Urban Wild Verge

Whether by accident or design, the council are generally pretty good at leaving the verges along the Millgate area of town intact, and today I was having a closer look while walking to the park for tea.

Millgate is a wonderful old street, with a very active conservation society and was once the site of many industrial wharves on the River Trent, and eleven riverside pubs to sate the thirsty stevedores. Nowadays there are only three pubs along here and only one of those is one I would ever drink in.

At this time of year, it is a good place to spot swifts as the older buildings in this area are still attractive nest sites.

In the verges themselves, there are a few poppies, some ragged robin like  pink flowers emerging, and dense carpets of feverfew sufficient to cure a million headaches.

I ought to open a shop and sell it.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.06.19

More 30 Days Wild Stuff

With nothing much else to do other than walk, I did another enjoyable 10,000 plus steps of it today, taking in the river, the lock and its gardens, and the Sconce, before heading out in the afternoon to go to the gaming cafe after a look along a different part of the river.

I can show you much life, apart from my hospital trip I've been trying to do 30 Days Wild every day, and even with this current injury I want to be active. I even managed 20 minutes on my exercise bike tonight, although I had to put three towels on the seat.

Riding to work is not going to be happen!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.06.19

Walking Like John Wayne

All our cricket games were cancelled today which made me feel less bad about not being able to play and support our club's efforts. Although if the second team game had gone head I would have gone down to watch and support the team, and no doubt take loads of joshing about my current condition.

So today, if anything I'm rather more sore than I was when I left hospital, but I'm determined to stay active and so spent the morning going on a series of walks, cafe to cafe, open space to open space.

I spent time in Carriages, the steampunk victoriana cafe that occupies the old railway station building, sipping a tea with big brown sugar lumps - an odd thing I know to put brown sugar in tea - and then walked along the river to the Sconce for more tea.

Down by the River Devon I saw my first blackcap of the year, although I didn't hear it sing its song like someone blowing into a flute slightly wrongly. There were a few bees on the wing, but these were obviously the mad ones as the weather was so bad.

A swallow swooped by me at ankle height on the road alongside the park, and a swift nearly took my head off as it made its way to its nest under the eaves of a house. Other swifts did their flying sickle thing in the grey sky above.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.06.19

The Singing Detective Returns from Hospital

Well, I've had an interesting 24 hours, to say the least.

It started at cricket practice last night, where a seemingly innocuous ball from a young spin bowler hit me in the box, the abdominal protector that looks after the family jewels.

It smarted for a moment, but I carried on batting - very badly - for a few more minutes until I felt something give way in my groin area. I wandered off, collapsed, and managed to remove my kit to reveal that a certain part of my anatomy had swollen to several times its normal size.

My initial though was; "Oh shit. Strangulated hernia in the scrotum."

Which is quite a long thought, but I was worried as hell as it turned out I could barely walk, and attempting to ride my bike an exercise in barbed wire straddling agony. I walked 2km back to my flat, called my folks and got taken straight to Newark hospital, where I explained what had happened, was given a syringe of sickly sweet morphine to swallow, and after two hours was examined by a doctor who said I needed an ultrasound at City hospital.

Without any means of transport this time, I waited for four hours for an ambulance to appear at 3am to drive me ricketily but cheerfully to Nottingham where I was directed to a Urology ward full of elderly ghosts snoring and falling out of bed in a grim half light. A night nurse then made me stick swabs in my nose and groin to check for MRSA and told me my weight was 90kg, but he was a friendly chap and I began to feel a bit less stressed.

Various doctors came and examined my goodies, rather forcefully at times, and explained that I certainly had severe bruising and blood clotting down there, but if a scan revealed a torn testicle, then surgery was the only option.

The scan was nerve-wracking, and surreal. A very attractive radiologist and her make colleague smeared me with cold gel, and proceeded to move the sensor around while looking on the screen for unpleasant sounding parts of my anatomy to make sure they were still there.

I told her she deserved £200 an hour for having to do a job such as this, while it reminded me of Michael Gambon as The Singing Detective desperately trying to think of boring things while Joanne Whalley vaselined his genitals. Well, it didn't really, as we talked about cricket.

As it turned out, I was lucky. I am not torn or ruptured, just swollen and bloody sore, and in dire need of a pint while wearing very baggy jeans.

The NHS staff. needless to add, were all fantastic.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.06.19

Around the Uncut Verge and the Mini Meadows

So, yesterday I played 30 Days Wild and looked around the work campus for bee orchids, and didn't find a thing.

Today was different; I found a single bloom in one of the usual places, and was much pleased to see it; I was beginning to think they weren't going to appear, I'm sure they were earlier last year.

All in all, lots of life around the conservation areas I introduced. Bees are feeding off these long whippy yellow wildflowers in the verge, and lots of bees are feeding off knapweed now in the meadows, as well as the slightly past their best trefoil flowers.

Another first today was a meadow brown butterfly, being very skittish but I just got near enough to get an acceptable  photograph.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 05.06.19

No Cricket just Bees

NOTE - this was written on Sunday but Blogger has been really glitchy since

So today was a most disappointing day. We travelled to the ground at Southwell for our scheduled Sunday match, only for persistent rain to slowly and surely results in the game being called off, much to my intense frustration, although I have to say a lot of players were rather cheered up by the match being off.

This resulted in much glowering from me I must say!

Having said that the game was never going to happen just because the weather was so persistently drizzly.

However I did manage to get to eat some of the tea for free, so that was good!

Anyway, before setting off I managed to grab a couple of  pictures of bees with the most swollen saddlebags I've ever seen!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.06.19

Torpedoed and Scuttled in Bramcote

Cricket took us out the pleasant surroundings or Bramcote Hills Park today, to play Bramcote's second team on a wicket we could tell before the match was going to be a sporty one, being green and grassy.

Of course, we arrived fairly late, and finding ourselves fielding first was hardly the ideal. Nor was I expecting to open the bowling, which I never do for the 3s but somehow found myself doing today; I certainly gave my skipper a quizzical look.

My main problem today wasn't the opposing batsmen like last Sunday; it was an umpire who had an interesting idea of what constituted a wide.

Any delivery that the batsman didn't hit.

To be fair he was like this for all of us, but being a left hander who bowls across the average right handed batsmen, my deliveries always look worse than they are because of the angle. I did get the captain caught at deep gulley, and after a weird over where I suddenly bowled three no balls on the trot out of nowhere, I made a minor technical adjustment and suddenly found myself bowling really fast by my standards. The ball was bouncing and being taken by the keeper head high, and there was lots of "ooing" and "ahhing" going on.

We were bowling well collectively, with other bowlers taking good wickets, but the umpire then displayed that he was hard of sight and hearing as well as wides, bless him - he was an older chap. However when one hard hitting Asian batsman nicked the cover off the ball twice without being given caught our, one of our own bowlers lost their rag a little bit and just stood there yelling at him. "OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT" before we dragged him away to apply forced sedation.

I certainly didn't do that when I had one of their openers stoned dead LBW early on.

Luckily the umpire seemed to get his sight and hearing back when we batted chasing 137 all out, giving lbws and caught behinds with stylish aplomb. None of us could bat for long enough bar our opener, and we struggled to support him, against decent bowling on that tricky green pitch.

I only lasted two balls myself, being torpedoed by a ball that spun sharply and skidded through at ankle height to bowl me.

The only good news on a personal level - I was gutted over my bowling and batting - was that I bowled 9 overs on a very hot day, while another bowler 20 years younger had to go off after 7. But then, he had taken three wickets!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.06.19