Howdy Pardners!!

Its a bit like waiting for buses to come along. Nothing happens for ages and then several come at once.
At last my blog is starting to work and I have now had 4 comments.
 RG thankyou for your advice it seems to be working OK. (fingers crossed it stays that way).
Sis this years first batch of chutney is in the jars and one of them has your name on it.
CF I feel a crumble coming on.
Added to the above excitement it was our annual visit to the Western Motorhome Show yesterday, one of our favourite events.
We had coffee, a chin wag and lots of laughs with our pals Terry and Jan.  We look forward to seeing them again in October when our travels cross paths once more.
To my great joy the Curious Fish bought me an Indiana Jones type hat. I may never been seen hatless again. I've had to hide it in my wardrobe as there is a limit as to how may times a person can try on a hat and admire himself in the mirror. Mirror, mirror on the wall.

The show is vast with many delights including hundreds of Motorhomes both new and secondhand and so many avenues of stalls that I became quite disorientated (I'm geographically challenged at the best of times). Had it not been for the Curious Fishe's highly developed sense of direction I fear I would still be wandering around now.
Highlights of the show include the re-enactments and Wild West historical encampments. We spent a considerable amount of time chatting with Red Indians,(see brave outside Tepee) Cowboys (see the Gabby Hayes lookalike at the top of this post) and Cow girls and admiring their homes. Their encampments are historically accurate and amazing. Attention to detail seems to be the norm.
Yes I know it is highly unlikely anybody younger than 60 will remember Gabby Hayes. He was the old geezer who always drove the Chuck Wagon when he wasn't spitting out tabaccy chewings.

Blog On

Hoorah...today is a red letter day 'blogging wise'.  After receiving some very good advise I have adjusted the template of my blog so that visitors can now access 'my profile', 'followers' and 'archive' without having to scroll down to the end of the postings for this information.
I have also spent a considerable amount of time adjusting my settings to hopefully facilitate the receiving of comments. (Not easy, not intuitive in fact very hit and miss.)
 I have now managed to post a comment on the Curious Fish blog and equally exciting after also setting my comments box to 'Pop Up' (thanks to some advise Curious Fish found in a help forum) I have received my first comment.

Novels,Blogs,Apples and Motorhomes

Been to the Writers Circle meeting (see previous post) and have come away awash with ambition. I heard members discussing the size of novels (circa 80,000 words) and have decided that if I bring all my current ideas together into a coherent whole I can achieve this. Previously I had been splitting my ideas into at least two books. Reality check ..WORK ON ONE.
I enjoy writing this blog but I do need to develop a wider audience. WWC to the rescue once more with ideas on how to link to other bloggers.
In amongst all these thoughts I am busy peeling fallen apples on a daily basis and turning them into bags of stewed fruit to go in the freezer. I can't stand nature's harvest rotting away. I can feel another blackberry foray coming on.
Western Motorhome Show on Saturday, a chance to meet up with a couple of pals we made when in France. I suspect my next posting may have a Motorhome flavour.

Writing for Pleasure

Since my last posting we have joined the local writers circle. It is very well attended with untypically (in my limited experience) a higher male population than female.
The meetings are fortnightly and last circa 2.5 hours.It is a round table environment with members reading out their latest efforts either against a pre ordained subject or anything that is of particular interest to them.
It is fascinating to listen to others stories, poems and articles and equally fascinating to hear the comments of fellow writers. To date we have both read out two of our stories and found the experience very beneficial.
The members interests are diverse. Some have been published, some are self publishing and many are working towards publication. Some are just writing for pleasure.
I have decided this is the impetus (thrust, push, kick up the backside) I need to reinvigorate my writing.
My writing efforts to date have been random (NB my blog title), sporadic and generally without any focus.
I am now making efforts to control my 'Grasshopper' tendencies and to focus, focus, focus.
I have a lifetime of fascinating experience and memories to draw on. I am now attempting to put this 'treasure trove' together into a meaningful whole. JUST DO IT.

Pigeon Post

Good news...contact now established with owner of the pigeon discussed in the previous post. I managed to entice it sufficiently with bird food to capture it once more and contain it in my old Merlot Box. It has now departed with its very pleased owner back to Wednesbury for a period of refamiliarisation in its pigeon loft before it will be allowed to 'fly' again. This hopefully will help it to fix on its proper home and not on the curious fish/grasshopper guest house. If it turns up again I'll let you know.

A Pigeon has landed

Shortly after my last posting the Curious Fish found a pigeon pecking around our garden path. Unlike the skittish things that haunt our local trees and chimney pots this one showed no interest in flapping off in a panic when we approached, it just moved out of the way and carried on pecking (Were Syd James and Barbara Windsor in that film?). On closer examination of the bird we realised it's markings were different and that it had a ring around one leg. It is indeed a beautiful (and calm) racing pigeon. Clearly exhausted or lost it had obviously decided to call in on the Curious Fish/Grasshopper residence for a break.
We found a few grains of corn in an old wild bird food bag and it tucked in happily, we prayed that it didn't become an evening meal for a local cat or one of the Peregrine Falcons which regularly patrol our skies and went off to bed fully expecting it to have continued its journey by the next morning.
Wrong!! the next morning it was still in residence and after a bit of flapping about (mainly by me) we caught it and were able to read its leg number. We then tried 118500 for pigeon help lines and after some false starts ended up with the number for the Royal Racing Pigeon Association. They informed us it was a Wednesbury bird
(Oh! thats the place next to IKEA on the M5/M6 interchange says I to myself as nobody listens to my drivel (the curious fish would undoubtedly disagree)... and nobody can call me geographically challenged!).
The Royal Racing Pigeon Association told us to feed it for a couple of days and then withdraw the feeding and shoo it away. So that is what we did.
Have you ever tried to shoo a pigeon which does not want to be shooed?.
We decided to 'harden our hearts' and continue not feeding it.
After five days with us (including it standing pathetically next to our patio table whist we were eating) it disappeared. Thirty six hours later it was back looking depressed (I really have no idea if pigeons suffer from depression?) and definitely in need of a feed. So we found a few bits of corn, peanuts and bread and it noshed away happily.
By this time I was convinced that this was either a very confused young bird or a bird more geographically challenged than myself  (or both). So the Curious Fish and I decided more positive action was needed. We needed to find out it's owner's telephone number if we could.
The Curious Fish trawled the internet for information and even had a couple of telephone conversations with the long suffering wife of a pigeon fancier in Derbyshire. This very helpful lady who seems to know quite a bit about pigeons by default informed the Curious Fish that many owners wrote their telephone numbers on the underside of the birds flight feathers?. Its up on the roof with its wings folded.!!
In the meantime I rang the Royal Pigeon association once again and after a bit of research they came up with the owners name and number. I was advised not to ring the owner until the bird was 'contained'. Oh heck!!
I found a box (six bottle French Merlot...empty of course) and hatched plans as to how I was going to catch a bird which was now happily ensconced on our garage roof. After much more flapping from me and the liberal use of food bribes, the bird was contained within the box and I duly rang the owners number. (Wednesday 13 July). I was told the owner was on holiday until Sunday 17th and that he would have to be rung on his holiday and that he would then ring me to discuss what to do. After several hours (and no call) we let the poor bird out of the Merlot Box, fed it and it once more took up residence on our Garage Roof.
Yesterday (14th) we needed more seed so we legged it to Sainsbury's. By the time we got back around teatime (and me £2.10p poorer and with a pain in my sporran) the blooming bird had flown. Hooray we said its finally flown home to Wednesbury (about thirty miles as the crow/pigeon flies). We hope its happily reunited with its siblings.

Stop press...About an hour ago it was back on the garage roof!!. I've fed it and now its gone again.
 I need a glass of red.

Excitement in our garden

After all the excitement of France we are now home in our garden and enjoying the warm weather and sunshine we should have had in France.

Where am I? I was quite happy in the nest

Yesterday (3/7/11) there was much excitement in the little world of the black ant. There are several colonies of these industrious little critters in our garden walls and under some of our patio slabs. They are completely harmless apart from removing mortar from between our brickwork and grouting from our slabbing. What caused yesterdays excitement and frenetic activity was the release and launching of their flying queens, (The British know all about colonisation). I noticed that a lot of these new queens were confused and reluctant to fly and were chivvied by the worker ants until they took flight and were rapidly carried away in air currents to land goodness knows where. Photo by Curious Fish.
I spent quite a lot of time peering at the crevice in the brickwork which is the entrance to the nest (sad I know) and noticed that some of the 'less keen to leave' queens were towed out of the nest by their noses (do ants have noses?). To my amusement several of these laggards shook off their towing worker ant and shot back inside the nest never to be seen again (by me). They were probably back at the ant drinks machine having a sip of ambrosia.
In amongst all this ant activity the Curious Fish and I were indulging in a spot of pruning, trimming and letting light in (to such an extent that we now have two huge monster bags of greenery to take to the tip for recycling.
I also donned the 'Marigolds' and hauled a whole load of weed out of our overgrown garden pond as the three geriatric fish we now possess, thanks to the thinning out of the original 14 by various cats over the last decade, were lost in a dense forest of Water Soldiers, March Marigolds and Water Mint and sending me 'can we have some daylight' messages. This pond disturbance revealed a good crop of little froglets (hooray) from this years swarms of tadpoles (the tadpoles being one of the main reasons for the portly state of our geriatric fish no doubt).

Pond pals

The water had cleared by this morning and to my delight a full grown Frog was flaunting itself next to our Golden Orfe.