The Red Notebook

The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain, is one of the books chosen by the Duchess of Cornwall on her Instagram bookclub. I requested the book from the library and collected it from the mobile library that calls every four weeks just down the road from where I live, (in fact I can step onto the path outside my house and see if the van has arrived so I don't have to hang about on the side of the road waiting for it).

Laurent owns a bookshop in Paris and one day he finds an abandoned handbag, he trys to take it to the police but they aren't interested so he ends up taking it home. He then decides that he wants to return it to its owner and so this love story begins. The redbook, he finds in the bag, gives him the first clue to find the owner.

It is a short novel of only 159 pages, but it is funny and poignant and certainly worth the time to read it, I loved it.  It is translated from French, but if I hadn't known that I wouldn't have thought anything about it. 

I use to collect spoons, I would buy one as a souvenir from places I visited, people gave them to me too.  I had them hanging on this, in my bedroom with a selection of the spoons on it. I haven't got around to hanging it in my new house. I bet you can guess where I got it from??

Bath time for the Sparrows

The sparrows love their bathtime.  About 15 -20 house sparrows have been coming to the garden to get food and also have a bath.  They are fun to watch and do seem to enjoy the bath.  I have seen them have a dust/mud bath too, but unfortunately the camera in not pointing in the right direction to get that. 

 

           

Getting ready for winter

The hedgehog hadn't appeared after the visit at the begining of the month and I didn't think the mouse needed me to provide it with extra food. So I decided to stop putting food out at night. 

Then over the weekend it came back. 

 

I love the first film of it drinking, I wonder if it got into the bowl?  There are stones in it to help it climb out if it wanted to. And glad it found something to eat in the second film. 

Well as the weather is starting to cool and I read that hedgehogs will be starting to look for extra food to bulk up ready for hibernation, I thought I  had better start putting food out again.  

So first job was to give the feeding station a good clean. Sorry you can only see half the job but you will get the idea.

Here it is drying ready for lining it with paper and then putting the food and water bowls in. 

 The camera didn't work last night so didn't get any images, but the food was partly eaten. 

And finally a new visitor having a bath, is this a sign that winter is on the way???

Tour of Britain

The nearest the Tour of Britain comes to me this year is on the Carlisle to Gateshead stage today, but on 4 September 2017 it came to Morpeth.  I was staying in my nieces house while they were away and happened to notice the bikes etc would be passing by just a few hundred yards away, so I had to go and have a look.

I was there for ages and the crowd kept growing.  There were lots of police motor bikes, other motor bikes, lots of police cars and support cars and then the bike riders arrived....

And then they were gone.  

Well I can cross that off my bucket list.

Hedgehog calling

 After the hedgehogs long visit and many pictures and films of it overnight 31 Aug-1 Sep it came back briefly on the night of the 1st September 2021

Then again on the night of the 3rd September 2021

And no sign since.

The hedgehog is back

The mysterious hedgehog came back nearly three weeks after its last visit during the night of the 31 Aug-1 Sep.  It stayed for over an hour and I got over 50 photos and films of it.  It took all morning and several cups of tea to look through them all, but I enjoyed every minute. Hope you enjoy the films, each is only 20seconds long.

                    

                      

        

Feeding the wildlife

The hedgehog hasn't been for over two weeks, so I decided to clear the feeding station away, (maybe it is hibernating early. 😞 It has turned really cold and wet here, hardly August weather more late September early October).

The  night camera showed the poor little mouse trying to find the food, he didn't want a swim anyway.  I felt a little bit guilty.

Usually any left over food I soak in water and a blackbird comes to get it. The blackbird came looking for the food and I did feel guilty so I put some out especially for it.  I knew it was the same one as it  has a bit of white on its head.