A year in the life of the Ashtons - 2015

Spooky! I sit down to write this blog on almost the same day 1 year later! It takes a while to get back into the swing of work after a very pleasant New Year break. I had my 1 to 1 today with my line manager which as usual lasts over 2 hours. Next year, I will have been at the Trust 20 years! …and things are still going well. We are just about to start a 5 year project working with Middlesbrough Environment City on Bright Green Future project working with 14-24 year olds. Amongst other things the project will be doing conservation work on our nature reserves and hopefully achieving the John Muir award at the same time. I manage 4 members of staff – soon to be 5 working on projects including Wings over the Tees (bats and owls), River Tees Rediscovered, “Where the wild things were” and  young roots – Harrington’s Pond project as wells as coordinating and delivering my education projects. I am also the webmaster for our website run our twitter page and of course Facebook – so if you don’t like or follow us already – please do. One of highlights of the year was the award evening of the North East Wildlife Photography Competition which I am one of the judges – the presentation by George McGavin was excellent and the standard of the entries was very high. 

Our first trip of the year was to Centre Parcs with one of Helen’s longest friends Hillary along with Jamie and Imogen – it was great in the outdoor pool whilst it was minus 1 outside and snowing and I was track of the number of times I had to go down those water slides with the kids! We took my mum to see the Lion King as part of her Christmas box which despite having a few issues with roadworks –arriving just after the first song – which is very unlike us to be late – we really enjoyed.

Our first real trip of the year was at Easter with our friends Don, Liz and Mick for a short break to Gatehouse of Fleet in a very please house just off the high street. It gave us an opportunity to tour the book shops of Wigtown – looking for New Naturalist’s amongst others. A visit to RSPB Mersehead to see large flocks of Barnacle geese and Wood of Cree for pied flycatchers and of course Threave Castle for Osprey meant we had a very nice time!

Helen is still at Newcastle College. still not totally happy but making the most of it. The college has been worked with the Lit and Phil and put on a series of excellent lectures. We have attended them trying to stretch our grey matter – some however went above my head but we did enjoy most including Robert Winston, Bumblebee man Dave Goulson and Paul Watson Professor of Computing at Newcastle Uni and a very old friend of Helen. Other cultural highlights have included the excellent play “Curious Incident of the Night with a Dog” – if you get a chance you should go and see it - Alexander MacCall Smith (very entertaining), The Magna Carta at Durham  and to fulfil or wide range of musical tastes The Peatbog Faeries and Take That (I did refuse to go to Take That!).

We managed to fit in a couple of weekends away including to Amsterdam to see the tulips at Keukenhof; it was quite an experience with more than seven million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths filling over 32 hectares of parkland. The weather wasn’t brilliant but we made the best of it.  We also had a sporting weekend with my niece and boyfriend at the Rugby League Big Weekend at St James Park – it took a lot of persuading to get Helen there because it was at St James’s and it was Rugby! (never again….editor)!

This year’s big holiday was to a part of the world we hadn’t been to before The Caribbean – we planned to stay on Tobago, the smaller of the two islands and do a trip to Trinidad, only to find out when we arrived lots of Trinidadians visit Tobago in August and we couldn’t get a flight back again so we decided to get to know Tobago well!  As usual we had a busy two weeks fitting in some birding some visiting, snorkelling, boat trips and a bit of relaxation. We stayed in Speyside on the North of the island but it was nothing like the Speyside I know. The Bluewater Inn was a relatively small hotel on the sea with very nice grounds with lots of walking close by. An opportunity to get to see some of the commoner birds – but all new to us – including the national bird of Tobago - turkey-like Chachalaca, the ubiquitous yellow and black Bananaquit,  along with a number of hummingbirds feeding on feeders just outside the bedroom. 

We booked to go on a couple of trips with a local birder which was worth every penny especially with many of the birds being relatively new to us.   I don’t want to bore you with everything you saw but the rain forest trip was a real experience – I ended up doing it several times with the guide and once on our own. There is not much rainforest left but what is protected and has been for a while – the main ridge is the coolest part of the island and coupled with an early start means you need to wrap up – on route we stopped to see a cryptic Common Potoo.  Birds on Tobago are not only stunning; they also have some unusual names including the Blue-backed Manakin, Trinidad Motmot and Rufous-tailed Jacamar. After the morning walk we made our way back to Speyside with the guide Newton George to his house to spend half an hour watching his bird feeders – I have never seen anything like it – a dozen nectar feeders with Ruby-topaz Hummingbird, Copper-rumped Hummingbird, Rufus-breasted Hermit and Black throated Mango amongst others. Other highlights included boat trip to Little Tobago (featured in David Attenborough’s The Trials of Life) to see Brown and Red-footed Boobies, Red-billed Tropicbird and Magnificent Frigate bird which also included some snorkelling. We hired a car for a few days and covered most of the island – we had a really enjoyable week only marred by the Sargasso seaweed which became a bit of a problem by the end of our stay not only where we were staying but also around most of the island and became rather a topical talking point. 

With occasional trips home to Leigh to see my mum who is doing ok except for her feet! And a few more trips to Chester Le Street to see Helens mum and dad who are struggling a little bit. David fell in the garden in June and after being seen by a doctor was sent to respite for care but without them realising he had broken his hip! So a week later after forcing him to do things that he shouldn’t be doing he was in hospital having his hip done. But coupled with his Parkinson’s and bad back he is struggling to get back on his feet.

We have been going to a pub quiz recently with friends and remarkably have been doing quite well winning one of the rounds most weeks and even the jackpot one week which paid for a Christmas meal for 7. The same friends and few more joined for us for my birthday when we had a Mexican themed evening including sombreros and tequila!

We managed to do two things this year on our bucket list! In May we went to Chelsea Flower Show on the train for the day which was excellent did a bit of celebrity spotting saw lots of gardens made lots of plans for my garden (that will never happen). It was a long and busy day but very enjoyable. The second thing was the Northern Lights in Iceland. We joined approximately 50 coach load of visitors at various spots watching the lights on a cold October night. They weren’t at their best but still quite a spectacle. The rest of Iceland was truly spectacular well worth a visit. The scenery is amazing we saw the volcano Eyjafjallajökull on one of trips – watched geysers erupt – soaked in hot springs with mud on our face – a few Icelandic birds and beers and good food.

So I managed to finish the review of 2015 on February 10^th wondering what 2016 will bring us. Even though it has taken me until May to get it uploaded. Hope all is well in your lives and hope you have enjoyed catching up – if you want to catch up more drop us an email or find us on facebook!

New Year 2015

My new year’s blogs seem to get later and later! 
This year I have 2 reasons, one is we were in Bruges for the New Year and then the next weekend we were at Centre Parcs. 

The year started as mentioned in last year’s blog with my nephews wedding on New Year’s Eve. They celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary with a meal at Panorama in Liverpool and also by moving to a new house in St Helens - it does make me feel old.

Helen and I had a busy year as usual both with work and free time. Helen is still at Newcastle College but the job still seems to cause more unhappy times than happy times. She is now based in some modular units (aka portacabins) and the new library is on hold so that didn’t go down to well. It does mean that we have got to know some of the drinking and eating establishments in Newcastle though and also attend a few interesting lectures that the college has put on with the Lit and Phil Society. (We are looking forward to Robert Winston this year in May!). Helen was heavily involved in organising a conference in Brighton - quite a feat from Newcastle.

I am still at the Wildlife Trust and a linked-in message recently told me that I have been there for 17 years! With the state the economy is in at the moment we have had some difficult times and had to make a couple of people redundant. Part of my role still involves looking for funding and I spend quite a bit of time filling in grant applications. We have had a few successes recently including some 5 year projects. Our website, Facebook and twitter accounts seem to go from strength to strength but I am still unsure about their true values visit www.teeswildlife.org for more info. I was also involved in organising the 2nd North East Wildlife Photography competition which seems to go from strength to strength including a very successful awards night at the Great North Museum -Hancock in Newcastle. I was also involved in the revamp of the trust garden and entered it into a competition in Birdwatching magazine and to my surprise we won the Best Community Innovative Garden – it’s a mixture of wildlife garden and a growing food garden with lots of fruit for staff to pick as well as a bird feeding station and small pond – you can see what it looks like here.

 

We had another wedding to go to in March when my cousin’s daughter Sarah got married in Lutterworth and it turns out that her husband works for the same company as Chris (nephew) who got married at the New Year. It was a good chance to meet up with all the family yet again. We made a weekend of it and visited Brandon Marsh nature reserve.

Culture wise we had a mixed year with the intellectual and pure pleasure. There was a scramble for tickets to see David Attenborough at Middlesbrough Little Theatre – he was very good, taking about his trip to Easter Island. We also went to see Stuart Marconie as part of the Durham Literature Festival who was not quite as intellectual as Attenborough but very entertaining - he did a bit about his visit to locations in Durham and played some music and linked some of his talk to his book Songs of the People. We also had a trip to Hexham to hear Bret Westwood talking about Tweet of the Day and Patrick Barkham about his book Badgerlands. Musically we had an eclectic year as usual highlights being Steve growing his hair long again and going to see Rick Wakeman doing Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Bellowhead and in November we went to see Peter Gabriel at the Newcastle Arena - throw in Evita and the Lion King all in all it was busy year!

To make up for or lack of holiday at New Year we decided to go with our friends to cottage on the edge of the Lake District at Allithwaite. It was a very nice cottage with a table tennis table in the garage and a pub 100m down the hill. We did lots of walking, saw lots of bluebells and spring flowers and visited Cartmel with an impromptu lunch with chees from a very nice Deli and beer from the brewery. We also had a butterfly filled day at Warton Crag and a good session birding with friends at Leighton Moss.

 

Holiday wise our big holiday was to Mauritius - land of the Dodo - not that we saw one well not a real one anyway. We had a great time staying in a hotel in Trou d’Eau Douce on the east of the island which was good base for the island. However due to an anti-cyclone it was a little windy, but we made the best of it. We did a bit of relaxing by the pool, a bit of snorkelling and swimming a bit of eating and drinking! We managed to track down the island brewer called – yes you’ve guessed it – Flying Dodo Brewing Company. We managed to fit in a few trips and eventually hired a car for a couple of day to get a bit further afield. The Republic of Mauritius was once home to perhaps the world's best known bird species, the Dodo and is now home to some of the world's rarest species, the Mauritius Kestrel (at one stage the world's rarest bird - the population went down to 4 individuals in 1974) and the Mauritius Echo Parakeet, another critically endangered species.

We were lucky, we managed to see both. We had excellent views of the kestrel at an area being managed especially for them, La Valle De Ferney, where they still do supplementary feeding. We found the Echo Parakeet on splendid walk through the Black River Gorge. Like lots of places the wildlife was limited to national parks and nature reserve; the rest of the land on this small island was being used for growing food and sugar. We had a day trip to an Island reserve Ile aux Aigrettes run by the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation to see another endemic the Pink Pigeon. Other highlights included the botanic gardens, a boat trip to see dolphins and a chance encounter with sperm whales watching them from land as they worked their way up the coast.

We had a very interesting visit to Grand Bassin or Ganga Talao a sacred lake, and temple which is about 1800 feet above sea level and is one of the most important Hindu pilgrimage sites outside of India. It was a relatively idyllic and calm atmosphere whilst we there but between the end of February and the beginning of March crowds of pilgrims head to the lake: when Maha-Shivaratree is celebrated, more than 400,000 believers make the pilgrimage to make sacrifices to their gods. According to a legend the Crater Lake is connected with the holy river Ganges.

New Year this year was a little different because we decided to venture further afield and with our friends booked a cottage in Bruges and we went via Eurostar. The journey went really well with no hiccups and the cottage was excellent, 5 minutes’ walk from the main square and all the action. We did lots of walking and sightseeing, lots of culture interspersed with a Belgian beer or two (actually 39 according to my list editor: Helen). The cottage had wi-fi and sauna both useful for the relaxing times in between drinking. New Year’s Eve found us out for a nice meal moules and frits followed by few beers and then in the main square dancing on the ice rink to bring in the New Year. No bird list but we did keep a tally of the 39 beers we tried between us with Bruges Zot Blonde and Karmeliet triple coming out on tops with Helen preferring her Hoegarden Rose. We managed to see the Madonna of Bruges by Michelangelo which is notable in that it was the only sculpture by Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime and we did the manage the 366 steps to the top of the Belfry to get good views over Bruges and hear the bells go off at the same time!

So another year over and another blog written. Hope you all had a good 2014 and I raise my glass of Leffe blonde to a happy and prosperous 2015! 

Steve (and Helen)

If you need to contact us the best way is probably by email we always welcome occasional guests!

helenandsteveashton@btinertnet.com