"There's a Man in my Tea!!!"

Found myself in Mamma Whites yesterday, where you get American style pancakes and stuff for not too much money. They've got a new all day breakfast menu, where you order 6 things, get a stack of pancakes and a cup of tea with it, for £7.50.

We were waiting for the food, when the drinks came out, and I was shocked to find that my tea had a small man in it!

Apparently this is a loose leaf tea infuser, where 2000 perforations in his trousers let the flavour flood out. You can get them on Amazon, it seems. His body posture is rather slumped and resigned, but he has a smile on his face.

The pancakes and food arrived, and it was enough to totally stuff you. Simple food, but really nicely done.

You're getting a fair old bit for your £7.50.

I'm not doing a puff piece because they asked me to, not at all. In fact, their presence on social media isn't enough for a business like this. But I've always liked this little place and I've always wanted it to do well - so many small cafes like this have been set up, then died a death in Newark.

I don't want i to happen to one where I really like the food!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.02.16

Down on a Branch

Today has been a lovely day, visiting the park, having a great lunch at Mamma White's pancake parlour, of which more anon, and being delighted to finally catch a couple of birds on my feeder - lovely long tailed tits having a flitty peck at the fat balls.

A goldcrest was also busy in my holly tree, a song thrush paid a rare visit to the garden, and I noticed that the noisy little clan of house sparrows are already gathering nesting material and taking it up to their condominium complex in the spaces under the eaves of next door's flat.

A 7 spot ladybird was spotted hibernating in the buddleia. So pleased to see that, they are losing out badly to the orange harlequins this year.

I was walking home along Balderton Gate later on, when a dead branch on the ground by the library cap park caught my eye. It was covered in a jelly fungus of some kind, a dull orange, possibly jew's ear but really I'm no mycologist.  There was also a sort of cup fungus on the branch as well.

Really wasn't expecting to see that in a hedgerow less than a metre wide separating the car park from the road!

Is Tiny, or Micro, Desirable?

Container City 2, London. Photo by Cmglee under creative commons license

Regular viewers of this blog will know that sometimes, when work and early sunsets prevent me getting outside exploring, I write more magazine style, or dare I say it "lifestyle" (AAARGGGGGHHHH) entries about subjects close to my heart.

I'm not brainy enough to explain the gravitational waves shindig to anyone, so I thought I'd take a look at another subject that interests me. Housing, specifically, alternative housing.

I have often expressed how I find the idea of recycling shipping containers as affordable housing really appealing, and was excited to see that the city of Brighton had put up a development of container housing for vulnerably housed people in the city.

I'd always wondered how that development went, and found an article yesterday that initially identified problems with cold, rusting, drug addict tenants and a feeling that perhaps the development was a PC foothold into an expensive city to get developer hands on some cheap city centre land rather than a genuine social project. At £650 a month rental, it was hardly cheap either, and architects expressed reservations in the structural integrity of any container building that wasn't a simple stack.

However, within their limitations, it seems there have been successful projects made from container homes, although only as short term residencies.

New York has been experimenting with micro apartments but the rents on these seem even more horrendous, and the whole set up looks like accomodation for laboratory animals.

However, Sweden has shown that you can come up with far more attractive micro dwellings that offer personable living at a far more reasonable cost.

Here in the UK, the concept of tiny housing has now caught on from the states, which try to offer small scale living on perhaps a more investable basis - a fully fitted out micro home can be available for little more than £10,000 and transported on wheels to your place of living, a home that could perhaps be sold at a profit later on or rented out, rather than the first time fledgling sinking all their money into the black hole of rent.

Yes they are impractical in many ways, and actually situating one in a city near your workplace might be rather tricky. But surely, there are brownfield sites in cities where little tiny house villages could spring up, with a sense of place and community. For it is the space without, rather than the space within, that is important in many ways.

It all seems crazy, but for me, and thousands, probably millions more in this country, it seems like it could be the only option to ever own any kind of small piece of real estate close to a city workplace. I'd have one like a shot if I needed to. We are far to wed to large footprint bricks and mortar housing in this country, and we need to think differently if many of us ever want to haul ourselves out of the long term rental trap.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.02.16

The Monster in the Window

This is the little beastie from next door who looms around the family home and garden, attempting to attack the nesting blackbirds - driving them away in the process, twice last year - peeing on our nooshies grave, and suddenly turning up in the window like some kind of feline version of Michael Myers, scaring my mother witless.

This little lady is the reason my folks will have to be very careful about where they situate the bird box I bought them. She's an expert climber, so the box will go on a wall. The good news is that fledgling great tits - the leading candidate to use the box I reckon - stay in the branches and don't scuttle around on the ground like young blackbirds.

I remember when she first arrived next door, she was all sweetness and light, and loved to be stroked and rub up against your legs. Then she started getting haughty when Nooshie got ill, and lording it over the garden, although even a fit-addled Noo-noo was able to chase her off. Then we caught her attacking the blackbird nest, shinning up the pergola, and we gave her a good shouting at.

As soon as she sees any of us now, she slinks off like the naughty cat she is. But while we aren't looking, she's out there, pottling and widdling, and upsetting the birds. She has a brother, a black cat with a tail like a red squirrel, that just sits on the fence and my stepfather evils through the kitchen window while waiting for a passing witch to pick him up.

We love all cats. We really do. Except those two.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.02.16

The Birds of the Old Oak Wood

The same day as I explored the floods, I also took my customary walk through The Old Oak Wood at Sconce Hills Park to see what birds could be seen there, and to take advantage of the beautiful light for photography.

As you can see, there were a few birds who appeared for my trademark "record shots", sadly none of them too close, but it was still good practice for me. Soon they will be exploring the bird boxes; the piercingly monotonous two tone call of the great tit is dominant at the moment - by dominant, I mean it's one of the few bird calls I recognise!

Spring hurtles on, the displays of aconite are now over, but I have yet to see a bee risking the weather, it has been very chilly the last few days and especially nights. Luckily, I have pre-mixed Mojito for my observing session later!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.02.16

Crows in the greenery

Long tailed tit backside

Robin by the Devon

Slightly pensive looking bird

Mrs chaffinch

Head to one side

Then into the light

Fat squirrel

The Egret and the Rubbish Tip

Today, I decided to rest my achey legs, and with bright skies and no wind for once, I thought it might be good to jump on the bike and go somewhere.

I decided to go the long way round - the endless blockage to the Sustrans 64 is really annoying everyone - and ride to Cotham rubbish tip. What I was after were some shots of the huge numbers of gulls that are often found there, gulls that experienced birdwatchers of my acquaintance are able to identify at a range of 200 metres, when there are thousands of them.

A juvenile glaucous gull, seemingly the size of a turkey, has had a lot of attention there lately.

Sadly, there weren't many gulls on view today, as it turned out they were all hiding on the other side of the ridge. But I could still see a few greater black backed gulls mooching around, and there were plenty of rooks looking on, perched on the fences and the edge of the tip "crater".

But not, on the whole, a pretty place.

So I carried on cycling, on my Cotham - Thorpe - Home route, and was just crossing over one of the numerous small rivers you find around here - this one was the oddly named Car Dyke, which flows into the Devon - when a beautiful white bird caught my attention and made me stand on my brakes.

It was a gorgeous egret, barely 15 metres away, standing on the edge of the water.

I approached oh so slowly, oh so stealthily, with my camera, but the bird still sensed my approach and took off with its mate. Pah, an egret at that range would have made for a stunning photograph!

Still a gorgeous bird though. But a pesky one!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.02.16

Kestrel bird scarer

Crows on a wire

Crows on a mountain

Crows on a crater

Digger

Two diggers

Greater black backed gull

More gulls

Echelon gulls

Egrets in flight

The Barn Owl and the Floods

I've had a busy day today, making the most of the bright sun by getting a walk round Sconce Park in late morning time, then having a 12km run to Hawton and Farndon in the afternoon.

In between, I watched the mindblowing film "Interstellar" which is so magnificent that I would be doing you all a major mis-service by not urging you to watch it a thousand times immediately.

There is a lot of water around today, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why. We haven't had that much rain here compared to other times of the winter, yet today when I went to the park, Devon Pasture was half underwater!

That's going to make for a fun Parkrun on Saturday.

Later, my afternoon run took me out to Hawton and Farndon through the fields behind Grange Road - I'm still frustrated I can't get out towards Cotham on the Sustrans 64 thanks to the relief road project. Once again, redwing were about in reasonable numbers in the hedgerows, and periwinkle has come into flower too.

The trails were muddy, but I had my trailies on and as the sun began to say I had made in into Farndon. But when I tried to run along Wyke Lane, I noticed flood signs out, and the Lane and large parts of Willow Holt nature reserve were underwater. Snowdrops and daffodils peaked sadly out from the water, well, this is what you get during an early spring.

I diverted round, but decided not to run along the river back to town. I didn't have my bright orange water wings.

It was when I got back into Newark that I found my star of the day. A white shape over the river near the marina and rowing club resolved itself into a barn owl, quartering the meadow between the Trent and Farndon Road. I was thrilled to see it flying towards me, me partially hidden by a hawthorn hedge, and it was no more than twenty metres away when it suddenly dropped out of the sky into the long grass. I could only see the bird's back by this point, but it was still on the ground when I continued my run, so I'm guessing it found a rodent or frog to munch down on.

A beautiful bird, a ghost of the twilight, and surprisingly large looking in the air!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.02.16

Devon Pasture

Or rather Devon paddy fields

Park-swim route

Over the A46

Farndon snowdrops

In peak shape

Wet Willow Holt

Watery Wyke Lane

Poor snowdrops

More of Willow Holt

The way to the Boathouse restaurant

Waterside pub seat

Farndon Ferry

Sun setting

Marina entrance