Lifestyle choices. Writing choices.

There has been some online disappoval of my travel write-ups. Not the write-ups per se, or their content, but more that I write them at all. Possibly even that I travel full stop, though maybe I am taking that a little far. The view expressed was that my travel write-ups sat uncomfortably in a time when many people are struggling with the bare necessities. It wasn't said quite like that but that was the general thrust. Personally I take the view that if I dislike what I am reading I stop reading it, but if one person feels strongly enough to mention it, however bluntly, then there are likely others who will feel the same. Maybe I should not be rising to the bait but here goes.

Let me start by saying that I am not tone deaf. I appreciate that I am exceptionally lucky to be able to travel as I do, and that many people cannot and probably will never be able to. Is that a reason not to write about it, for fear that I could come across as ostentatious? I'm not a particularly showy person, but I do have a good job that allows me to travel and pursue other interests. That said it's some way from a free ride - I take it very seriously and I work pretty hard. I lost it once, wasn't my fault, and was unemployed for over two years. Travel simply stopped. When I got another job, at the same company as it happens, I started going on holiday again. Sounds fair to me. Do other people work harder than I do in more difficult jobs for less money? You bet they do. Is that fair? Maybe not. Is that a fact of life? Yes. Can I do anything about it? Not really. Am I going to preface every single post about a trip I've been on by apologising for having been able to go on it? Absolutely not.

This is just what it is. I can't be paralysed by the circumstances of other people and the times we live in. Maybe that is the definition of tone deaf? For most of my working life there has been some catastrophe or other that makes peoples lives hard, it is just constant. The fallout from Brexit, high inflation and high interest rates are just the latest ones. Is it worse than it has ever been? Old people will say no and with good reason, young people will say yes, also with good reason. I'm somewhere in between. It wears you down, how can it not? But I appreciate I'm one of the lucky ones, I've generally always had options. But to forgoe those options because I'm worried about what people might think of me? Inequality is inescapable and in my view it's getting worse. I will be at the ballot box as soon it opens in order to try and reduce inequality by getting rid of those who think that living in a tent is a lifestyle choice, but I am not going to be stymied by it. That's not me. I write what I want to write about, and nobody dictates to me what that is. I feel very strongly about this.

I'm not contracted, not paid, not conflicted in any way. Total freedom to write about what I want. Blogging is a dying medium, very few people read them and the stats back that up. So what? Have you seen me try and change with the times? No you have not. Within this slowly diminishing format it is the travel posts that gain the least response and the fewest views - I am well aware that they have the least capacity to resonate but have you seen me give up writing them because of that? No you have not. Any ideas why that is? If anyone thinks it's because I'm trying to show off they are very much mistaken. My writing isn't in a crowing style, like some gormless influencer being paid to promote the so-called high life; I write because I want to. That's all it is. I enjoy planning my trips, I enjoy going on them, I enjoy going through the photos I've taken, I enjoy looking at historic eBird lists, and I enjoy reliving them by writing them up. I hope that other people may find them useful, informative or interesting, but I don't expect it or demand it. The key words are "I" and "enjoy".

Sometimes - more often that not - I don't write at all. Mostly this is because writing is mood-related in ways that even after all this time I am unable to fully fathom. I just don't feel like it, it's not enjoyable, and so I don't do it (witness February to June this year). Periodically this changes and you cannot hold me back, which is a period I am in right now. And this is when I encounter the second impediment to writing: my life is on the whole exceptionally dull. I work as a middle manager for a multi-national firm. As mentioned above I've worked for this same company for close to 25 years now, my whole adult life more or less. I get up in the morning, spend the day in an office in London, and come home again. Often I just go straight to bed. My day, such that it was, has contained nothing of interest whatsoever, but I don't go and write a blog post about it to try and demonstrate solidarity. I just get up the next day and do the same thing again. This same job that has for years funded my lifestyle is also extremely restrictive.

Now the blog may not currently paint that picture, and it may appear as if I am on some kind of permanent jolly. I'm not. I am just writing up prior trips whilst I have the mental and emotional capacity to do so. There are admittedly a lot - see above, I'm fortunate - but is that really so offensive? It's that or bread. Actually the stats would suggest that people prefer bread, but also, see above. Any suggestion that I should stop writing about trips in recognition of the general malaise and cost of living crisis just isn't justified in the context of why I do it and what I get out of it. I do not write in order to shove my lifestyle down people's throats. If it genuinely upsets somebody that I spend money travelling and then have the temerity to write about it afterwards then they're reading the wrong web page, and I would respectfully suggest that they seek whatever it is that they are looking for elsewhere. I'll take the stats hit, no problem.

Journal

As I mentioned in the last post, for the last ten years I've kept a travel journal. This started off life as a pure birding diary, a day by day blow of birds I'd seen along with meticulous lists. It still is, though its scope has expanded to also include pure travel. Not all travel, that would become a little tedious, so for instance a day trip to a european city is unlikely to feature. However some of my more far-flung trips get a mention, even if their primary goal is not birds or photography, such as Malaysia and Japan with Mrs L, or Utah and Arizona with Henry. Birds always feature however, however minimally - as a birder I can never properly switch off, there is always something that needs recording.

I use something called the Alwych, I think I picked it up from a Mark Cocker book on birding (Tales of a Tribe), and it has proved perfect. It fits nicely in my newfound jacket pockets, and is neatly lined, although I only use these as guides to try and keep vaguely straight. My handwriting is extremely small and I only get around 25 days holiday a year, so I'm actually only on my second one although this is now nearly full. I started it in 2014 and I don't think it will last much into 2020.

I used to be extremely diligent, writing it up every evening after a day's birding, but more recently I have lost my way, and for a whole year I didn't even pick it up. This became a significant niggle, and in May I put it on my to do list. It was a mammoth undertaking. Somehow I had to remember all the the trips I had been on since around August 2018, as well as all the birds I had seen. Luckily I had forseen my extreme laziness and had made various lists on scraps of paper which I had carefully retained, but actually placing myself back on my travels was a long and labourious process. Mostly I caught up on flights, airline lounges or hotel rooms - constantly irritated that I wanted to be writing the here and now rather than the past, but not wishing to mess up the chronology. I must never be so slack again. 

Earlier this month I finally finished - the last entry was my trip to Long Island. Since August 2018 I have filled 56 pages. I counted the words on a random page and there were 359, so it has taken me 20,00 words to catch up. No wonder it took a long time! Of course it is a lot slower after the event. I needed to remember what order I went to places, I had to consult maps, old blog posts and lists of flights, I needed to painstakingly transcribe bird lists onto the page and do the odd sketch. This was quite a fun process and a good test of my memory, but sometimes there would be a mental delay and I would find that after I had finished a day off and moved on to the next only then would I remember some funny incident I had witnessed, people I had talked too, other birds I had seen, what I had eaten or in some cases whole passages of the day that with the passing of time I had completely skipped and now there was no room in which to go back. In fact the last year of writings could be described as rather boring in the context of the rest of it. Writing it so far down the line is never going to be as rich as doing it whilst travelling. It felt rather forced, that I had lost the emotions of immediacy, of the present. My family would contend that the whole thing is boring! But this is not supposed to be a classic read, it is supposed to be a memory jogger, a record of the fun I have had. Nobody else really cares and nor should they, despite the length this is not my magnum opus, it is just another way to while away the many spare hours I have and no idea what to do with them.

The edge

Last Sunday I ended up writing about six future blog posts. None of them are lengthy, for the most part I just wanted some words to accompany some photographs from my recent travels. Working through them, I found that I knew what I wanted to say but that I could barely type and in addition had forgotten how to spell some common words. I struggled with ‘decision’ for instance, and found myself needing to use backspace incredibly frequently. For a moment I wondered if I had some kind of early-onset degenerative disease whose only manifestation at this stage was manual dexterity and a bit of memory loss, but I think the answer is far simpler. And nicer. In short, inactivity. I was rusty. I hadn’t typed anything for ages, and my brain had not been forced to do any kind of non-numerical work for several weeks. I’ve not been reading any books, I’ve not been writing anything, and so whatever part of my brain controls literacy had gone into power-save mode and took a while to come back online. Like anything you don’t engage in for a while, your proficiency declines. By the third post I was finding it much much easier, and as I type this I have now completed around eight small posts which will be winging your way shortly at around two day intervals. It’s always nice to know that what you write is being read and appreciated by others, but this recent experience brings a whole new meaning to the notion that I write this as much for me as for other people. It may be that it’s an important part of keeping my mental edge.

PS if this post was completely incomprehensible.....

The written word and the reading voice

This is mostly a post for writers, though I think it is equally interesting for pure readers too. So here’s a thing. I write as me, no surprises there. What I mean by that is that what I write is actually what I speak. And what I mean by that is that I type words onto the page I am speaking them in my head as me. So what I see on the page when I am finished, to me at least, seems a perfect representation of what I wanted to say verbally. Kind of. Some things you cannot write adequately. Nevertheless, for the most part I can imagine myself saying it, as essentially I have done just that a few moments ago. I hear it in my own particular style and timbre. I know where I place emphasis, or where my voice would naturally inflect, such as the falling pitch at the end of a sentence. I know where I would pause, I know where I would continue without taking a breath. But whilst I can try my best to represent that with commas, with italics, with dots (…), dashes (-), brackets, underlining and other various other punctuation marks or constructs, really only I understand how I would have said something, and therefore when what I write is being read by others (which is after all the whole point), I do worry from time to time that it simply may not work, and that the reader won’t grasp what I am trying to say, or at least not in quite the desired way. I tend to worry less about sentence length. Anyway, I thought I would just mention that to me my words sound exactly as I expect them to, but for anyone else, well let’s just say their mileage may vary.

Well actually that is not quite true. A few hardy souls who continue to read this blog have actually had the great pleasure/misfortune (delete as appropriate) of meeting me in person. Some, for instance local birders or family friends, may in fact know me quite well, indeed some may have known me for many years. For those lucky people I imagine that they can read it as I would speak it. Or at least I expect them to, I may be wrong. Certainly when I read something written by people I know I will tend to read it in their ‘voice’. When reading letters or emails from my parents say, or messages from Mrs L, my sister or my children, I ‘hear’ them speaking. In the same vein there is a radio variety show I am very fond of called “A Prairie Home Companion” which was for many years hosted by a man called Garrison Keillor. He also writes books that involve a particular sketch from the show, a monologue called “The News from Lake Wobegon”, and when I’ve read those books I’ve read them as Garrison – frankly it was impossible not to. It’s an interesting concept isn’t it? As I say, my assumption is that other people do this too but I would love to know for certain.

But coming back to the original point, I suspect that many people who read what I write, and read it regularly, will have ‘translated’ my punctuation (in so far as that is even possible - I tend to take many liberties, this bracketed interlude is a prime example) into what they think I sound like, and so every time they open up a post they may subconsciously revert into reading it in a style that they believe is me. Personally I think that is entirely natural, and it’s certainly something I do to words written by bloggers who I have never met. Equally if I read a long novel written in the first person, after a time I may develop an interpretation of what the protagonist sounds like and then carry that forward for the rest of the book. Entirely in my head. Having read certain bloggers’ posts, or certain author’s books over many years I have conceived an idea of what they sound like, and as I read I slip into their ‘voice’. Now of course this may be – and probably is – a million miles away from what they sound like in person. I was tempted to say ‘in real life’ but as we all know blogging is real life hem hem. But if I were ever to meet one of these people face to face might I be rather surprised, perhaps even disappointed (!), that I have been reading them ‘wrong’ for all this time? Perhaps the best example I have is of listening to a short audio clip from a blogger who I had read for years and for whom I had developed a ‘voice’, only to discover that they spoke completely different from how I had imagined them. In some ways it was actually shocking. I felt I knew somebody but in fact I didn’t – and this was somebody who writes very, very well - how could they have got themselves so wrong?! I had the same experience once of hearing an audiobook after having read a few physical books, I think it was Bill Bryson reading one of his own books - it just wasn’t right even though it was him! Can a voice be said to define a person? Surely not, but more interesting is that having heard that blogger speak I found it very difficult – in fact, impossible -  to change my preconceived idea of what they sounded like when I next read one of their posts. Very strange how the written and spoken words both interact and diverge. Knowing somebody well eliminates that issue, but I do wonder if I were one day to meet a person whose output I consume whether I would find that encounter odd or somehow affirming? 

And trying to answer my own question, if a regular reader were to bump into me one day out birding, would they be surprised to find me different from how they imagined I sounded, or surprised that in fact I sounded exactly as they had interpreted the way I wrote? Who knows? I think it is safe to say however that they would nonetheless be disappointed….

January Pace II

January has passed at a million miles an hour. I already mentioned that I surpassed my highest ever January total of birds seen on the patch with a frankly magnificent 72 species. As you will have noticed I have also been pretty full on when it comes to blogging which came as rather a surprise given the ability I equally have to be rather lacklustre. Somehow though I have had quite a lot to say (or not, but have written something anyway – Ed.) and so noticing that I posted something on 22 out of 31 days I set off to write about how this was the most productive I had been in recent memory, which also has the benefit of helping to contribute to February. I like to get these things right, so I pulled up the website to check previous years, fully expecting the last time I had written so much in January to be in about 2011. 

Well guess what? It was actually last year, and this post therefore falls at the first hurdle. Yes, in January 2017 I somehow posted on 24 days out of 31, which in all the years of me doing this is the most ever. It was exceptional however, and I soon petered out – February declined to 11 and I never really picked it up as the year went on, indeed that one month ended up being close to a fifth of the entire year. Back in 2010 and 2011 was the last time there was any output-based consistency. Those years started at the same level as this one and carried on relentlessly, a feeling no doubt felt by readers. Those were the glorious days of unemployment, of domestic trials and tribulations, and endless material provided by children. Blogging was easy then, relatively speaking. Every day contained a multitude of silly events that were ripe for self-deprecation or schadenfreude, and of course I went birding a huge amount. The children were highly portable back then, and every day between about half nine in the morning and three in the afternoon was a blank canvas. I twitched as far as Minsmere once, and Landguard was a piece of cake. Mostly I stayed close to home though, engaged in some London year-listing as well pursuing a national year list at weekends. The days were long and fulfilling and despite all of the house work and child-rearing there were seemingly hours and hours of quality time.

Maybe this is the rose-tinted spectacles effect brought about by having spent most of the intervening years in an office at Canary Wharf, riding the corporate roller coaster and all the aggravation that comes with it. If anything this makes this year and last far more impressive performances. I never write about work and what I do for most of my waking hours – and in January, by far the majority of the daylight hours. Working in the type of environment that I do means that there are endless behavioural gems and countless ridiculous situations that in the real world would make wonderful blogging material. I cannot and do not however, being professional means that these two parts of my life just don't mix. From a personal perspective this is a great shame as I spend a vast amount of time at work and all of that time is essentially off limits. That’s not to say that I don’t think about other things whilst at work during idle moments, of course I do, but in terms of experiences and things that go on there it’s basically dead time.

Which is why of course I try and do as much as I can with what time remains, and why I never have enough time to in my view do justice to all the many things I am interested in. And occasionally - when the writing fires are burning - it also results in a stream of posts about all sorts of things, many of which are totally unrelated. January 2018 saw me cover photography, listing, walking, patch-working, wildfowl, building works, domestic bliss, twitching, travel, plants, birding and blogging statistics, along with a good dollop of nostalgia. You never really know what you are going to get, largely because I rarely know what I am going to write. Generally a safe assumption is that it won't be about birds or Wanstead.

Ideas form either instantly based on some random trigger, or gather pace more slowly, fleshing themselves out during the commute or other empty moments. When I am in the groove I frequently have several ideas on the go at once, and certainly January saw more than a few posts lined up and set to auto-publish several days in advance. If something comes out at exactly 6.30pm that's an indication that it's one of those "here's one I prepared earlier" posts as at that time I'm either at work or still on the way home. One evening I wrote three in succession, they all just tripped out of their own accord, somehow the jumbles of phraseology I had mentally turned over and over were retained and delivered in roughly the right order. Often of course that doesn't happen and I end up with a series of disjointed sentences that I need to reassemble into something that actually makes sense and says what I thought I had in mind, which can sometimes result in something entirely different emerging. Sometimes I just publish it and hope for the best. Life is short and I've got eight thousand hobbies to pursue.

And the house needs dusting again.

Modern life is rubbish

I tweet, I text, I whatsapp (if that is a word?). I am the very definition of modern. And let me tell you, modern has a lot to answer for. Right now I am in despair at the minute by minute aspect of modern life, specifically the lack of time that most people seem prepared to devote to anything. I use social media as an example, but you could as easily apply it to the news, where you work, how you shop, and even to how you vote. People want headlines and soundbites, almost everything today must be distilled into as few words as possible, and ideally have a conclusion pre-formed so that nobody has to do any thinking for themselves. The most important issues of our times are compressed into tiny snippets, lacking almost entirely in decent information. And unless what is left takes less than ten seconds the vast majority of people simply lose interest. We are vacuous in the extreme. It is the same at work, bullet points only please. If somebody has to think about something, that’s it – they move on and you have lost them. As a society we have become conditioned to brevity and to dumbing down – the two go hand in hand. Is it any wonder things like Brexit happen?

Attempting to write a blog has brought this home to me in quite a simple way, and I thought I’d jot a few things down in order to make the point. Writing – actual writing – is hard. Contrary to what you may think, each and every paragraph requires thought and consideration, there is no effortless flow here, no stream of consciousness that can lay down 1000 words in a matter of minutes. For the most part if I have an idea of what I want to say, I find myself composing things in my head as I walk around – frequently this is on the commute when I retreat into my inner shell and strap on my armour. My physical form is being crushed by humanity (or maybe not given I am on the Central Line), my literary form is buzzing, thinking a thousand thoughts, forming sentences and pithy one-liners. When I reach a keyboard out it all comes, a jumble of those musings. Then of course it has to be sorted, shaped, reordered. Sometimes re’written’ entirely. And of course sometimes nothing comes out at all, a day at work has frazzled me and I am left incapable of stringing even a few words together. I resort to gin and instead potter around the greenhouse. Occasionally this goes on for a few weeks and I am entirely silent. The point I am trying to make is that writing takes time. It might come fairly naturally to me, but that does not mean it is quick. Over the years, over eight and a half now, I have spent countless hours bashing out blog posts - around 1500 of them. That’s a big commitment, and it’s increased by the time taken to process and upload photos, to tinker with links, lists, maps, and all the other things that form a part of it.

As well as this avenue for the written word I also have a couple of Twitter accounts, and several times a day I might offer up some small nugget on one of them. Unlike the blog, almost no thought goes into this at all – with 140 characters to play with you could argue that you need to work even harder to craft a message, but actually it’s a far less intensive medium that I suspect takes most people almost no brain power. I offer up President Trump by way of example. So, a brief sentence that requires practically no effort to produce and can be done in seconds, versus several paragraphs of carefully honed prose that might have been, on and off, the product of an entire day. Of these, which do you think is likely to generate the most comment, the most interaction, the most introspection and response?

Exactly. It is the single sentence and this is the problem. And it is by such a wide margin that the blog does not even figure. Most posts I write are eventually clicked on (though not necessarily read I surmise!) a few hundred times. By contrast a two second tweet will likely get a couple of replies, a few 'likes', possibly a retweet. Now you could argue that none of this matters and you are right, it doesn’t. But the inverse proportionality of effort I actually find quite irritating, and it leads me back to the beginning of this post and the society we have become. When a blog, article, editorial or whatever it is is too long, or contains too much within it to allow reflection to be sufficiently brief, it has no future. Instead it takes almost no effort to 'like' or 'favourite' a tweet, literally none – it is the perfect button really. Tap, scroll on. Next! Actually composing a reply is also the work of mere seconds. A few squiggles on the phone, and blur of fingers, and it’s done. Two seconds to read it, a few seconds to consider it, perhaps ten seconds to reply back - including correcting the predictive text. The whole thing is done in almost the blink of an eye and we have moved on to something else. We are being trained to have the attention span of gnats – Breaking News! -  and most of are coming up that curve very well indeed! I despair. When is the last time anyone read a book?

So when it comes to writing a blog post I am beginning to question why it is that I bother? The reality must be that nobody gets beyond the first two sentences before giving up as it is too much like hard work. That is the almost inescapable conclusion I am sadly coming to. Or, as many of my good friends have pointed out, it’s just really really boring! I’m backing myself on this one though. Yeah you might have to think a bit, not a lot but a bit, but actually as a medium this is far better than a tweet. Better than Facebook, Whatsapp or Instagram or any of the thousands of ways people can now rapidly and blithely communicate. Actual writing is far more able to convey meaning, emotion and fact. That it and the printed press in general is gradually withering and dying is a very great shame, or at least I think so. 

I'm off to the greenhouse. Via gin and tonic. 

A slight pause

I have an increasing sense of paranoia about my use of commas. It could be worse I admit, but I write a fair bit at work, executive summaries and the like, and then of course these musings. When I reread things I have written I am aghast at the, overuse of commas. See what I did there? OK so that was deliberate and I don't ever foul it up quite like that, or at least I hope I don't, but nonetheless I have noticed a tendency to write extremely long sentences which inevitably means I use quite a lot of these humble little bits of punctuation.

I can't quite place my finger on it, but I just have this sense that there are too many. That last sentence for example - did I need the comma in the middle of it or would it have worked perfectly well without it? It's the practical use I am most concerned with, rather than any sense of grammatical correctness. Nobody cares about that anymore, this is 2016! I was probably taught it once, eons ago, and indeed a short refresher on the internet does suggest that before a "but" is an OK place to put a comma, but also that it does not necessarily follow that where a slight pause might exist in spoken english that this is the right place for a comma to be inserted. Unhelpful. It seems to be quite easy to spot where you definitely shouldn't whack a comma, but quite difficult to know where exactly one is actually needed and where you might get away without one. If I am ever in doubt, which is frequently, I seem to put one in. That last sentence there, would it have been OK, or even better, if it had read " If I am ever in doubt - which is frequently - I put one in." Or perhaps " If I am ever in doubt which is frequently, I put one in." 

Ridiculous though it sounds, I quite often trawl through old posts removing commas that I feel are superfluous. You could argue I should quit while I'm vaguely ahead. English is not an easy language so in one sense I am doing quite well to even get words out and should not worry about the real nitty gritty. For instance I manage to avoid many of the usual written pitfalls such as their, there and they're, and also your and you're - the poor use of these latter two in particular I find impossibly annoying, far more than I ought to I'm sure. I've also seen his and he's used more-or-less interchangeably, and just recently no and know. I have recently caught myself simply writing the wrong word in a sentence, hear instead of here, but managed to go back and correct it before I hit send as it just didn't look write right. Easily done, english probably has more homonyms than many other languages, it must be incredibly confusing for anyone learning it as a foreign language. Then again it appears to be a foreign language for many people born here such is the amount of mangling that goes on.

At this point it is probably best to quote Nigel Molesworth, that fabulous creation of Willians and Searle, as he does a run-through of his various teachers in "Down with Skool".

"They teach english e.g. migod you didn't ort to write a sentence like that molesworth."

Sycophantism is alive and well

Chateau L recently tried internet grocery shopping for the first time. No I haven't seen any birds. Shut up. Mainly we did this because we would get £15 off our first order, and that's enough to keep the children in bagels for a week, as well as meaning we didn't have to go and brave the scrums. Win win, you would think. Except that when we did it, we didn't get £15 off. Outraged of Wanstead (Mrs) wrote in....

She received possibly the most ingratiating reply I think I have ever seen, and having nothing else to say, I have taken the path of least resistance. Here it is. It is, as I am sure you will agree, wondrous in it's sycophantism and general obsequiousness. 

Dear Mr Lethbridge,
Thank you for your email and your patience in allowing me time to investigate this issue for you.
I’m very sorry to hear of the issue you have experienced on your recent grocery order, I understand when making an amendment to your grocery order the £15.00 off a £60.00 order is no longer showing.
Having looked into this, I have unfortunately been unable to find any reason why your eCoupon is no longer showing and I apologise I’m unable to offer a resolution as to why the voucher has dropped off your order.
However, I will certainly look to escalate this to our Support Team for you and prevent this issue from reoccurring.
As I would not like you to miss out on this promotion, I would be happy to honour this promotion for you. With this in mind, please reply to my email once you have received your grocery order and I will be more than happy to arrange a £15.00 refund for you on this order.
Finally, thank you for bringing this to my attention, giving me the chance to look into this for you. If you have any further queries please don't hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,

Grocery Customer Service

First of all note the excellent start as customer service addresses my wife. Then thanks for writing, and straight into a nice cringing apology for taking so long to reply (approximately six whole hours). The email suggests that a period of bargaining may have taken place, whereby we came to agreement after prolonged bartering of how long we would give them to respond, but fun though that undoubtedly would have been, it actually that didn't happen so the apology is perhaps overkill. Naturally they are very sorry. Devastated on our behalf I expect, and well over half of the six hour response time has in fact been spent weeping every time they think of our predicament. Then the actual answer. Dunno, internet innit. Sorry. Again. 

Then another period of protracted weeping, followed by the realisation that we need not miss out on this life changing eCoupon at all. Hurrah! I, I Grocery Customer Service Person, intend to honour this eCoupon! My word is my bond! Veritas vos liberabit! More weeping, though tinged with the happy knowledge that they are doing The Right Thing. They will be more than happy to. Frankly this is a let down. More than happy implies what? Thrilled? Ecstatic? Over the moon?! Anyone of these could have improved the letter hugely, an opportunity missed.

More thanking for being so cheap as to demand our fifteen quid, and then even more thanking for the opportunity to investigate it (which as we know, was a complete and utter failure). Mrs L and I actually began weeping at this point, thinking of this kind soul for whom happiness is so easily achieved. The offer of sending more queries to see if we can elicit a similarly unctuous response is one we're considering. The winter evenings are long.

What we are both dying to know is whether this is actually in the training manual. Online Customer Service people are not generally allowed expression of thought, or free will of any kind. So is this response genuinely how large supermarkets think customers like to be addressed? I doubt it, most people, including us, squirm when reading it. It's so fawning as to be uncomfortable. Imagine having to write it?! I'd quit.

Or perhaps, and this is the explanation I prefer, the bored-witless customer service team run weekly competitions to see who can come up with the most appallingly cringe-worthy response to a customer complaint. This came in at "highly commended", but fell short of a podium place due to the lack of genuine feeling implied by merely being happy, rather than completely euphoric.

Making money out of Tropicbirds

Exclusive! Naked Tropicbird pics! The UK's fourth Tropicbird chats exclusively to ......

It didn't take long for the news to leak out that lovers of schadenfreude everywhere, as well as a handful of Pendeen unfortunates wouldn't be seeing photos of the Tropicbird any time soon. My immediate reaction was one of disbelief, I believe I said at the time that this was a "a load of bollocks", and then in a more measured way a few days later that "this wasn't right". I don't begrudge a person trying to make a few quid, not that the money involved was ever going to be earth-shattering, but really? I'm not judging the man (OK, actually I am) but my reaction would have been rather different. If you've just found a complete monster of a bird, even in somewhat difficult circumstances, a natural reaction would be to shout the house down. Look at me! I found it! Me! Me me me me me! Or something like that, but forgetting the personal glory aspect, I felt it was such a great bird, and let's face it, such a great story, that all interested parties (i.e. every birder in the UK except for 40 bitter ones) should have been able to see the pics immediately. We live in the digital age. Me me me, and now now now. It didn't happen like that, and about a week ago Birdwatch dropped through my letter box. Rarity Exclusive! The Truth about the Pendeen Tropicbird. I forced myself to read it, and you know what, it wasn't that different from my account, except with less venom directed towards the finder.... What I understand from this is that the 1,573 people who have so far read my post must owe me a pile of money. So, if that was you, cough up please. A pound each and I can buy another pair of Swaros. Sorry, is that wrong? I thought birding was about making money? No?

I am of course somewhat conflicted. I have been known to make a few quid from the birding mag in question, I wrote a column for a while, and every now and then I still contribute a photo. I have the greatest respect for the editorial team, who I know read this blog every now and then, and whilst I am deeply envious of the jet-setting life of the Azorean founder (!), I also recognise the hard graft that putting together a publication must have been over many years. And as you know, I am a big believer in hard work. Nonetheless, in this instance my personal view is that they have got it wrong, and will lose more in credibility than the extra sales might be worth. Journalism may be all about sensationalism, but surely birding is bigger than that?

I probably just need to wake up and smell the coffee. Birding, or parts of birding, whether I like it or not, are dominated by money. Rarity news, optics, clothing, tours, you name it, and it isn't going to change. But now exclusives? Really? I wasn't ever involved in the halcyon days, but is this the way birding is going? Is this a case of one-upmanship versus the other competing publications, or is this simply red-top advertising to boost sales? I don't know, but I do know I don't like it. I think there are certain aspects of birding, certain moments, that should remain free and accessible, and this is one of those instances. For all its faults, at least BirdForum is free. Of course the finder of this amazing bird is free to choose what he wants to do, I've already discussed that, and I haven't a clue if a bidding war ensued once he'd made his mind up, but it irked me to see what should have been a great tale in UK birding reduced to a business venture. And that's the bottom line really. No, really, it is.

The good news is I was joking about blog readers needing to blow the dust from their creaking wallets and cough up. I write this because I enjoy writing it, and I post photos up because I'm a bit of a show off. Maybe I'm missing a trick? I'd love to be able to bird for a living, but I can't. Am I bitter about that? Not really, I quite like my life, or at least most of it.

PS don't look at the photo below unless you want to be charged.

Subscribers only.

One-track

I am becoming boring, and it is annoying me. I have four things in my life - my family (important to mention that first, no end of trouble if I leave it until last!), birds, photos (of birds), and work. Nobody wants to hear about the latter, but it dominates my life so comprehensively that it leaves far less time for any of the former. Long-term acolytes may recall that when I started this blog in 2009 I got made redundant almost immediately. Surely a coincidence, but it did mean that all of sudden life became a lot more interesting. Rather than the grim darkness of Canary Wharf and the ongoing world finanical implosion, you were treated hem hem to my new struggles with washing, buying food and attempting to cook it, potty training, and other daily examples of domestic martyrdom. In between you got to know a bit about my three precious charges, and very occasionally some birding featured.

My domestic days are behind me - as was always agreed (under duress), as soon as my youngest started school, I had to go back. No life of leisure for me, so now, and indeed for the past year, I have been back in my ancestral home of E14. The consequence of this is that I now have nothing to write about, or so it seems to me. Except birds. Bo-ring birds. But hang on a minute, isn't that what I started this blog to witter about? Wanstead Birder, not Wanstead Domestic God. Indeed. It was always supposed to be about the birds, not the minutae of my life. I mean who cares about that other than me? Perhaps not even me actually. As it happens though, I found it much easier to write about various household disasters and what silly things the kids have done recently than I did to write about what birds could be found in Wanstead. In short, I felt - and feel - that writing about my ineptitude was much more interesting than writing about birds. Birds aren't funny. Birds aren't humourous. They appeal to many people for sure, but there's only so much you can say about patch Skylarks. On the other hand, my domestic foul-ups were essentially infinite, and kids will surprise you every day of the week.

At the moment I get up, I go to work and crush rocks for several hours, and I return home in a bad mood and drink wine to soothe my shattered nerves. I repeat this for five days a week, albeit with some school runs and refereeing of offspring thrown in. Then for two days, if I can, I go out and blitz our poor feathered friends with a camera. In other words, I have very little to say. In the dare I say it 'good old days', you got to hear about trying to find an oven shelf online, boozing dollies, food shopping for cretins, and Grebe porn. Today you get to hear about what ISO speed I used.

So what can be done? Well, pack it in I suppose, but all bloggers that I have known to pack it in inevitably come to regret the rash "delete all" decision of their intemperate former selves, and come slinking back, and no doubt that would happen to me too. So that's out. Blog less frequently? Perhaps - in one of my first ever posts, I counselled myself to do just that, and have steadfastly ignored this advice for almost exactly four years. I have verbal diahorrea, and there is no known cure. I enjoy it; you suffer it - a tried-and-tested formula. I know, what about seek inspiration, write about stuff I've not written about before? Eh, what? No, I couldn't do that. I need to rant about dog walkers, post Daily Mail tribute articles, moan about work, and eulogise about the patch. And Wheatears. Branch out? Madness!

Not long now.....

So I have no answers, except to think more about maintaining variety, indeed perhaps return to the minutae of life, as it is from there that all variety stems. Not necessarily mine either, which could get dull fast. I'm always hearing little snippets on the radio, noticing absurd behaviour, seeing some scene or other than gets me cogitating. I occasionally think "oh, that would make a good piece", and then do precisely nothing about it and continue dreaming about optics past, present, and - mostly - future. I have somewhat of a one-track mind, I just need to make sure I don't have too much of a one-track blog.

By the way, 1600 is my most-used speed at present.

The End of Free Speech

I really enjoy blogging. For starters I like writing, pretty much a prerequisite (imagine if you didn't, and were made to blog daily?!) I also like taking photos and boring people with them. Perfect. What started as an unadvertised toe-dip has morphed into what sometimes feels like an obligation. I'm approaching three years behind the keyboard, and amazingly still have not run out of things to say, though I reckon some people wish that I had. Perhaps I have a very active mind, but I find myself mentally composing blog posts at almost any time of day. Driving, shopping, commuting, you name it. I get home, and it just trips out, just as this one is now doing, for I have been thinking about it on and off all day, as well as part of yesterday. Often I have several thoughts on the go, so sometimes they become one horribly rambling post. Sometimes they stay separate, but many times they just go nowhere. Something else catches my attention, and so a 90% formed blog post about some tiny and meaningless aspect of my life gets cast by the wayside. Drivel that never was. And then sometimes, just very occasionally, I decide that I just cannot be bothered to write anything at all. Sometimes reader, you don't realise just how lucky you are.

When this happens, I wonder whether people will be disappointed? Whether my inconsistency will put people off? I read somewhere that the most successful blogs always post at the same time of day. Regular readers know when that is, go and check it, and hey presto there is the next installment. I am all too aware that it must be horribly frustrating to keep coming back to a photo of a strange-looking Common Gull for days on end. But that's just the way it is. The Fatbirder counter, shrouded in mystique though it undoubtedly is, is a chronic nag. Anything below 150 and I realise I must pull my socks up. The dizzy heights of double digits and I am in a frenzy of wishing to keep my spot. All ridiculous, but then when you think about it, that's blogging. Ridiculous. There are some blogs out there that actually serve a purpose, where you can actually learn stuff, guru Mattanganna's Birding Frontiers perhaps being the best example, but by far the majority are waffle. Padding. This blog is padding par excellence. I am gratified that people continue to read it.

I've never been much good on the stats element, I just forget to keep track. Every now and again I remember that there are stats, but because it will have been a couple months since I looked at them, I never really build up a picture. Instead I judge the success or failure of a post on comments. All bloggers LOVE comments. Don't pretend you don't. They are valediction for our efforts, and we relish their leaving. There are some blogs I read that within half an hour of having been posted have attracted thirty or more comments. Mrs L reads a knitting blog that is guaranteed to get over a hundred every single time. A few days ago one post had 634!! Were it me, I would read each and every one of them. Twice, probably. Luckily I don't have that problem. My average number of comments is about three. If you take my replies out, probably about 0.3, but nevermind, I love each and every one of them. Almost.

Although bloggers live for comments, there are some that I would gladly do without. I deleted one such comment just yesterday. Zapped it, just like that, which is what made me write this post. Normally I'd say that for the sake of free speech, people should be allowed to say what they like, generally it works better like that. As such I've never moderated comments - I don't review them before they get posted, they just go straight on, easier all round. But this particular comment has made me change my mind. There was no swearing, no abusive language, but the comment was left with the sole intention of belittling, and of winding me up. On this last part it has succeeded admirably. Naturally it was left by "Anon", they usually are. I read it, and my immediate thought was "You swine". I devote a great deal of time and energy to writing this, to trying to make it vaguely entertaining. I do it because I enjoy it, I am not so grand as to think I am providing any kind of service to the birding community. I do it for my own sake, I don't ask that anyone read it, though I am pleased when they do. And Anon, whoever you are, you see fit to post a snide, rude, very clearly designed-to-insult comment. For what reason exactly? I wish now that I had kept it, as I am struggling to remember exactly what it said, and it would help explain, but it's too late. Zap, gone. There might have been an element of sarcasm buried within it, but no amount of smilies would have made it benign. So now there is a new policy on comments. Until I start getting 634 per day, I'm going to moderate them, and I am only going to publish glowingly positive, gushingly feel-good ones. 

Not really. I expect I'll wave most of them straight through, as many times the comments are far more interesting than the original post. They allow for discussion and the development of ideas, and they're often extremely amusing. But the anonymous 'grudge' ones like I got yesterday will be going precisely nowhere. I am currently preparing my vast ego for the inevitable decline in the number of comments that this will unfortunately result in. I suspect I'll cope.

What I didn't write

In my haste to bash out yet another ill-conceived and boring blog post yesterday, I forgot a critical, nay crucial piece of information. It was about that Brambling. It was a year tick! A patch year-tick I mean, I don't go in for all this national year-listing nonsense. Never have, never will. So yes, a patch year-tick, coming in at a rather splendid 110. This a whole two more than last year - a year I thought would never be broken, which, now I come to think of it, is probably exactly what I said the year before that. No matter. I am pleased, which, when it comes to patch-working, is the entire point. You'd have to be pretty stupid to wander round an inland patch year after year whilst hating every minute of it.

Yes it would be nice to have a coastal patch, yes it would be nice to have a patch capable of producing a right stonker, but then things like Dunlin would lose their appeal, and we can't be having that. There's an argument that suggests that at a coastal patch the bar is simply higher, and that's true of course, but ultimately there would be far fewer birds with that "wow" factor that is so important in patch-birding and keeps us all going. "Oystercatcher, whatever" is not something you'll hear uttered in Wanstead anytime soon.

So what's new? Nothing. All work and no tidying makes Jonathan a dull boy. With the absence of the Magic Fairy, who true to her word departed for pastures new about a month ago, Chateau L is gradually falling apart. Mount Garment grows ever higher, and items now largely lie where they fall. Weekends, so useful for staying more-or-less afloat, are dedicated to having fun rather than domestic trivialities, and so slowly but surely we're descending to a new level of slovenliness. I may or may not engage a cleaner, we'll see how bad it gets before I crack. However if you're local, and bored (really bored), do pop round. The hoover is in the cupboard under the stairs, the dusters are under the sink. Marigolds are provided.

On the plus side, and coinciding nicely with my return to banking hell, my writing career is really taking off. Forget Birdwatch, I have now penned a piece in the nationally-distributed and globally-read Wanstead Village Directory. Any misconceptions you may have about this publication being merely a vehicle for local businesses to advertise their services should be totally banished. Any thoughts that over 95% of the pages relate to hairdressing, kitchen design and local restaurants should be similarly cast aside. It's only 90%, and so this month there is room for an article on Ducks. Yes, Ducks. I am fed up of seeing people point at Tufted Ducks and Pochards and call them Ducks. Or worse, Mallards. So when polled by this august institution for a future article on wildlife in a winter issue, I thought "Right, let's sort it out once and for all, and get people involved in Ducks", or words to that effect. The lavishly-illustrated result is now in quality newsagents everywhere, or you can pick one up in the Co-Op on the high street. Or, as Muffin did today, at the community centre where Ballet takes place, where he then proceeded to wave it in the faces of a few of my fellow Mums [sic] so now they all know what a sad bird-nerd loser I am, which obviously I had been trying to conceal. Excellent. Anyway, now that the secret is out, if you're too late in the mad scramble for printed copies, you can see it online here. Note the huge amount of reaction and comment....

Writer's Block?

This afternoon I started two Birdwatch articles. I got to about 300 words on each and then abandoned them. They were OK, but fundamentally I had nothing to say, which after 300 words became problematic. I am aware that having nothing to say is not normally prohibitive to me saying something, but this is for a paying audience, and I feel bound to produce something good. Here, you take what you're given.

Regular readers will know that I am unaccustomed to having difficulty spouting forth, so this is very unusual. What could be the matter? Admittedly, various things mean that my mind is elsewhere, and I won't trouble you with that, but normally I can find something to write about under any circumstances. Look, here I am writing about having trouble writing. See?

I wondered if I had too many projects on the go? There is this blog, my first love, but then there is the Crow Council thing I am involved in, and more recently I started a new Wanstead Birding blog. All of these take time, and at least a bit of effort. So far I have been proud of most things I have written, including all of my Birdwatch articles, and I want that to continue. I won't attempt to deceive you by saying that each one is a masterpiece that took days, nay weeks, to produce, but at the same time, a little care is necessary. The initial draft is usually bashed out pretty quickly - most of it is in my head anyway - but the editing process is what takes up the time. Finding the best way to say things, making sure it flows, making sure I don't repeat words close to each other, that kind of stuff. Reading and rereading it until I am convinced that it sounds right, and that it works. Perhaps that is what editors are for, and I should send it through as is? "I red a articel about bird sthe othther day an dthort I wood rite somthing very similar for you. Hear it is. Please send the chek to the ushul adress, ta."

The first 300 words of each of my attempts this afternoon flowed fairly nicely, and one of them may yet have what it takes to become March's column, but for now I'm leaving them to one side and wondering what to write about. I have many ideas, many topics, enough to last for YEARS, but I am having trouble crystalising my thoughts on any of them today. Perhaps sleeping on it listening to TMS all night and starting again in the morning will have the desired result? If any of you subscribe, make sure you don't miss the March issue, it is sure to be totally awesome.

In other news I managed a patch year tick today. It was remarkably straightforward. Make tea, stand on terrace for 30 seconds, hear Coal Tit, go indoors, update spreadsheet, finish tea. Bosh.

Damp Squib

On Viz-migging

I literally skipped down the stairs this morning. Giddy with excitement I made cup of tea. Coat on, hat on, bins round neck, camera over shoulder. I was ready! The time was 07:32. Let it begin!!

A blank sky.

Not to worry, it will all kick off any minute.

07:53. The first Wren wakes up. In turn, it wakes up a Blue Tit. Hmm, this is not going exactly to plan. 8am comes and goes, and I have seen literally nothing in the sky. Nothing at all. Predictably though I have heard Goldcrest and Green Woodpecker, and seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Jay, all four of which eluded me throughout yesterday and would have beaten the day record. Natch.

08:02. A Chaffinch!!! A single bird, moving from tree to tree in the gardens. Vizzed, but probably not migging. I conclude that something is wrong.

I heard a Redwing a few minutes later, but the sky remained resolutely blank. I glanced down at the enormous dollop of cat-shit on the terrace and realised it probably wasn't going to be my day. Shortly after that the first child appeared, looking hungry, and viz-migging was over.


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I've been saving this one for a rainy day

On Writing

I realised whilst writing this that I composed most of it whilst looking at the sky this morning. Do any other bloggers do this? Whilst I've not written down exactly what I mentally went through outside, it is fairly close, and indeed some sentences are word for word. Is this normal? A sign perhaps that I am taking blogging too seriously?

I actually stand there, typing it in my head during quiet moments, of which a patch worker has many. Ideally there would be some kind of neural link to the PC, and I would return indoors to find it ready to go, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Are you listening Bill? I could use a dictaphone, but it's a bit 1980s, and would be truly a sign of over-exaggeration of blog-importance. I also don't have a dictaphone. This is probably a good thing. A secretary perhaps......a scribe......

Nonetheless, as I stand there constructing paragraphs, I wonder what on earth I am doing. I mean, why bother? Perhaps in need of mental stimulation beyond that offered by loads of washing, pouring cereal, and watching Pixar films?

It's the same with my Birdwatch articles; they're mostly written before I even sit down in front of the computer. Sometimes I'll have noted a few themes down, points I want to make, examples I might forget, but mostly when I actually start typing it just flows out. Unfortunately the same thing happens on BirdForum.....

Not sure really. Many things.

"It doesn't take a year to learn how to do washing if you actually concentrate"

A direct quote from Mrs L only recently, and rather damning. As a result of Lesser Kestrels, Ring Ouzels and suchlike, I've done very little washing in the last two weeks. When this was noticed by my beloved, I tried to deflect the inevitable criticism by saying it was too difficult, and that the additional complexity arising from the amount of wool in the house meant it wasn't fair. It fell on deaf ears, and I fear I have lost some BPs. The washing situation is now resolved, no thanks to me I might add, but really I could have done better. The silly season has not even started yet, and already I'm failing in my basic duties. Really I should spend the hours of darkness when no birds are visible doing all of this stuff, thus leaving the days clear, but then I wouldn't be able to sit in front of the computer for hours and hours every evening. This is a real problem.

Yes, blogging takes time, even this one. One of my favourite reads, Not Quite Scilly, has unexpectedly wound up, citing too much time as one of the reasons. This is a great shame. The other reason, if I understand him right, is a fear of becoming stale and repetitive after two years blogging. Luckily, there is no chance of that here! Perish the thought! No, here you are treated to constant innovation, birdy talk of a varied and stimulating nature, and top parenting tips. If I ever start to detail the minutae of my domestic trials, or post endless photos of mis-identified Gulls, that's when you need to start worrying.

Of course, that would never happen, but believe it or not, writing this does take time. Sometimes of course I just bash it out - though you would never be able to tell - but it can also be more involved on occasion. You are able to write for as long as you want, there is no word limit. Blogging does not encourage thrift or thought. If I felt so inclined, I could just waffle on and on for ages and ages, rather than carefully craft a post of just the right pace and length. Editing? What's that? Writing that recent article for Birdwatch magazine was one of the hardest things I have done for a long time. I was restricted to 750 words. 750?! That's nothing! By the time I have got to 750 words on here, I may have a vague idea of what the post is going to be about, but really I'm just getting warmed up. So to be all wrapped up, not a chance! After my first pass, I was on about 1600 words, every one critical. I wept as I deleted whole paragraphs....

All blog posts need a photo, even a filler. Believe it or not, it does not even need to be related in any way to the subject of the post. No, it doesn't matter. Just insert any old picture and you're done. Like this Reed Bunting for instance. You will not find any mention of a Reed Bunting today, but somehow, it just works. I have no idea how.

So, to Wanstead, which is the whole point of this blog. The bird death saga rumbles on. The stupidity of the local populace continues to beggar belief. I've seen families walking past the "Biohazard" signs and stepping over the high-viz tape to go and feed the ducks by the lake shore. Fail. The Corporation had to install proper security fencing to stop them. Personally I'd have let Darwinism take it's course, but there you go. The latest news is that the test results are back. The poison was an agricultural pesticide used to control fungus and insects, typically by food producers. I may have the wrong end of the stick, but it could be that the people involved were not looking to kill off the local corvid population, but instead had just wanted to get rid of this stuff and so had left it on top of a bin.... In other words, idiocy, rather than malice. The poison may even have been in that margarine tub. I had thought that somebody had stumbled across the dead birds before me, and had put as many as they could in the tub and left it visible for the Forest Keepers to deal with. But who knows, this is all idle speculation. Two local men were arrested, and were bailed until the end of April, so we will no doubt find out more then. The good news is that the area is now safe, and there is no further risk to either wildlife or people, even stupid ones. The even better news is that the car-park remains closed - long may that remain the case.

Mrs L banned me from going out today. This was a great shame as the Pallid Swift in Suffok was showing very well all morning. I would very much have liked to have seen a Swift that to all intents and pusposes looks exactly like a normal Swift, except, well, less browny. And she claims not to understand twitching! Honestly.

I managed to get some birding in though, employing extreme cunning. Today is the first day of the holidays, and by 10am Muffin was climbing the walls. I altruistically voluteered to go and exercise him on Wanstead Flats with a football. And binoculars. Shhhhhhh. There were Chiffchaffs everywhere, a few singing Blackcaps, and a single Willow Warbler. Most of the time I had my eyes on the sky though, hoping to see a Swift, even a boring paleish one. Wouldn't that have been something?! I didn't get any hirundines either, though Tim and Stuart had a Sand Martin over Heronry. No matter, plenty of time left to get one of those.

Right, this post is now the perfect length, and has reached it's natural conclusion. Satisfied, I can stop. This has nothing to do with dinner being ready in twenty minutes and the need to peel carrots. Wanstead Birder - Uncompromising.

The importance of writing

I am bowled over. Not to often I can say that, but as I am off to Australia tomorrow for the sad event that is James' funeral, I found and am re-reading my trip diary from 1998, to remind me of people and places. I had just graduated, and had buggered off to Australia before starting work in the City (booooooo!), and he and I drove a 30yo camper van from Sydney to Cairns and back over the course of a couple of months. It was an amazing trip, but that is not why I am bowled over. It's because, somehow, back in my unkempt and frankly lazy youth, I managed to keep a diary, and diligently wrote it every day. How very mature, have I aged in reverse? I couldn't do that now. I mean, blogging is all very well and good, but it is no substitute for a proper diary. This has dates, locations, people, little hand-drawn maps, I even wrote the day of the week down. It is in a cheap spiral-bound notebook, and the inside front cover has card games scores and a trip budget on it, you know, who bought the petrol and beer etc, and it is most definitely not going to win any literary awards. But it is clearly me writing it, that much I can recognise, the same flair, that same elan, nothing has changed in the intervening decade. How about this morsel:

Day 15. 18/07 Sat.
"Did virtually nothing. Woke up feeling crap at Shippo's place. "

Wow. I'm thinking the Booker.

or this:

Day 20. 23/07 Thurs
"Van of Happiness in tip-top condition for the measly sum of 137.50 (Aus $) Woohoo! We prepare to leave. Pack pack pack, clean clean, pack etc. Van becomes incredibly tidy. Keith says it'll get us to Cairns. We piddle about all morning and at 2pm are ready to leave - minus some shopping"

Perhaps the Whitbread? (As I was googling whether Whitbread had an "a" or I not I just discovered it is now called the Costa Prize, how terribly tragic)

But the real value is in the birds. Apparently even 10 years ago I was writing down what I was seeing. This is a godsend to the newly obsessed lister:

"Coffs - a footnote. Delia has planted bird-friendly plants in her garden so I was in heaven. I saw - spangled drongo, little wattledbird*, eastern spinebill, rainbow lorikeets, honeyeaters, little lorikeets, magpie larks, black-faced cuckoo shrikes, and much, much more."

I'm only 2 weeks into the diary, and already I have found dates for a pile of birds I knew I had seen, but didn't know when or where, and have added 3 birds to my life list (* not the Little Wattlebird though, bad ID; it only lives in South-west Australia and I have never been there - most likely a Red Wattlebird, which I already had down. Slightly destroyed the magic there). Like I said, I was so bowled over, I had to stop reading it and come and write this whilst my thoughts of wowness were still fresh in my head.

So I have now packed a notebook, and I'm going to diligently write up each day that I am over there, and I may even continue it when I get back, there is no subsitute for writing, and we should all do it more. Real writing though, with pen and paper. Reading this Aus trip now, in my crappy black scrawl, I am transported back to specific locations. Memory is incredibly acute sometimes, but it needs a prompt. This morning I could not have told you where I saw my first Laughing Kookaburra, but having read the entry from July 13th 1998, I can tell you that it was in St Albans, in the Hawkesbury River Valley in NSW. I can very clearly visualise the location where we had parked the van, recall what we were doing (attempting to dry the washing), and remember being really excited at seeing these two Kookaburras in a nearby tree, and failing to sneak up on them for a photo. I don't remember leaving my towel on a fence, but the diary doesn't lie. Except about Little Wattlebirds.

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EDIT, 2 hours later: The Little Wattlebirds Anthochaera chrysoptera have been bugging me. So I did some research and my field guide is quite inaccurate for the distribution for this species. Whilst it does live in SW Australia, it also lives on the east coast, and likes Banksia, of which there were many in Delia's garden. So there we go, the magic is restored, and the diary does indeed never lie.