Wednesday, 1 May 2013

A night at the pub

View_From_Here sent us this hilarious joke:


I was at the pub the other night and overheard three very hefty women talking at the bar.

Their accent appeared to be Scottish, so I approached and asked, "Hello, are you three lassies from Scotland?"

One of them angrily screeched, "It's Wales, Wales you bloody idiot!"

So I apologized and replied, "I am so sorry. Are you three whales from Scotland ?"

And that's the last thing I remember.

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Bird watching

We ordered some binoculars and they arrived a while ago, together with a little book of photos and descriptions of common garden birds.

So far, I have identified the the majority of the most frequent visitors, but a couple of them have me completely confused. I have to order a better book about the birds of Europe...

We also put a couple of fat and seed balls hanging from the window shutters in the kitchen. The number of customers has been increasing steadily.

These are photos from the internet, as I don't have a decent enough camera to attempt taking my own pictures.

Magpie
The magpies building their nest have sparked our interest in bird watching. We can't see into the nest at all, but we assume there are young birds there, judging by the movements of the parents. Now we have to wait and try to catch a glimpse of the fledglings leaving the nest.


Male and female house sparrows
House sparrows are very common and the females like the seeds we have on offer. They perch on the telephone wire just outside the window, and "piu" quite loudly before coming to the ledge to feed.


The ballet
We observed a daily continuous ballet in the distance. These birds form fairly large flocks and fly round and round, disappearing behind the trees, then re-emerging where you least expect them. I couldn't tell what they were, even with binoculars. The other day we went to Uzerche, visited the garden centre, then went to a nice bar on the church square for a couple of drinks (TW, CC and IG will remember it). We noticed the same ballet around the church. They were near enough and would land on the roof of the church every now and then, so we finally identified them. Apart from the ballet, there's nothing spectacular about feral pigeons...

Feral pigeon

Some cousins of the above are far more interesting and look more attractive:

Collared dove
The collared dove is much smaller than the feral pigeon, with a pinkish tinge to its feathers.


Male blackbird

Female blackbird
Blackbirds are terribly common, but it's nice to observe their behaviour. The females seem to spend long periods on the ground looking for grubs in Monsieur Soup's garden. The males like to use the drums Mr Soup uses to collect rainwater for long baths and a good drink.


Carrion crow
I'm not very keen on these. The name alone puts me off.


Chaffinch

Goldfinch
These finches are lovely and colourful. I was very proud of myself when I managed to identify them. It took me a while to learn to notice markings like bibs and wingbars.


Great tit
Identifying the great tit correctly was another achievement. From a distance, it's easy to take them for blue tits, but I did notice the black head, white cheeks and broad black stripe on the chest.





The blue tits are our most frequent customers and we're absolutely in love with these cheeky little birds (so is Pirouette).


We hope to see some of the more exotic species as summer approaches and they migrate from Africa. Last year I saw a hoopoe and that was quite a sight!

Hoopoe

Bird watching is great fun and for people like us, who used to think "a bird is a bird," being able to tell them apart is very gratifying. Seasoned birdwatchers may laugh at us, but you have to start somewhere...

Monday, 29 April 2013

One man's treasure...


Once upon a time, there was a very rich kingdom where the food was famously bland. They had gold and precious stones, but the food was terrible.

A farmer heard about this kingdom and had a clever idea. He filled his largest cart with onions and set off for the rich kingdom of bland food.


The king was puzzled by these strange bulbs, but when the farmer prepared a dish using the wonder ingredient and served it to the king and his advisers, they were delighted. The king wanted all the onions and ordered the farmer's cart to be filled with gold.


The farmer went away very happy and on his way back to his farm, he had already devised a plan to get even richer. He harvested all his garlic, filled the cart again and returned to the rich kingdom of not so bland food.


Once there, he prepared a dish using this new ingredient and served it to the king and his advisers. Their reaction was of pure joy! They told the farmer he would be rewarded and retired to another room to discuss it. The onions were worth a cart full of gold, but the garlic was worth even more!

They told the farmer so, and informed him that his cart was now loaded with their most valuable possessions. The farmer headed to his cart, dreaming of diamonds and precious stones, wishing he had a larger cart.


When he arrived at the king's yard, he found his cart full of onions...

Saturday, 27 April 2013

O sleep! O gentle sleep!






I'm having trouble going to sleep. One leg jumps, my nose makes an annoying fiiin-fonn noise, I have to get up to pee, random hard-to-scratch places itch, you name it. So I decided to laugh about it...