COULD THIS BE.......?

BADGERS!



This is the tree stump of a tress that was cut down a few years back. It had been rotting nicely over the years, showing a fine crop of various fungi. A few months ago I noticed that the rotten wood had been scratched out, and to be honest, I thought it was kids.

But this week, large holes have appeared round it, and someone told me it was Badgers, looking for grubs.

Now we are really in an urban area, although one with plenty of green spaces, large gardens, and a few overgrown or untended areas. But I was surprised to think badgers would come so near us, into the Park. Then I read that they wander quite big distances in the night, looking for food.




Now the half cut beech tree(see my link) has been stripped of its bark on one side. Again, I thought it was boys being destructive with knives, but now I think it might be badgers.

Anyone out there know much about badgers? They are such attractive animals. I once saw one ambling along a field path, and he (or she) was absolutely beautiful!

FEBRUARY VIEWS

A glorious day in February can't be wasted - there aren't many of them! So I took my camera with me in the Park, and hopefully, these are views you haven't seen before!

This is looking across the lake towards the duck feeding place. Ducks, the two swans and Canada Geese when they are there are very quick to congregate when someone approaches carrying a plastic bag!




This is an enlargement of the duck feeders. Look directly above the woman, and you can just see our house through the trees!




The water is very high at the moment. This is the top of the lake. There is an outlet there, which takes the water down to the River Bollin in a conduit, but I think it must have got blocked with leaves etc. At the other end of the lake a small stream feeds into the lake, so there is a slow movement through. The River Bollin is quite a nice river, it eventually feeds into the River Mersey and so to the sea past Liverpool. Much of the route of the Bollin is a designated Country Park. Behind where I am standing is a picnic area, with seats and tables, and a small car park.




Park Mill is by the side of the Park. It used to be a silk mill, but is now used by small businesses. Macclesfield was a centre of the silk industry since silk was discovered and the silk worms inported. An old mill near the centre of town is part of the Heritage Centre, and shows how silk was woven. Jacquard patterns were apparently woven there. In World War II parachutes were made in Macclesfield.




Lastly, we have a rather nice children's playground. It was recently refurbished, fenced in, and new apparatus installed. The ground is soft bark (yes, that is snow on it!) and the playground is very well used. The photo was taken at about 9.30 am - a bit early for children to start playing!

Hopefully we will have some warm Spring day,s and I can get out more!

LONG AGO...............

Long ago ice creams were bought from the "Stop me and Buy One" cart. This photograph was taken by my father in about 1936 or 1937. You can just see the prices - and those were old, pre-decimal pence, of course. In those days you could get a cornet, with a little cylindrical piece of ice cream wrapped in paper, which you peeled off and put the ice cream in the biscuit cone. And then you licked! The trick was to keep pushing the ice cream down with your tongue so that when you got to the last little bit of cone there was still some ice cream left in it!




The alternative was the wafer. A rectangular block of ice cream with a biscuit either side. Much more ice cream than wafer biscuit, and hence more expensive. The photograph above is me (in the middle) with my sister on the left and my friend on the right. It was, apparently, taken at London Zoo in 1942. I cannot imagine what we were all doing , being taken up to London during at a time when the blitz was on, but my Father's indexing is impeccable, and that is what it says! Its obviously a lovely sunny summer day, so maybe it was a very quiet time!

I think we must have had our ices wrapped in paper napkins, to keep those lovely smocked dresses clean!

Ice lollies came in about the same time as the Stop me and Buy One truck, but were nothing more than frozen orange squash! It was a while after the war when other ices came, although the ice cream was still hard. My favourite was a choc ice - but you had to be careful to catch the chocolate when you bit into it, as it was frozen hard, and fell off the ice cream. Do you remember that?

Soft ice cream made an appearance - ooh! about the end of the 1950's I would think, though someone else out there might know. "Mr. Whippy" came round with his jingle bells, and you got a biscuit cone (much the same as pre-war, I think!) with a delicious whipped top of lovely soft ice cream. Ideal for smothering small children!

Now you can get an extraordinary range of luxurious ice cream, and they are no longer a treat for good children!

I still fancy a good solid choc ice, though!

UPON REFLECTION.........

...........I am a bad Blogger! I have been trying to get another post up, but never find the time. I have been particularly busy these last few weeks, with sorting and doing all the things a Secretary of an organisation does! Hopefully now it will settle down a bit, but I'm not banking on it!




However, we have had some sunny days, so managed to take some photos, without losing the dog! Let off the lead he will do a runner over the park and far away. He just thinks its his garden, so why not?

Those two were taken while it was still above freezing most of the day even if we had very low temperatures (3 or 4C).




But it has got very cold at night as well now, and the daytime temperature barely rises above freezing. The lake has frozen and the ducks are restricted to a small pool in the middle.



The morning I took this the swans were trapped in a tiny area, and were having difficulty breaking the ice to get out. I was a bit concerned, but Mr.G later reported that they had appeared at the duck feeding station, so were OK. He took a photo this morning to show me. They have joined the ducks in the small pool still available. If that freezes there are going to be some chilly ducks on the ice!

A YEAR LATER......

Its exactly a year since the Man with the Chain Saw started carving birds on the trunks of trees that had been cut down in the Park. I took my camera along as I thought it was amazing how well/badly the carvings had weathered.

The Owl stands at the entrance to the small car park. It is hard now to see that it is an owl. Which is a shame. But it just looks like an old tree trunk!



The heron has not fared well, either. Although you can see it is a heron, he is surrounded by shoots from the tree (which obviously wasn't dead in the first place!) I think it is a horse chestnut, and when the leaves come out, our heron will be invisible! Unless the Park People snip off the shoots.




The Kingfisher, on the other hand, still looks lovely, and rather smug.




Now when I took photographs last year, the frog hadn't appeared. He was bright new wood when done, of course, but again, its hard to see he is a frog. However, when I saw him in the pouring rain a few days before I took the photo, he looked lovely, as frogs do in the wet!

It was very hard to take photos from the same position, as I couldn't remember quite where I had been, and it was very muddy, and I was in danger of slipping over!

The Park is just beginning to wake up from its winter sleep. The snowdrops are up and in bud, but their heads have not turned down yet. The ornamental bushes are beginning to sprout, and the willows are definitely looking a bit springlike. The Witch Hazel flowers are coming out, but not enough to make a decent photograph!

The two swans are still here, and the ducks look as though they have paired up. I will try and take some good photos of the swans for next time. Its very cold here today, but lovely and bright, so I might try to get clicking away this afternoon.

SPRING IS ON ITS WAY !

It is a beautiful morning today - the high winds from the last few days have dropped, and the sun is out! I wanted to take my camera with me when I took the dog for a walk in the Park, but it is too difficult to manage with a dog at the extreme end of a long lead, wanting to get on, a stick in one hand, and my camera in my third hand!! (If only!)

I had to keep the dog on the lead as he has been quite poorly - entirely his own fault, I might add, as he did a runner on me on Tuesday and found a lot of rather nasty bread. He was so ill afterwards I wondered if he had been poisoned, but the Vet didn't think so, and he seems very frisky today. His dinner has progressed from nothing at all (yesterday) to plain boiled rice and a small amount of poached chicken. Poached in the microwave, not obtained at night with a gun!

So I had to use my ears and eyes and not my camera this morning. The birds were twittering away, I heard sparrows and tits (two sorts) I spotted a robin, and the gulls and ducks on the lake were making their usual cacophony!

The snowdrops are very nearly out, the buds are there, but they have not dropped their heads yet. Bulbs are coming up, and the ornamental bushes are beginning to sprout tiny leaves.

On the minus side, the grass is exceptionally muddy in places, and the paths round the tennis courts are still flooded. The frost, plus energetic tree roots are cracking the paths round the lake in several places, and its a bit tricky for the unwary. Well, and the wary too, if, like me, they use a stick!

In our own garden the bulbs are coming up. The picture above was taken last year, but they looked identical this morning! We keep the bird feeders filled, and have had Redpoll and Siskins, plus the usual Greenfinches, sparrows, Great and Blue Tits, a Coal tit, Chaffinches and a Robin. But we have not had the numbers we had last year. Still there is a lot of winter to come yet, and presumably there is a lot of natural food around for them.

If the weather is nice I will try to get out at the weekend, and take my camera. You must be fed up with reading about the Park and my Garden!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

The sun is getting stronger, the birds seem to be pairing up on the lake, and the days are getting longer! Thankfully, this year is in total contrast to last year's ice and snow. It is mildish, sometimes windy, nearly always wet and constantly muddy!

A Happy New Year to you all.