Bah Humbug

Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

... [then Scrooge was visited by ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Future until]...

He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you." And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

Quotation from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Shelduck Siesta

In the concrete wasteland that is the lower Leith River flood protection scheme, a group of paradise shelducks have found an ideal spot for a siesta. Out of reach of people they can sleep through the noon-day heat in peace.

They are endemic New Zealand ducks. The female has the white head, whilst the males do not. Their specific name Tadorna variegata is not particularly imaginative although appropriate.

This is probably a group of non-breeding birds, both juveniles (hatched earlier this year)and yearlings (hatched last year). They mate for life and are territorial, which many a visitor to the Woodhaugh Gardens - on the middle part of the Leith, where there are ponds - has discovered!

Blackbird

Outside my office there is a car-park on two slightly different levels, marked by a brick wall and border full of low-growing thornless rose bushes. It's a favourite place for all the small brown birds that live nearby to forage. At present there are lots of aphids and other bugs which provide rich pickings. However...

that's not what is of interest to this blackbird fledgling. It would much rather have it's parent suff pre-caught insects down its throat.

FEED ME!

Good Earth

Once Ronnie got her through the tricks of the clutch and gear shifting, it seemed she'd been driving for years. She had a feel for it, and by August her license was in her new brown purse and she ventured onto roads she'd never traveled. Her fear was that the car would stall on a hill in traffic and she'd hold up the parade while she tried to start it again, would flood the engine, forget the brake and roll down backwards into an ambulance.

At first she stayed on valley highways, but after a few weeks began to pick mountain roads where she could lean into the corners or nurse the old heap up the slope to a pull-off at the top and take in the panorama through her new eyeglasses. Continuity broke: when she drove, her stifled youth unfurled like ribbon pulled from a spool.

Quotation from: Postcards by E. Annie Proulx

Starling

I discovered that this spring our office building has been home to a family of starlings. I had watched adults flit about, forage in the rose bushes, feed off dead insects from the radiators of parked cars, and generally was aware of their presence. Until, one day...

I came to the office to discover a dead baby lying just outside the door. I looked upward to see if I could see the nest but couldn't. What looks like bird poop mess down the brickwork, is in fact painters mess down the brickwork.

So Much Book-Wormery

It had long been felt by those who annually examined teachers and pupils for certificates in various branches of science, in the Science & Art Department, that the candidates displayed a sad want of practical acquaintance with the subjects in which they presented themselves for examination; many showed considerable ability and great book knowledge, but a knowledge of the things themselves with which science deals, a proof of personal intercourse with Nature, which after all is the only foundation of scientific knowledge, and without which all the ‘ologies are so much book-wormery, was to a very great extent wanting.

Under the existing state of things it seemed almost impossible to get out of this vicious condition, for the scholars who were in their turn destined to become teachers were for the most part taught by men who were deficient in practical knowledge; and with the increasing demand for science teaching there appeared to be a probability of the evil being increased by the rapid accession of these book-taught students to the position of instructors. The only way to meet this difficulty was to find teachers who had the requisite familiarity with “the solid ground of Nature,” and set them to work to leaven the mass.

Quotation from: E.Ray Lankester, 7 September 1871. 'Instruction to Science Teachers at South Kensington' Nature vol 4, p 361-4.

A Tale of Three Tulips

The gardening gurus are right, much as I hate to admit it! These rather pathetic leaves tucked under a hedge of screening evergreens are in fact tulips - they flowered in the first season - just like these...

but in subsequent years they've got smaller and smaller. These green tulips on the other hand are still flourishing - in their second year of planting, but are not a patch on these...

which were planted just a few months ago.