RIP Silvertonia

We read today of the demise of the Silvertonia blog. I'm very sad to see it go - I learned a lot from reading it and found it also very amusing at times. James writes really well and I hope he keeps up the good work at some point. I don't know how he found so many topics to comment on - I couldn't keep that up! Also it suffered from less and less people reading it - don't understand why. I guess just the general apathy that is apparent everywhere. People are only concerned about their own orbit - a pity, because they were galvanised against the traveller site by the blog, amongst other things. C'est la vie.

Wind turbine

As expected, Mid Devon have granted permission for the ghastly wind turbine. I hope, when they are deluged with other applications, the future turbines will be sited next door to their homes. I expect it ticked the "Green" box for the Council!

Angels and Demons

Last night we went to see the film "Angels and Demons" - having read the book I was prepared for silliness and I wasn't disappointed! It was very watchable though and Rome looks superb - would make me want to go there if I hadn't been. Tom Hanks was his usual "all-round American good guy" self and the special effects were very good. One good thing that struck me was that there were no credits at the beginning of the film (other than the two companies who financed it). I liked this - it went straight into the story and you weren't distracted by the names popping up. The Tivoli is a great old fashioned cinema but ufortunately there couldn't have been more than 25 people in there - a shame.

The birds and the bees!

Last week was all about the birds and bees! First we found a baby blackbird in the lane and couldn't find the nest to put him back in again. We had to leave in another part of the hedge, it was very sad....... Then the same day we discovered honey bees trying to start a nest behind the weatherboarding on our house. We stuffed newspaper in the hole and spoke to a beekeeper who said they were only scouts and would get fed up and go away. So after a few days we removed the paper .......big mistake! They came back of course so we had to stuff newspaper there again. Hope they've got the message this time. Then on Sunday we had the most wonderful view in our garden of a hen pheasant with her eleven chicks! They spent all morning running around the lawn and pecking at everything in sight - they were gorgeous - not sure how old they were as they were fully fledged, but tiny! Haven't seen them again since but we did feel privileged to see catch a glimpse of them.

Yurts ain't what they used to be!

When is a yurt not a yurt? When it's just an old tent with flower pots at the front door! Before voting on the blog, I think people should actually take a look at the proposed "travellers" site - they're already in residence! Where do they go to the loo? What do they do with their rubbish? (and recycling of course!) And I'd still like to know what Council Tax Band it will come under!

Same old same old!

Well 2009 has begun and I haven't updated the blog for some time - it's great to see the snowdrops in bloom everywhere and also the daffodils are coming into bud. The lambs are in the fields and everything's right with the world. Unless you're worried about your job, your mortgage, your pension..............