New Zealand birds

In some ways, bird watching in New Zealand is very easy. The birds are just THERE: the ubiquitous Purple Gallinule, or Purple Swamphen: 

Immigrant goldfinches.

Kingfishers, a few metres away on the edge of the reef.

A white-faced heron perched on a pohutakawa tree above our heads, unmoving.


A yellow hammer. Pied stilts, in a field on KariKari... And, of course, the New Zealand Dotterell.

Throwback to 2015: Catharine's wedding speech

Some notes for the Father (and Mother) of the Bride speech:

We'll begin with a question for Andy: we hope you can keep up with this girl!  When Cat was eight, she wrote a book about her brother, Jonny. Also eight. They are twins, She began with: 'My brother is a very enthusiastic man.' And, yes, he is. And so is she. She is a very enthusiastic woman. She lives life at almost breakneck speed, throwing herself wholeheartedly into everything - and there are many, many 'everythings' - she attempts.

Firstly, she has been organising events since her first tea party at the age of 4, followed by dressing up, restaurant evenings, magic shows, acrobatics, dance routines – and that was before she was 11.  Be thankful this is not the Cluedo event for her eighteenth birthday – you might have found yourself having to swap garments until you were dressed head to toe in only one colour!

We don't need to tell you how highly competent Cat is at managing, arranging and presenting - this has all been fantastically well-organised with very little work done by her parents. Excellent.  She has been presenting since she was 3 years old, when she went on stage with a group of older children at the local pantomime, leading the singing even though she couldn't read a word of the song.

And if you’ve EVER done anything with her, you will know that she has lists – and lists of lists. Camping with her is an education. She works to a tight schedule, days planned down to the last quarter of an hour, if not minute.

Cat is a good runner, despite numerous warnings about wearing out her knee joints. She held inter-school cross-country titles in Kenya and still seems to think that the casual half-marathon is just a walk in the park. Andy, we're looking to you to get her to think of her knees!

Some years ago, Cat was phoned for a job interview at a restaurant. After accepting the job, she asked: "What shall I wear - if anything?" And no, it wasn't THAT sort of a job - you'll be relieved to know she was a waitress-cum-bottlewasher.

Fortunately, today, she isn't wearing just 'anything' and I'm sure you'll all agree that she looks gorgeous.

We hope she'll be able to learn how to speak 'Kiwi' better than she mastered the anomalies of Guernsey's variation on the French language. We felt really sorry for Mrs Ogier, who she addressed as Mrs Ogre.

She's also well prepared for life in Vanuatu, having adapted well to the island of Guernsey. She drove, cycled and ran around the whole island - though she often got lost. Most famously when she took the Wrong Bus home, a journey she achieved in 3 hours rather than 30 minutes. In typical Cat fashion, she didn't panic, even though she was then late for everything else she'd planned that evening.

Most of all, Cat has a tremendous sense of fun. We watched her finish a ‘short’ run of ‘only’ 16km a while back. Most of the runners came in, red-faced, out of breath, wheezing past the finishing line. Cat and Gael could be heard before they even came into sight, sprinting up with screams of laughter. The chat carried on! Cat’s laugh, accompanied, at times, by a hearty slap on the thigh, is an infectious mix of gurgle, cackle and shriek.

But Cat is more than just a superb organiser who loves to laugh and live life in the fast lane. She is tremendously compassionate and kind. She is a woman of great integrity, who cares deeply about the plight of those less fortunate than she – hence she has been highly committed to her work at CAP for over 5 years, and we know it will be a great wrench for her to leave. She loves you guys and the work you all do.

Cat has taught us, her parents, a great deal. Her love for reading reminds us of its value; she never ceases to astonish with her culinary talents – we’ve learnt a lot more about cooking and baking. Her love for others is whole-hearted – we have barely ever heard her criticise or say a negative comment about anyone. She is extremely generous and thoughtful.

Andy, we know – as you know – that you are getting a gem who is transparent and beautiful inside and out. Proverbs 31 says: “ A good wife....We see the marriage of the two of you as a beautiful combination which will add value to every situation you find yourselves in.

Cat and Andy, we know that lighthouses have played a special part in your courtship, so we leave you with Sir Francis Drake’s prayer, for you will have many, many wonderful adventures together.  Here it is:

"Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

with the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wilder seas

Where storms will show Your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push back the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,

Who is Jesus Christ.

Naughty November

Well, naughty sounds a bit mischievous and so, with the nights drawing in and the clocks having gone back, a bit of mischief to see us through the month seems appropriate.

Not sure what that would look like, though. Perhaps we should have Nice November instead - certainly having a few friends round for meals is definitely nice, something to enjoy. So we did... asking friends old and new on several occasions. And home group, every Thursday evening, is always welcomed and full of laughter.

The weather has been naughty, though. Torrential rain began the first day of half term and barely stopped, with some impressive rain and hail storms every day until mid-way through the month. A corner of the garden, where some topsoil had been removed to form a raised vegetable bed, was under water for a week, the ground remaining soggy for some time afterwards.

The poor bees, who had taken up residence in a hole in the front bank at the beginning of October, huddled inside, sending out only solitary envoys occasionally. We miss them: there were so many buzing in and out, passing us by without a second glance. Hopefully they will survive the winter...

The term wound on, reports ever-looming. There were many light moments: the child who told his rather voluble classmate: "Your mouth is so big it should have its own postcode" caused inadvertent laughter to escape from my mouth. I had to do a lot of reassuring...it is, after all, rather insulting to have such a thing said to you. Then I had one child away ill... it turned out to be appendicitis. Or so the caretaker told me. I didn't hear it from anyone else, though did check with the person who should have told me, as class teacher, if that was true before we sent the get well card...
Then there was the six year old in RE who said we could send money to the poor. "Yes," I replied, "to Guernsey Welfare" (the foodbank charity the school supports). The child looked puzzled. "Australia," he replied...

The weather changed half way through the month, becoming drier. Cycling home was no longer such a chore (some days I arrived, drenched to the skin), providing treats in the dusk of stunning and sunsets and glimpses of owls. One evening, a barn owl flew over the fields on either side, swooping and flying at an astonishingly fast speed along the hedges, its wings gleaming palely in the gloaming as it criss-crossed. Mesmerising. I was grateful for the deserted lane I had chosen to follow home. Especially when my light's battery almost died one evening, so I coasted carefully down the lane in the twilight, barely enough natural light to see by...

And so we roll on towards December...

Optimistic and Awesome October

Indeed. There is something about October which heralds promise: summer is over by the end of September, but October promises autumnal splendour. Autumn colours; Harvest Festival; a crispness to the air; sunny days...

Fort Grey on a sunny evening

Sunset over Rocqaine Bay

Murmuring whelks

And still a few blackberries, many mushrooms, hazelnuts aplenty and hedgerows dotted with rose hips.

Purple peril, happily growing next to the spinach in the compost heap.

Not that there are any of the latter two, nuts or rosehips, left on our bushes at school: the 'Jubilee Hedge', planted with trees from the Woodland Trust several years ago, has already been decimated by the children playing in the mud, digging up or crushing tender young saplings. The hazel bushes have grown tall and splendid, but they now produce hazelnuts and so, because one of the children has nut allergies, they have been chopped down and removed. (Actually, only one so far, falsely identified as the source of the nuts which have found their way into pockets, desk drawers and lockers: the real culprit has escaped since the senior leader who investigated had misunderstood where the children were playing and so did not notice the tree. An easy mistake because, of course, it had already been stripped of nuts whereas the innocent one still had nuts left on it.)

I take a deep breath: the gardens I had, over the years, so lovingly developed and nurtured are, mostly, no more. One area was demolished to make way for the outdoor classroom while the other has suffered both neglect - we have no gardeners assigned to look after our flower beds and flowering shrubs - and outright vandalism as children have broken branches off trees or pushed their way through the living walls of the willow tunnel, breaking the withies. The willow tries valiantly to survive, but much of the walls of the tunnel now have gaping holes in them. Yet, as a school, we promote Outdoor Learning...

Anyway. I took a few remaining hazelnuts safely home...while walnuts from a tree overhanging the school field were avidly collected by the children. Don't think there are any walnut allergies in school.

October has been full of parents' evenings: enjoyable - I love meeting the parents. We all agreed about our understanding of the children, too - always gratifying to know I have 'read' the children correctly. Teaching-wise, we have used ICT to create leaflets, always a challenge, but the children coped really well. They went on to use their newly-acquired skills to type up stories before analysing which writing features they had managed to use, colour-coding their findings. A final ICT project before half term was to make timelines. Satisfying to see how successful they have been... standing in good stead for the future.

And more than satisfying to get a wonderful 'thank you' letter, quite unprompted, from one of the girls. She was SO positive and appreciative that I nearly cried...

By that time, it was October 25th. The rest of the month is at www.travelswithpickle.blogspot.com 

Half term. Always an optimistic ending. And so we head on to Halloween...

Hedgeveg with a vengeance...

The end of the month saw us off to England again, for the motorhome's annual check and our annual trip to catch up with family and friends... all details on https://travelswithpickle.blogspot.com/2019/10/autumn-jhalf-term-away-again.html

Stunning September

Well, by the middle of September, July and August had vanished in a blur. However, the weather did not disappoint, and by the third week of the month, the sun was as warm as the summer months. September 21st, the 'beginning of autumn', was hot, sunny and delightful.

Inbetween, it was back to school and catching up at home with a vengeance and we were both very busy. The children seemed to have come back intent on obtaining individual attention by any means: not easy when there are 21 in the class! All lovely individuals, though. One boy, C, is especially kind-hearted and helpful to others, unobtrusively comforting and assisting his neighbour in trouble. In addition, when I had changed out of PE kit after lunch, he blurted out in front of the class I like your top!"  Then another child started to discuss the pattern on my brightly coloured shirt, somewhat inarticulately - eventually I realised he was talking about Aboriginal art. You've got to love ten year olds....

Still, they are hard work sometimes. I hear my colleague give the same instruction on repeat, time after time after time...

I've carried on cycling to school, sometimes with my 'old' bike, laden with panniers and wide tyres; often with the electric bike. Yet another motoroist delighted me one morning when, drawing up behind me at traffic lights, he got out of his car and berated the driver of the car in front who had cut in on me dangerously and unnecessarily. Absolutely MADE MY DAY.

Richard has been super busy cleaning and tidying up the motorhome, ready for its service in England next month, and doing all kinds of maintenance and catch up jobs. Not least the garden...so many hedges to cut.

Meanwhile, I try to retain some measure of individual 'freedom', as far as I am able when back at work full time. Small delights: picking blackberries or a walk on the cliffs...a quick excursion with a bodyboard to catch the surf... catching up with friends over tea, coffee, breakfast, supper... celebrating a 60th birthday milestone... going to hear Graham Kendrick in concert: a wonderful, worshipful evening.

The tomato plants lovely Nicky gifted me...

And the resultant tomatoes...love the smell of tomato plants

Afternoon on the cliffs...

Evening walk...

On our way home from church...

Vazon super surfing...

Super hectic, but a super September.

Navigating round Guernsey

Seagull field

Zebra corner

Hill with nasty elderly lady

Donkey hill

Sticky-out bit

Just June

June. Mostly a lot of fun, at school and at home. Trips out - down to the Upper School to see a play, great to see my former pupils, almost unrecognisable as a couple of years older.

Threw our caretaker/driver for a loop when he heard me say, 'Don't say the F word in this bus...' Fortnite.

Speechless when The Love of My Life proudly told me he had bought me a robotic vacuum cleaner as a birthday present..

Storm Miguel. From a day of scorching heat and sunshine to a weekend of Storm Miguel, rain battering the windows as if it were autumn. Then a couple more weeks big wind and rain and cold. #whereisthesummer #flamingjuneisadampsquib

Short tempers among the staff from demanding parents.

Cara Grace continues to delight. Ever-smiling, chuckling at the slightest opportunity, she is an incredibly reactive  baby. Loving people, imitating smiles or press-ups with equal enthusiasm - and trying to start to crawl. Delightful - and of course unsuccessful, when you are only just approaching seven months old.  Crawling is a little difficult when you are so laid back and relaxed, but she'll get there. Eventually.

Packing up the house was a busy first couple of weeks, doing our annual tidy away and deep spring clean before the first guests arrived. We took ourselves off to Fauxquets Valley campsite, enjoying the peace and quiet and the opportunity to remind ourselves of how to live the motorhome life once more. The little, solar-heated pool was fun, although the first few days were grey, cloudy, foggy, rainy and sometimes warm...not June weather at all, really. But then... summer arrived!  27 degrees, hot, sunny, a delight. #Guernseyatitsbest

Pickle, of course, loves van life. Not so keen on the friendly resident collies. One dared to appear at the door of the motorhome our first morning, casually saying hello, but Pickle would have none of it. I'll gloss over the details, but fur flew and the collie kept its distance. 20 metres, to be exact. 'High Noon' occurred regularly as both dogs stared each other down for twenty minutes or so...

Not only that, but Pickle then developed a grudge against another 'Patterdale' (a dubious claim: the small hairy black dog looked like Hairy Maclary, the hero of Cara's beloved board book).  She had to be kept on a VERY short lead...

And another delight: exploring all kinds of unknown lanes and tracks as we navigated around the campsite: including my daily trek to school. #gettingtoknowGuernsey.

Marvellous May

May promises so much: spring explodes, plants emerging, shooting...some welcome (like the self-seeded rocket and spinach which bravely endured a long winter) others not (I think of bracken... beautiful on the cliffs, not in MY garden).

The days grow so long that it seems like summer: yet, at the beginning of the month, it is cold. I regret packing away most of my warm winter woollies; socks and tights are still the order of the day. When the sun comes out, we bask in its warmth at the front of the house, sheltered from the wind, facing south. Other days and evenings, we light the fire...bizarre, as bright days descend into glorious sunsets, to be burning wood inside.

But May is filled with marvellous things, seemingly miniscule yet meaningful. My school term gallops, so fast we can barely keep up: reports are crammed in, hurriedly, with minutes to the deadline. We take the children to visit an exhibition about the Guernsey folk who, during the Occupation (1940 - 1945), were arrested, imprisoned, exiled and executed. Sobering. Sports Day, well-organised as ever. And some days off... especially Liberation Day, May 9th, when we celebrate Guernsey's liberation from Occupation by German forces. Dear Wendy came to brunch, catching us up on life and family and we remembered dear Renee... then a relaxed afternoon before going to join our friends in our home group for supper... just eight of us, fun to be together.

More fun when we went to hear Adrian and Bridget Plass: such gifted speakers, having us in helpless laughter and then the next second bringing profound God-truth in a simple sentence. What a privilege to be able to hear them here as part of the Guernsey Literary Festival.

And so many kindnesses. My colleague Barbara (Italian, teaching French, speaking fluent English) sees me limping and insists on my trying her knee brace. We have exchanged many long conversations about injured and damaged knees, discussing the merits of different treatments... The brace is highly effective and I order a similar one straight away. Dear NickyNextdoor visits with eggs, which are always pale and delightfully elongated.

My friend and colleague Carry is as thrilled as I am to see photos and videos of Cara, which arrive every couple of days. Cara is now beginning to eat solid food, delighting in feeding herself; and rolling over too, now. #soonbecrawling  Skype sessions with her are never frequent enough: we remember early-morning coffee with Cara. She sees Richard's colourful mug on the phone screen and tries to reach out to it...

The garden is growing explosively, of course: the clematis on the patio in particular is trying for world patio domination. Nellie Moser, huge, showy, a deluge of purple. I love it, not just for colour but for representing my gardening-loving Grandpa, who delighted in 'cloning' clematis and growing his own varieties. Rocket and spinach in the garden have decided to run away; the brussel sprouts went rapidly to seed.

Everywhere, farmers are hard at work: seagulls supervise, following faithfully.

Cycle rides are a joy, past fields of golden buttercups down to the orchid fields: first the purple southern marsh-orchid, then blue loose-flowered orchids (not found in mainland Britain), arriving amidst the yellow flag iris and the ragged robin. Later, we look for common-spotted and the heath-spotted orchids too. We hear the first cuckoo as swallows begin their swooping back and forth across the fields.

Then, Phil and Judy’s eagerly awaited visit arrives at last. So wonderful to have these dear, dear friends who are family to us through lovely Adele. Our times together are precious.

So we sit and chat long, share meal after meal, go on adventures together...cycle rides through the lanes, visiting the orchid fields, along the coast to have coffee at Richmond Kiosk. We visit the Trepieds dolmen up on the Catioroc, meeting a lady with a dog Jack Russell terrier named Pickle who knows the Other Patterdale on the island, living at the Collenette Hotel. That Patterdale doesn’t ‘do’ acquaintance with other dogs, either.

Then off to Sausmarez Manor to a Grand Plant Sale - so many knowledgeable gardeners. Judy finds agapanthus and other plants, I come home - not having intended to purchase anything - with a solanum jasminoides, which Judy assures me is a beautiful, scented climber.
We even fitted in a visit to the Manor's Sculpture Park and wonderful sub-tropical gardens.

April At Last!

We have waited a long time for April to arrive. April 11th, 1pm, in fact: the date and time at which Cara Grace arrived in Guernsey, and the date and time of our first meeting her. So long anticipated.

In the meantime, school wound down to a close with a production of the Wind in the Willows and lessons - my favourite - on the meaning of Easter. Beyond bunnies and eggs, trying to give the children some idea of what Jesus is all about. We watched The Miracle Maker, this animation still one of the best retelling of Luke's gospel there is. Every time, I gain a different insight into Jesus and His story.

Holidays, then. Time to catch up at home and prepare for A Guest Baby. Kind friends lent a cot; a travel cot; a highchair. A colleague gave me some wonderfully complicated and colourful baby toys. I bought a secondhand pushchair, a nappy rucksack, nappies, clothes and other wonderful baby items.

The bright pink crocheted headband, octopus and Rodent Of Unusual Size (should have been an elephant, but looked more like a ROUS from The Princess Bride,  and it is never too early to teach a child the value of this iconic film...) lay proudly in wait on the changing table (also acquired through a baby items Facebook page), the tea tray waited in the guest room for her parents...

WhatsApp messages heralded their progress from the other side of the globe, Cara charming all with her radiant, open-mouthed smiles: every new person is a complete delight. And then they were here.

My heart is too full, this day at the end of the month after we have said our tearful goodbyes, to remember it all. The weeks were a blur of playing, talking, laughing, walking... Bex, Andy's sister, came to visit for a few days as we enjoyed family time together. Cold enough at the beginning of the month for a log fire, warm enough to sit outside for afternoon tea a few days later. Cara discovering flowers and plants...how to grasp things firmly with both tiny hands; how to stand up strongly AND bend her knees so she could sit down again (a learned skill, apparently); beginning to roll over, sit up - with help; a first exploratory taste of mashed banana; attaining the Five Months mark.

Precious, precious girl; precious, precious family times. How much we love them all.

The end of the month saw us all travel over to Dorset for Mags' and Louis' wedding. Beautiful couple in the beautiful location of Abbotsbury Sub-Tropical gardens. Delightful venue, laid-back outdoor ceremony and interesting table guests. Our own table included house-sitters (the name banked in my memory as a useful future contact); an oceanographer; an engineer working on under-sea drones submarines; a vegan food blogger...and we met so many other charming, interesting people. Fun.

Then it was time to say good-bye, putting our darling family on the train to Gatwick, the first leg of their return journey to Auckland. We distracted ourselves with a little supermarket shopping as we waited for the ferry, before returning to Guernsey. I jumped straight out of the car to school...lovely to be back, with a warm welcome from my friendly colleagues. Back into busy busyness...reports loom.

But that's next month....

No chicken.

As well as peace, calm and quiet, living in the country offers moments of hilarity. Such was the case when our dear neighbours went away this week, leaving Richard In Charge Of Chickens. Or, more accurately, In Charge Of Putting Chickens To Bed. (And getting them up again in the morning.)

Sounded easy. Go round just before dusk, encourage the hens into their houses, shut the door and Avoid The Cockerel.

The cockerel, apparently, had a penchant for attack legs.

My husband is a farm boy. Chickens and roosters hold no fear for him. No problem.

So, the first day, as he put his fluorescent yellow cycling jacket on (garment of choice for every outdoor activity), I said: "You need to take the broom with you. Remember, Nicky warned you that you needed a broom or a rake to fend off the cockerel?"
"Oh, I won't need that," was the insouciant reply.

There was a little more conversation after that, as I reminded him that Nicky had warned about the cockerel Several Times, but he still went off unarmed. Oh well.

He was away a surprisingly long time. This is how it went:

Two hens were already in their house, so he shut it up and started to encourage the others to go in to the other house. Oh no. No way were they going in there, so he had to open up the first house again whereupon the other hens scuttled out of it.

It took quite some time to get them all inside. So absorbing was this task, that Richard forgot about the rooster, until a sudden stabbing pain in his shin caused him to leap a couple of feet in the air. The rooster had rushed out from behind the chicken house and grasped his leg with its vicious, razor-sharp, spur claws.

Here, let us remind ourselves that Richard is tall and incredibly lean, resembling a human daddy-long-legs. As he leapt about, shaking the rooster off, the bird instantly trying to attack once more, he managed to take off his jacket, using it as a defensive barrier between him and the bird. The jacket's virulent yellow, fortunately, seemed to deter it and he managed to avoid both further attack AND to get the cockerel safely inside with the rest of the chickens.

The whole performance - Richard capering around the hen houses in the middle of our neighbour's field - was duly watched and admired by our friends whose house overlooks. They refrained from videoing the proceedings - sadly. But the telling of the story becomes more hilarious every time ....

Not quite Death By Chicken.

March madness

We have GALLOPPED through March. The days have grown increasingly lighter, the weather - despite Storm Gareth, so windy that I barely made it home in one piece on the bicycle - increasingly warmer. Several days spent sitting outside sipping coffee, if not taking an after-Sunday-lunch nap on the patio.

Daffodils are giving way to celandines; wild garlic is beginning to compete with the odd bluebell spiking out of the hedgerows; violets and daisies stud the lawn, primroses covering the banks along the lanes.

Stunning sunrises and sunsets, too.

The sun has been a fiery ball, shooting up above the hedge, blazing straight in to the bedroom window.

I'm grateful to be able to cycle, despite my arthritic knee: the specialist referred to the X-ray as 'horrifying' in that the cartilage has degenerated hugely and the knee is beginning to become somewhat deformed. Nevertheless, he also says I am managing it 'tremendously well' with exercise etc, so I shall continue to do so.

Converting my cycle to electric power is, however, greatly welcome.

Exercise and nature aside, March is full of cooing over photos and videos of Cara; parents' evenings - nearly four hours one night, over three hours the second (but at least we are not writing reports this term); and quite a few meals with friends and neighbours, always great fun. Meeting some fascinating people, too - my neighbour Nicky has some intriguing and interesting friends.

Friends: John Melhuish, a Catholic priest I have kept in touch with for over thirty years, and who has - had - friends on Guernsey who he met up with when he visited a few years ago, died suddenly. Wendy, a friend in church lost her ninety-five year old mother - not unexpected, of course, but still very sad. A good friend is undergoing chemotherapy... life is not without its sadnesses and difficulties.

Halfway through the month, though: our first Nightstop guest. We signed up to Nightstop - involving numerous training days, much form-filling and more than a little trepidation - which offers a safe place to sleep for a vulnerable young person. In Guernsey, homelessness looks like sofa-surfing, where a young person might leave the family to stay on a friend's sofa. We were lucky enough to be the scheme's first hosts on the island, as Nightstop was introduced to Guernsey only a few months ago. Pickle was in heaven, lapping up the attention and tickles which our guest kindly providd for her. And the best bit: a few days after the guest stayed, a more permanent solution was found for them as Action For Children worked hard to find accommodation.

And so the month rolled by....Easter approaches.

Lenten twigs: Swedish paskriset

It's Friday... but Sunday's a-coming! #lent #Easter #GoodFriday