Dangers of an Idle Mind

Same thing happened again today (right down to getting trounced at tennis by my wife) but this time I had a camera. The birds were quite far away but yo can clearly see the three smaller birds hassling the larger bird. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

I was playing tennis in the high spot of the day. The ground was being bleached by the sun. I was about to hit one of my slap-patters that passes for serve, when a huge shadow shimmered across the court. The shadow was accompanied by the unmistakable shrill echoing call of an eagle. I looked up and saw the huge wings as the bird found a thermal and started circling upwards. It’s not too unusual to see very large birds in our part of Connecticut . Huge Turkey Buzzards are very common. They are easy to distinguish from other birds by the V shape of their wings as the soar. But this was no Turkey Buzzard and that call was just so distinctive. As a boy from South London I did not think I would ever see a real eagle. Watching it circle upwards I slowly realized something strange was going on. A smaller bird, just a black silhouette against the blue sky but about the size of a Robin, was flying around the Eagle. As I watched the small bird flew underneath the eagle and bam! The bird flew st...

And this is two weeks later. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

On Saturday, just after Chelsea beat West Ham with a nice goal and a little bit of luck, me and my wife stood outside our house looking at the dark, bare branches of the bushes and trees. It was a warm day and we were about to clean out our garage for the first time in two years. As we stood looking at rocks we could hear a lot of excited bird song with many different voices calling, cooing and chirping. In the air the insects were starting to appear in numbers and there were even some big black bees loudly buzzing about. However, there were still no buds or leaves on the trees or bushes. How long, we wondered, until the summer green canopy shaded our house again. That was four days ago and this morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see the bushes and trees had started blooming seemingly overnight. It ain’t Washington DC with the Cherry blossoms, but it’s pretty impressive for four days. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

We haven’t had a ‘silly Connecticut’ story in a while, and I can honestly say I have no idea why I didn’t write this up at the time. Our local sports team is the Bridgeport Bluefish , a non-affiliated, minor league baseball team. Their only real claim to fame is that their coach is a very renown former lefty pitcher whose deserved reputation was eclipsed by his eponymous surgery - one Tommy John . Anyway last summer, pre-teenage Spud and his oh-so-teenage brother were staying with us and so we decided an evening at the ballpark would be nice. Next to the ballpark is the Arena, a multi-purpose venue, and this particular evening the WWE was doing its sweaty man dance thing at the Arena while the Bluefish played the Lancaster Barnstormers. The car-park was more crowded than usual and as we pulled up to the orange vested lady at the gate she said: “Baseball or Arena?” “Baseball.” We said. “Three dollars” said the young lady. I don’t know if it was me, the boys or Christine who actually sa...

I awoke early, the sky was just turning grey and the thermometer was reading below freezing. By the time the tea had brewed there was a crimson line along horizon. I took my mug and headed down to the back door. I pulled on my old boots and took the red checkered jacket off the hook. The winter had been long and cold. Round here they mix sand with the road salt. A lot of sand. The floor of the garage crunched underfoot as I lifted the reluctant-to-open overhead door. It was lighter outside now and a few of the houses across the valley seemed to be stirring, a solitary chimney sent a blue smoke trail into the air. I grabbed the yard brush, its worn handle felt snug against the callouses on my hand. By the time I finished sweeping out the garage the sky was blue and the brass thermometer had inched past the freezing mark. I drained the tea mug, leant the broom against the door frame and listened. So quiet through the winter, the woods that lined the valley, were waking up. The calls o...

Some people exert that the word California means something along the lines of “place of milk & Honey.” I have just returned from a trip to Southern California and I ain’t so sure. The lifestyle does seem to be different to here in the Northeast or back in the Midwest. However, I’m not sure that life in Southern California is all that. The working life definitely seems not to be idyllic. I chatted with a bunch of locals during my stay and I found myself getting more and more surprised that anything is achieved in Southern California. This is mostly down to the compromises forced upon them by the traffic. The workday seems to go something like this: Get up early to avoid the traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive at work and spend first hour moaning to co-workers about the traffic. Work for one hour. Go out to Starbucks. Work 30 minutes. Go to lunch early to avoid the queues. Come back to work, spend thirty minutes discussing lunch then thirty minutes discussing traffic at lunch. Do a...