Well, the Field Mice have been multiplying, and there are now two families regularly coming to the scattered peanuts I put out for the birds each day. The original family of field/wood mice under the summerhouse are still there, and are distinct from the new family, who live under the patio slabs, by being somewhat larger, and less timid.

The newcomers are quite small, possibly the "ejected" litter of the summerhouse ones. They pop up through a hole in the cement grouting between a couple of patio slabs, and I notice that even when the summerhouse family are out, neither set of mice meet up. Fascinating watching them forage - they're SO quick! Dashing out of cover, or up from the slabs, grab a nut of sunflower seed and dash back.

However... the past couple of days has seen a lot of heavy rain, and today, only the summerhouse mice were foraging... Have the patio mice been flooded out?  Who knows... but I'll keep watching through the lounge windows to see "the next thrilling instalment of Mouse Manor!"

Did you know that A Field Mouse is also known as a Wood Mouse?

We've added to our back garden managerie, now, ... a family of Wood Mice have moved in under our summerhouse plinth (concrete), making a burrow that comes out against the garden fence. So one or other of them comes foraging under the bird table at various times during the day. This morning, I was out there in the lovely morning sunshine (oh I DO love retirement!), filling up the hanging bird feeders and spreading a few peanuts on the flagstones ready for the collared doves and "Woody" Woodpigeon, and out came the adult male Wood Mouse! His huge, jet-black, bead-like eyes spotted me and he stopped ... so I stopped... both of us stock-still...

Who will move first? Bound to be me, as I can't stay as still as a mouse! But no, he moved - right up to my feet, grabbed a peanut and scrambled for the gap under the summerhouse! Aah... so sweet! So I put a few nuts down near where he comes out, that way he won't have to be in the open for so long... Yeah, I know, you silly, soft, old ##**!!... ain't I that one!! ;-)

I was born in 1946, not one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-forty-six!

It seems that, although for the last 1000 years, or more, we have spoken the year date as two numbers - e.g. 19 99 - the moment the millennium clock struck midnight, and the year 2000 arrived, everyone started speaking the year date as "two-thousand-and..."

Even twelve years into the new millennium, most of the media presenters, and the all-and-sundries on TV and Radio still continue to speak of "two-thousand-and-twelve". Why???

This year is the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1812... sorry, how did you just read that date in your mind? Did you read it as eighteen-twelve, or as one-thousand-eight-hundred-and-twelve? This year is also the one-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912... or did you read that as one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-twelve?

So why does everyone still insist on saying two-thousand-and-twelve?! Let's start saying it as we've said it for the last thousand years... this year is twenty-twelve (20 12). And next year is twenty-thirteen (20 13). "Simples!" as a certain meerkat might say!

I hate drivers who use hand-held mobile phones!

It could be said that, on the whole, hospitals are full of people who are not well, one way or another - agreed? Good. So this afternoon, as I was leaving MK Hospital, having been visiting a pal of mine who's got a very poorly heart, I was not best pleased to see a chap driving out of the visitor car park, drivers window down, his right elbow on the open window frame and chatting away on his mobile phone! "The dummy!" I thought, apart from it's illegal, one reason WHY it's illegal is that your concentration is on the conversation, not on the road, so an accident is more likely to be your fault - and someone might get hurt... maybe badly hurt... maybe hospitalised...

So this plonker is driving away from a hospital quite prepared to put some other poor b**g*r in that same hospital cos he wants to have a chat! See red? I went mental at him! Of course, I was walking, he was driving, but he heard me alright! He had to stop at the road junction 50 yards distant, so I yelled at him again, and he put his phone down... but I'm pretty darn sure that as soon as he'd turned at the junction he'd picked it up again - the poxy little tow-rag! Ooo! I hate drivers who pick up and use their mobile phones on the move!

They do say that hands-free mobile phone technology is just as dangerous, though I'm not convinced of that one, any more than if I had a car full of companions all chatting and laughing... should I wear ear-plugs then to stop me hearing, or taking part, in their conversations and revelry? 'Course not! It's the mobile-in-the-hand-to-the-ear that is the accident maker. The phone conversation is going right into the ear, and one hand is nowhere near the steering wheel. If anything happens, there are probably several seconds gone by (by which time there's been a big thump!) while the plonker on the phone sees what's happening, reacts, tries to put the phone down and gain control of the motor before... oops... too late... crash, bang, wallop... someone's hurt, and it's probably NOT the plonker on the phone!

Why can't cars / lorries (etc) be fitted with a gadget which automatically shuts-down any mobile phone within its confines as soon as the ignition is turned on? And don't tell me that a passenger may need to make a call, that's poppycock! We've had motors for a century but we've only had mobile phones for about 20 years, so what did everyone do before mobiles? Stop at a phone box. Same principle... NEED (?) to make a call on the move? Then stop somewhere and then use your phone. "Simples!" as a certain Meerkat might say!

It hasn't been a day for the Summerhouse, today... far too cold - even though, in the post-Christmas sales, I bought a lovely little 200watt fan heater especially so that I can use the summerhouse on a cold day. But today was never going to be one of those days. It was a miserably grey, misty, murky, day, besides being cold. And anyway, I had to go hospital visiting this afternoon.

A mate of mine was taken into Coronary Care last Monday and I've been in to visit him a couple of times since. Well, you know what it's like just laying in bed waiting...waiting...waiting...

Although, thankfully, he has a decent stream of visitors. So I went early this afternoon, when I thought most folks would still be having / "recovering from" their Sunday lunch. And by the time I got back it really wasn't a nice afternoon for the summerhouse. So that's that for today.
Praps tomorrow will be sunnier?

It seems I may have "lost" the ability to post to my blog, which would be a shame, but would also be entirely my fault as I haven't posted anything for over 18 months!

Anyway, New Year, new decisions, and one of those is to use my blog more than FaceBook to express some of the thoughts which pass through this ageing mind when faced with some of the exasperating "news" stories one hears, or sees. So first of all, let's see if this new post gets saved to "A View from the Summerhouse"... or if it just goes into the aether like smoke from an old car exhaust!

Reflections on a Ruby Wedding Anniversary

Ah! Peace… It’s the tail end of the day, now, and the Summerhouse beckoned me the moment Ann and I got home from the celebrations.

But first things first! Kettle on (for a cuppa) and shorts on / shirt off – it’s been a very muggy day and I need to cool off!

So, for the second time… ah!... peace…

With my cup of tea in hand, I sit in the summerhouse and reflect on this day – Sunday the 8th of August 2010. You know, it still amazes me how quickly the hours fly by. It seems only an hour or two ago that Ann and I were having breakfast and I was setting my ‘SatNav’ to ensure we arrived without a hitch and on time: and now we’re home again, it’s early evening, and the day has gone.

To mis-quote the Sergeant Pepper lyrics, “It was 40 years ago today…” that was Val and Keith’s Wedding Day…

Ann and I had received our invitation to attend my long-time friends, Val and Keith’s, Ruby Wedding Anniversary celebration first at their church for the morning service, and afterwards in the church hall for a buffet lunch celebration.

Naturally, having known them for well over forty years, and been at their wedding – on this day, forty years ago – I was not going to miss this “knees-up”, uh-hum, sorry, “bless-up”! So we set the ‘sat-nav’ to make sure we found the way to their church in time for the start, and left with plenty of time to get there.

A fine morning, and we made it in good time. A simple, family service, with plenty of fun, an “interview” of the celebrating couple – how had they survived 40 years? What were the worst times and what the best? And then a buffet lunch where the amount of food – and all splendidly displayed – could have fed their village for a week!

Lots of folks to chat to, many new people to meet, and several whom we had not seen for many long years, and then it was home time, and we’d hardly had time to chat to Val and Keith – even if we could have got to them in the melee of their many friends who equally wanted to chat.

So now here I am, sitting in my summerhouse, quietly reflecting on this day, and on the forty years since I stood watching Val and Keith get married. Yes, that’s a long time to reflect on! And age has destroyed many of the memories from those intervening years, but seeing the wedding photos, shown to us as a slide show after lunch, and now remembering back to “the Sixties”, and to their wedding day (this day) in 1970… oh dear, I seem to be getting all maudlin!

But it’s strange, a few black and white photos can trigger more memories than just asking “what do you remember about…?” There was the time when I first met Val: must have been summer 1965, when we were both on college vacation, and working at Whipsnade Zoo, in the Hall Farm Restaurant. And then that same year, at Christmas vacation, working for the Post Office, as it still was then; the Royal Mail, as it became. We worked together doing the Christmas parcel post, which was delivered using a big old ‘pantechnicon’ lorry (a furniture removal lorry), where all us college students would be standing inside the van-body, sorting the parcels as we were driven along, and a couple of us would run behind the lorry’s tailboard, which was lowered on chains so the lads and lassies inside could throw out a parcel to the “runners”, who would run to the address and deliver the parcel, then run back to the moving lorry to collect another! Can you imagine what Health and Safety Officers would say to that today! They’d have an apoplectic fit! And it was icy on the roads, some days, and we worked until well after dark to get the parcels in the lorry all delivered before we all went back to the sorting office. Fun times.

And now Val and Keith have celebrated forty years of married life, raised two strapping-great sons, and have grandchildren and grey hair, but also many, many, memories. Not just of the Sixties and Seventies, but four (plus) decades of memories!

Happy Ruby Wedding Anniversary, Val and Keith! And may you have many more!