It was 2.55 am when my alarm went off. It was a late April Saturday morning and I was on a mission with fellow bird enthusiasts to witness a Lek. We needed to be in upper Teesdale in the North Pennines by 5 am to meet our guides from the Game Conservancy Trust. Arriving late […]
Don’t get me wrong, at heart I am a petrolhead, and have enjoyed some fast, exotic, gas guzzling motors over the decades of my long driving life. I still hanker after my Maserati, Porsche, open top Jags and Alfas. However, old age, realism and concern for the environment has tempered my tastes. The alternative is […]
Last week I was privileged to attend a talk and an event that are inspiring examples of endeavour by spirited individuals working in the natural world. On Wednesday eveningI watched a film presentation by Marek Borkowski, a man who during the last fifty years has managed to save and preserve ancient wetlands in the Biebrza […]
I must have been about 10 years old when I had my first rush of creative writing. I had been asked by my English teacher, the indomitable, Mr Horne, a man with keen sense of the absurd, to write an essay on anything we fancied for a homework exercise. This was better than the usual […]
Chapter 10 Simon Padfoot is looking over his business plans for the fifty houses on Jacob’s Acres. He will trigger his option to purchase as soon as planning is granted. The vendor is a Cayman Island Trust Fund, the real owner is surrounded in secrecy. All his dealings to date have been through a large, […]
When the little girl clambered into her wooden bed she could see through a tiny window a light house that stood proud on the tip of rocky land close by her croft. In the summer months, when darkness was brief, she could see the two lighthouse keepers moving about in their circular quarters. She wondered […]