had been in the morning when the Queen was there).

A busy day, and very enjoyable it had been too!  Now if only I had charged up that camera battery…..

Talk again soon.