Belgium Minibreak

As if I have not travelled enough recently, on Sunday I made a last minute decision to visit Belgium. The reason? Heroism, pure and simple. Heroism comes naturally to me. As naturally, say, as wishing to have a large stock of excess Brownie Points available for twitching far-flung Hebridean islands. So it was a pretty easy decision to for me, on finding that Mrs L and two thirds of my descendants were stranded in Belgium, to mount an immediate rescue mission. The problem? Mrs L, handbag connoisseur and noted security expert, had had her car key stolen in Brussels. To be absolutely clear, it had not fallen out, unnoticed, from her massively-overstuffed handbag that does not close properly. Never in a million years could that ever have occurred, and I most definitely have never mentioned this ridiculously obscure possibility to her. No, stolen. Stolen by a heinous criminal gang who had used incredible guile and agility to somehow gain entry to her handbag - amazing that they weren't suffocated by Tesco receipts in the process.

After an afternoon of faffing about with the Belgian RAC, after which it was determined that they could not start the car, nor now lock it back up again, the obvious solution began to dawn on me. The quickest way to regain access to the car and thus return the family to Chateau L and domestic bliss would be for me, Superfatherhusband, to personally and immediately travel to Brussels with the second car key. The second car key is my car key. It lives in my pocket, which I pat approximately once every twenty seconds to ensure its continuing presence. I am not paranoid at all. I gave my pocket another reassuring pat. Yup, one car key, all present and correct. Amazing, and so the plan sprung into action. My brilliant neighbours could take Muffin overnight, so he packed a small bag. Meanwhile I retrieved my passport from its ultrasafe secret hiding place, checked that my wallet – on a CHAIN attached to my belt was still attached – and that the remaining Euros from Spain were still in it. Check. Ipod zipped up in jacket pocket? Check. House Keys in case Mrs L had lost them too had them stolen too? Check.

With the Eurostar website down, I had no choice but to go to St Pancras and chance it. Chance is a fine thing, and so I got a seat on a train leaving 20 minutes later. Not long after that I was in my fourth European country in a week, and under cover of darkness I infiltrated Belgium, my fifth. The location of the car was pre-set on the sat-nav on my phone – attached to me via ANOTHER CHAIN (OK, so I am perhaps a touch paranoid; then again, have I ever lost my phone or wallet?) and so also still present (for the avoidance of doubt that means that it hadn't fallen in a puddle, or down the toilet.... ) but in the event it proved unneccesary as Mrs L's good friend and object of Brussels visit, Jo, was there to meet me, probably in disbelief that I would be on the train and needing to check it out just to be certain. A taxi to the car, and we were reunited! Rejoice! And then Mrs L and the girls came down the stairs - more rejoicing!

The moment of truth. Did I still have my car key, or had the Brussels phenomenon struck twice! Hah! Of course I had it, one simple click and the car was ours again. Family in, seat adjusted, mirrors set, and we were off. Warp speed through northern France as, already approaching midnight we needed to catch the last shuttle before a serious gap in the schedule. We made it with quite a bit of time to spare. A scary moment when the car wouldn't start when we arrived in Kent; not because it  wouldn't start at all, but because in order to start it I had to entrust Mrs L with my key whilst I fiddled with the battery. Luckily she managed to keep hold of it for five seconds and we were off again, once again with me selflessly taking the wheel and guiding us safely to Wanstead. A great success, up there with the best of twitches!

I was in bed by 3am, and in work on time the next morning, though the coffee consumption was excessive by anyone's standards. So, a lovely little trip - I've never been to Brussels before, and I have to say that during my lengthy stay it looked pretty nice. Of note were the taxi driver not having the faintest clue where he was going yet driving at about 100kph through suburban streets, and a Nespresso shop where on another day I might have sourced some decaf, of which I have run out. Next time I have to rescue Mrs L from a foreign city I'll be sure to research the retail options before leaving.

In addition to the above heroic tale, I have three other pieces of news. The first is that I almost accurately predicted that Sunday would be a great day for Buzzards and Red Kites on the patch. Before I was called upon to don my cape and mask, I had scored three of the former, but the Red Kite came through the following day when I was at work earning money for Eurostar tickets.

The second is that also on Sunday, I had a first winter Gull go over the Flats with a very clear black "W" starting on the leading edge of the upper wing. Distant, I could not pick it up with the camera for an ID-clinching shot, and in my excitement I didn't think through the options very clearly and am thus forced to concede that I cannot assign it safely to either Kittiwake or Little Gull, even though it was undoubtedly one or the other, and I need both for the patch. Upon reflection, the flight mode was that of a Gull and not a Tern, though this is hardly a concrete ID feature. So, elation tinged with bitter regret on that front.

The third piece of news is that during a short break from saving the world, I have managed to find time to put together a post of gratuitous photos of Lesser Kestrel from my second-most recent European trip. You can find it here, meanwhile I am off to check on the progress of the Telephone Box being installed outside the house.

 

A sad, sad day

A victory for sensible, a triumph for rational, but nonetheless a sad, sad day. The good ship ECO 1 has departed for shores unknown (well, Surrey actually). Back in about 2006 I convinced myself I wanted a Landrover. Needed a Landrover. Not just any Landrover, it had to be a Defender, and it had to be a long wheelbase. I spent a fair old while looking for the perfect car, and finally took the plunge. Broadly speaking, it then sat outside my house for about six years. It became a local landmark, taxis and delivery men would know where to stop, tradesmen where to knock. In a street with its fair share of parking problems, it was an immovable object, a guardian of my bit of road.

In the six years that I had it, I did just over 16,000 miles. A few Scottish trips, a few times to Norfolk and Kent, over to France once, but mostly just pootling around London. The cost per mile was probably just under a pound all told. Not very good. This year the battery gave out in about March, and I'd not driven it since. With the MOT and tax coming up, I decided to bite the bullet and sell up. I'm very sad, but at twenty years old and approximately fifty percent rust, the time had come. The depreciation was very large indeed, eye-watering in fact, but faced with the choice of more servicing bills, more tax, more insurance and fuel economy that would make a Saturn rocket look efficient, I decided to take the hit. A truck came today at around lunchtime, winched it up, and that was that.

Here's the Landy in happier times, on Mull, with Mrs L cooking a nice healthy breakfast in the back.

There are happy memories of course. I slept overnight in it many a time whilst birding. At a Black Grouse lek in the Highlands, for a Thrush Nightingale in Suffolk. I stood on the roof of it in order to scope a Purple Heron at Crossness until security turned up. My favourite times were of it as a family car, the five of us squeezed into its narrow seats, bikes on the top, a ton of crap in the back, and some decent countryside ahead. It was never really a London car, even though that's where it spent most time, but it was still a lot of fun. Arm out the window, diesel roaring, other drivers deciding that yes, they would give way just this once. Aircon, you're kidding right? Anyhow, an interesting if wasteful period of my life has ended, and whilst not a broken man, I am hurting. I briefly thought about getting another one, a newer one, a few months ago, but saw sense and realised that, mostly, the same shortcomings of my 1992 model were present even in current cars. I've never been much of a car person, never had fast car urges, a desire to go and plonk down silly money for something really flash. My Landy was a proper vehicle, one that showed I didn't care about that kind of thing, that I didn't bow to peer pressure. And that I wasn't going to race you off the lights, and not just because I couldn't.

So what to get next? Something that is actually capable of moving for starters, novel though that sensation would be. I'm thinking small, and I'm thinking highly economical. Dull, basically. Boring. All it needs is a boot just large enough for a tripod, scope and camera, and that'll do me I reckon. Oh, and it has to be a Ford.....

Estonia, or "How to be even Colder"

We arrived at the ferry terminal of Virstu before first light, a flawless drive by Jos. The first sign that things were seriously wrong was when I walked from the car to the waiting room without putting on any gloves. Perhaps a thirty second walk, at most forty five. Sweet baby Moses - hands lost all feeling about halfway. So now I knew what -24c meant. Quite extraordinary. I put gloves on.


Once on the island of Saaremaa, it's roughly a two hour drive to the far end, the peninsular of Undva where our quarry, a wintering flock of Steller's Eider, hopefully awaited us. A dip after an eight hour drive would have been somewhat galling. As we approached it didn't look good. The bay was frozen as far as the eye could see - as Jos put it, we were in danger of dipping the sea, let alone any birds. We abandoned the car some two or three miles from the end due to heavy snow making the track impassable, and carried on on foot. True to form, I fell over multiple times, including a superbly flailing effort that saw me swirl about six feet to my left and land in a snowdrift. We ploughed on (literally) and gained the shore - more ice, though a few patches of open water. One Goosander, three Goldeneye, hardly a good reward. Carrying on up the beach, White-tailed Eagles flying before us, we espied a more distant patch of clear water towards the point. It seemed to contain Swans. Things began to look up, but it was another half hour of slipping and a sliding (skateaway that's all) before we rounded the tip and finally got confirmation that we were in with a chance.

 

Dipping the Sea

The sea, although 200m distant due to ice, was alive with birds. Thousands of them. Goldeneye, Mallard and Mute Swan dominated, but small flocks of Goosander, Whooper Swan, Smew, Velvet Scoter, a handful of Common Eider, and some funny apricot-breasted ducks diving in unison. Magic. We had done it, and there they were. Not the hundreds I had anticipated, but probably thirty or so in a tight-knit flock. Eventually we were treated to a close fly-by by a few birds, great views. For a while I didn't feel the cold, even though the landscape could have been the Weddell Sea. We finally dragged ourselves away for the long trudge back to the car, and once back in it, immediately crashed it. Legal restrictions prevent me from saying exactly who was driving, but suffice it to say that we ended up pointing into the sky, perhaps at an angle of thirty degrees, with surprised looks on our faces. We quickly established that we were all fine, but that the car had some, er, cosmetic issues. Let me demonstrate with some before and after shots.




 

We limped back to the hotel, and made some apologetic calls to a man who had until recently owned a pristine rental car. To cut a long story short, they agreed to meet us the following morning back on the mainland with a replacement car, albeit a crappy little car. Happy days, kind of.