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 10th
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!
