Saturday day out

No birds again today and I have no idea when I might get out birding again.  Things just keep getting in the way sadly.  But on Friday our grandson came to stay for a few days and that is always a pleasure.  Yesterday we took him down to Banbury just to get him out of Dorktown for a few hours.  There’s was a bit of madness in my method of course ;-))) ... I wanted to get some of the pub signs in the town centre, which I did.  Kile (and yes it is spelt correctly, or at least that is how his Mum wanted it to be spelt), was given some pocket money and he bought himself a toy gun.  I won’t say any more about that!  After a pint of Hooky Dark in the 

 and very nice is was too, we headed off to Chippping Norton for the same reason as we went to Banbury.  But I managed to take a wrong turn somewhere or other and we ended up in Hook Norton, the home of the brewery of the same name.  The village itself is very pretty indeed and well worth a visit without the brewery.  Here's a shot of one part of it ...

But rememeber, it was a dull old yesterday when this was taken.

I’d wanted to go there for some time but with Kile with us I couldn’t really do the brewery tour, so that is something I shall have to do on my own sometime in the future.  Jan bought my a Hook Norton tankard while I was having a look around though.  Here it be ...

I was looking at buying some of their beer too but 12 bottles in one go is a tad too much even me ;-)))

We eventually arrived in Chipping Norton and had a quick a walk around – it’s not all that big a town but very nice.  Jan got a tad concerned at one point because one of the doorways we passed had the keys left in the lock, very trusting or just forgetfulness, I don’t know.  

We soon got around the town and then we headed back home via Shipston and Stratford.  I knew that on the way home we had to call in and get some milk, Kile isn’t a big milk drinker but Jan is so we need a lot of the white stuff.  

I called in to Morrison’s just off the A46 in Coventry on the way home and bought a few more bits and bobs while I was there as well as the milk.  One such item was a Daily Telegraph.  It’s the one daily paper I would have delivered if it followed the example of the Times and Independent and went tabloid style.  But I was pretty much surprised to find that the paper had 10 sections plus the magazine and most of it went into the recycling bag!  I have no time for reading about sports, business, spoiled film so-called ‘stars’ and their mardy arse antics.  I’m not into exotic holidays to faraway places, cruising the Med or Indian Ocean or into buying a multi £million house or even one over £150K.  The result is that for me there is a lot of wasted paper in all these weekend publications.  I do however have the Sunday Express delivered, not because I like it as a paper as such but because one Stuart Winter writes a weekly birding column in it.  He also wrote a book called Tales of a Tabloid Twitcher which I also enjoyed reading.

Now I’m sure we are all of the way that our snooze paper gets the facts in twist.  Well, the Sunday Express today has done it again and this time in relation to one of the top stories currently enthralling much of the British public in not the world wide public.  I am of course talking about THAT WEDDING and the extended family of one of those involved!  According to Sunday Express Price Harry is now rather chuffed that his big brother Wills will now have to call him Sir when they are both in uniform.  Who the heck advises these writers?  Look at the offcier rank structure of the RAF and the Army :-

RAF                                                    Army

Pilot Officer                                  2^nd Lieutenant

Flying Officer                                Lieutenant

Flight Lieutenant                          Captain

Harry is now a Captain and Wills is a Flight Lieutenant, but here’s thing folks, they are of equal rank.  The only thing that may put Harry in a senior position is that the Household Cavalry (both the Blues and Royals and the Life Guards), are the senior regiments of the Army.  However, in reality, both men (listen to me speaking of men!), both little boys are of the same rank in reality.

Lucky for me I was able to miss the all mention of footie yesterday until I got home and watched a bit of the news.  To escape it this afternoon I’m sat at me ‘puter tip-tapping away at this and will get on with my second book in a short time.  But I did get to watch the London Marathon this morning.  Now those people do deserve the respect of all of us!  The elite runners of course are at the top of their game to be able to take part and although I respect them for their efforts my real respect is for the thousands of fun runners who follow them around that 26 mile route.  Year before last I cocked up and forgot it was on and went on one of my regular trips down there and got caught up in all the crowds.  Here’s some on Whitehall ...

Oh how I would love to do what they have done. 

Fate of course has to give things a bit of nudge doesn’t it.  Here we are with 2 major footie matches being played darn the Smoke and the London Marathon on too and there’s a major fire in a junk yard under the M1.  The traffic congestion must be horrendous around there now.  I’m pleased I stayed here in Dorktown, for once the better place to be.