This will be shorter than usual because I’m writing it mid-April – which is a tad early for my May Dispatches – but there are mitigating circumstances… I’m scheduled to go into hospital on the 28th April to have my long-awaited (and already once-cancelled) hip operation. Hopefully it will not be postponed again, and hopefully all will be well, especially as my daughter’s wedding to Farmer Andrew is on the 10th May. I did warn the Consultant that he could be in Big Trouble if we delay again or things go ‘awry’…

At a recent appointment where I had to give my consent to the procedure, after being told of all the things that could go wrong I kept a straight face and told him: “Well you’d better make sure that last doesn’t happen, otherwise I’ll come back and haunt you.” He roared with laughter and said he’d never been threatened with that one before!

The same applies to some other things… don’t cut down the big old trees in Top Field – that hedge has been there a LONG while. Remember to feed the birds in the orchard (sings the song from Mary Poppins: I actually don’t like it much, but the refrain is addictive.)

Actually my immediate concern is getting the rest of the household to remember to keep the dogs’ waterbowls topped up. I have to remind my husband at least three times a day. (Living with dyslexics is sometimes a bit of a trial.) I can’t do it as a: bending is painful (and anyway I won’t be able to bend for several weeks after the op.) b: If I pour water from a height it goes everywhere except the water bowl, and c: Have you tried carrying a heavy jug of water while hobbling with a walking stick? So, I’m looking forward to, let’s say, July, when I’m a bit more mobile and can do the waterbowls myself!

Also, have you ever noticed how often you drop things and not worry about picking them up? Ditto with the above ‘can’t bend’ comment. (Insert a heavy sigh here, in advance of many heavy sighs to come.)

So, I’ll try to update you when I can, but I’m expecting not to be at my desk until at least mid-May at the earliest. Meanwhile in early May I have my daughter’s wedding to attend. I have my outfit sorted, (need to find a nice hat, though) and my plan is to sit in a comfortable chair at the reception, smile and get everyone to bring me drink/food/drink as I won’t be very mobile. Good plan eh?

So, chat among yourselves while I’m away.

Or, Better Still: Read some books. Mine will do for a start, but if you’ve already read them all (and I mean all!) you could always read them again. And as a delayed birthday present, which was on 13th April, and/or some ‘get well soon’ wishes… how about leaving me some super reviews on Amazon? I really could do with LOTS more! (Thank you!) My Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick.

See you all on the other side of my op – with a non-arthritic, fully working hip, I hope!

I’m writing this on 20th March, the official first day of spring. The door to my little office is wide open, despite a rather cold north-east wind billowing in, but the sun is shining. Given that my office faces north, though, I’m not getting the benefit of our glorious star’s warmth… Oh well, I suppose we can’t have everything all the time. At least the sky is blue!

The birds are singing away. I can clearly hear two blackbirds whistling a duet and the sparrows and various species of tits are enthusiastically tweeting away. (Note to Musk: that’s why Twitter was called Twitter. X has no significant meaning, but never mind, most of us still call it Twitter.) There’s a regular Great Spotted Woodpecker visitor which seems to think there is a hidden banquet tucked into the wooden post that holds up the weather vane. He (she?) is there now, hammering away making holes in the post. I’m assuming it’s the same woodpecker, but might not be. There are definitely two of them in the orchard for I’ve seen a pair on the bird table devouring the peanuts and fat balls.

At the moment it’s the turn of the sparrows, there are about eight on the bird table. They will scurry off and in will come the blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits… then a robin, with the nuthatches zooming in and out, filling their beaks and darting off. Round the base the pheasant occasionally has a rummage, joined by the ponderous peacocks. I’m still not quite sure why we’ve got peacocks…

Spring is definitely here. The snowdrops came and went, now we have the daffodils blooming – I do love daffs! I get the best of both worlds, because those that are blown or knocked over I pick for the house, the rest bloom in bright yellow, white and orange groups in the orchard, the front garden and along the lane. The tulips and tiny violets will come next. We have a lovely garden – no idea what all the shrubs and plants are, apart from the roses, fuchsias, ferns, buddleia, camellias, lavender, lilac, pansies, hardy pelargoniums… a huge bay tree (must have been there for years as it’s enormous) the maple tree, the rowans, the holly tree, the dogwoods… just a shame the weeds are determined to take it all over…

Over behind the orchard in next door’s field I can see their Dexter cattle grazing, and I can hear the sheep in various nearby fields. They are now lambing, which brings a less happy problem, for quite a few lambs have already been lost to foxes.

Foxes might look cute and cuddly but they are predators. They will take a newborn lamb while Mum is giving birth to its twin. We’ve had a Mum and her wounded baby in our barn, bottle feeding the poor little thing with its neck ripped open by a fox. Its sibling was dead, with head ripped off. This morning, the wounded lamb hadn’t made it.

We are bottle feeding several other lambs, mostly because the mum had three or four babies and can’t feed them all, so we help out. They’re greedy little things!

This morning, though, was quite a welcome to the First Day of Spring.

6 o'clock, a.m…

*The birds had tuned up and were performing various arias, loudly enough to outdo the most professional Soprano opera singer.

*The geese were out. In itself, not a problem but they were squabbling. Loudly.

* A pheasant was shouting about something in the front garden that had annoyed him. (Probably complaining about the noise the geese were making.)

*The roosters were vying with each other – and another one somewhere across the valley joined in, determined to prove who had the loudest crow.

*The ewes in the barn with their babies believed it was breakfast time. Lambs are small, but loud.

Quietest of all were the peacocks. They still grunt, not having discovered how to ‘meow’ yet, but compared to the cacophony of all the above combined, the peacocks were not a bother.

So, 6 in the morning on the first day of spring … What nitwit thought the countryside was QUIET?

We’ve had part of the wooden veranda out the back of the house removed and a gravel patio put in instead. Reason being, the wooden decking was starting to rot, which was beginning to become dangerous. As it turned out, the steps, the planks, and the supporting beams. I’m a tad annoyed as the whole structure was only built in 2013/14. In hindsight we should have gone for the gravel in the first place. Still, Henry from the village and his workmen have made a super job of the new layout. All we need do now is sort out the adjoining garden area and wait patiently for spring so we can add some pots of geraniums and maybe plant some shrubs. I have three hydrangeas that need a permanent spot.

The work meant that the wild birds had to perch in the trees and grumble for a couple of days, as we had to move their bird table and their hanging fatball and peanut holders. We half expected Our Feathered Friends to start marching up and down carrying placards to demand their free restaurant to be reinstated! They’re happy now though, as all is back in place. The squirrels are not so pleased as they now don’t have a balustrade to run along – that was rotten too. Nor are they happy because now Elfie, our PatterJack, can fly straight down the garden, no longer having to skid round the corner, which gives her a huge squirrel-catching bonus. Evens up their previous advantage of whizzing up a tree!

I like squirrels but they are really vermin, and I buy bird food to feed the birds, not the squirrels! So they are welcome, but NOT on my bird table!

The new layout also means the geese have better access to the flat patio area, so can hoover up all the dropped seed … and the rapidly growing baby peacocks have discovered that fact as well. Yes, I said peacocks. Have I mentioned the peacocks? (Do I want to mention the peacocks – do I want peacocks?)

They – all seven of them – arrived as teeny-tiny unwanted homeless babies early last summer. Kathy has always liked peacocks. (I always said she was a peculiar child *laugh*). There were peacocks at the farm back in Essex where we bought our horse feed from, and quite a few of them roaming free at the livery yard near Waltham Abbey. They were never a nuisance at the yard, apart from when they insisted on perching atop the showjumps, or when a peacock decided to Display at the wrong moment… they look fabulous with their ‘tails’ outspread, but the noise of those feathers shivering can be quite disconcerting to a horse. Oh, and it isn’t a tail! The correct term is ‘train’ and it’s just behind the wings not where you would expect a tail to be.

They’re funny-looking birds, much bigger than you’d think (about the same size as our geese), with long necks and tiny heads, which is what makes them look odd. It’s as if when they were being created God had run out of heads so had to use the only small one that was left over. Their little crowns remind me of fashionable ladies with those miniscule Fascinator hats of ‘sticky-up’ feathers. At the moment, a couple of them look most bedraggled because of the excess mud. It’s also amazing how such large birds manage to fly. I guess, though, unlike the solid geese, the peacocks are mostly all feathers with not much beneath.

Like the geese (and unlike the hens!) they are highly intelligent birds … apart from deciding to roost atop the garage roof on what turned out to be the coldest night of the year. They also enjoy tapping on my office door of an afternoon, peering through the glass at me. I suspect this will cause a challenge come the summer when the door is open and they simply march indoors. On the plus side, we might be able to sell some of the peacock train feathers on eBay!

Our worry was that peacocks are supposedly noisy with their ‘meow-like’ cry. The ones at the livery yard weren’t noisy at all, and a friend of ours has about forty (yes that’s what I said!) of them; so far though, they ‘honk’ similar to the geese, nowhere near as loud and as if they have a muffling sock stuck in their beaks. So noise-wise the geese are a clear winner, the rooster gets second prize, with the peacocks trailing in third.

This month's quote is relevant because husband Ron has Homing Pigeons, although he doesn’t actually race them now. The sound of their wings as the flock flies over is wonderful, but I do have to admit, pigeons are nowhere near as pretty as a peacock. Even if the peacocks are a tad bedraggled-looking at the moment, and their trains are not fully formed.

Don’t forget: My latest book Ghost Encounters of North Devon is now available in paperback and e-book.

I’m still not really sure why we have peacocks though…

The year has started with a lot of worry for a lot of people in a lot of different places, Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and the USA for example. For many of the people I personally know, especially in the US, I worry with them. What will happen in the next few weeks, let alone four years, is concerning. Maybe Mr Trump, second time around, will be the best thing since sliced bread. Or maybe he’ll be toast quite quickly? We wait with held breath and fingers crossed for survival…

While I very rarely get political here in my website's Dispatches, the concern by much of the world for the rest of the world is justifiably valid. Threats (actuality?) of mass deportation tearing family from family, questioning whether a child born in the USA is a citizen or not (according to the Constitution – ‘not’ is false) and de-activating anything to do with climate change and replacing with yet more oil is plain incomprehensible. Along with many of the same mind as me, I cannot understand how others do not accept climate change and global warming. It is scientific fact – except some people do not accept scientific fact, preferring fake news and conspiracy theories over basic common sense. And FACT. Why do they doubt? Why prefer to believe the incomprehensible utter twaddle put about by ignorant unintelligencier? I don’t understand it.

Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and to free speech, but free speech that causes ridicule or harm to others is not a freedom, it’s a morally wrong travesty. Hate speech is not free speech – it’s HATE speech.

There is also nothing wrong with intelligent debate, one opinion sensibly debated against another – but try debating with a conspiracy theorist … no, don’t bother, you’ll get nowhere.

Okay, no one liked wearing masks during Covid – but frankly doing so was far better than getting Covid – or any potentially fatal illness, come to that. I and my family are fortunate, we have not had Covid at all, maybe helped by where we live in the middle of nowhere, but hand washing, sanitiser – and masks – added to the security. Along with the required jabs. I mean they’re free and may have a few temporary side-effects, but again I’d rather feel a tad woozy for twenty-four hours than end up in an ICU. I’m relieved that Ron and I have had our annual ‘Flu jab – and I’ve also had the one that helps protect against Pneumonia and Shingles.

I picked up on Twatter [sic] there’s a small group of ‘puzzling people’ (that’s the politest description I can come up with) who are advocating M.E.G.A - Make England Great Again. (So no, not M.A.G.A – Make America Great Again.) Not a very original slogan, but what do these people mean by it? Basically, I assume, get rid of Mr Starmer and replace him with that awful man Farage. Maybe come the next General Election that will happen (although I sincerely hope not where Reform is concerned), but like Labour or not, the UK is a democracy. The overwhelming majority voted for Labour and in the words of Winston Churchill regarding democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Personally I feel we’d be even worse off had the Tories got in again – they really, really do need to sort themselves out! (For the record, I voted Liberal because our local chap is a local chap and, I felt, was the best person to represent us here in North Devon.)

Make England Great Again? Great compared to when? 1974 and the Three-Day Week? The 1960s when being gay was still illegal? The 1950s years of austerity caused after WWI and WWII? The widespread, dreadful poverty of the Victorian Age? The rape of the ‘Green and pleasant land’ by the Industrial Revolution? The bitterness of the English Civil Wars that continued the bitterness of Tudor Catholic v Protestant torture and deaths? The feuding of the Wars of the Roses, the other Civil War between Stephen and Matilda?

Or are they saying the Norman Conquest and the tyranny of the Normans? Ah! Lightbulb Moment! Maybe they mean pre-1066 when England was for the English!

BUT

King Harold II (he of 1066 fame) was half Danish.

The Anglo-Saxons (the English) came from what we now call Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands – they came by the boatload as illegal immigrants during the 5th & 6th centuries.

Before them came the Romans, from all over the, then, known world.

Before them were the British, who were in fact Celts from somewhere abroad (perhaps Spain or Greece?) Before that… there was a lot of ice, before that, well, England was joined to Europe so there was no England.

I guess we’re talking about the dinosaurs then? Hmm, some of these ‘Free Speech’ Make ‘Wherever’ Great Again probably are dinosaurs living in the past, hoping to find El Dorado - or is that in Mexico? So perhaps not! - or Utopia, an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities.

I’m British, and proud of it. My DNA has shown that my ancestors were here before the Romans, so I’m ‘Celtic’. I am not ‘English’. I was probably there fighting alongside Boudicca…

Sorry to disappoint.

Sir Michael Caine rather sums up a typical English Gent though. "At age eleven, I went to a Jewish school. I speak Yiddish. I'm Church of England Protestant. My father was Catholic, and my mother was Protestant. My wife is a Muslim." Well spoken Sir M.

Do stop worrying; just live your own life day-to-day or, again in the words of Churchill: "K.B.O." (Keep Buggering On)

During December I enjoyed an entire pre-Christmas in Paris. Exploring the various ‘rues’ (streets) puffing up the many, many stairs of the Eiffel Tower – I actually didn’t realise it’s as tall (1,083 feet) as it is, I guess I had our Blackpool Tower in mind (518 feet). Viewers of BBC TV’s Strictly Come Dancing will be familiar with Blackpool, a seaside town on the Lancashire coast. And as an aside, well done Chris McCausley for winning this year. He’s totally blind. Just how he managed ballroom and Latin dances I have no idea, but he’s an inspiration to us all I think.

Back to my trip to Paris: the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower is magnificent! Nor did I know that the local nickname for the tower is La Dame de Fer, or Iron Lady. (Wasn’t that Mrs Thatcher’s nickname as well?)

I’ve also been playing Pétanque, a French version of bowls, the objective being to score points by rolling boules closer to the target (the jack) than an opponent. Good fun, except I’m certain my opponent was cheating half the time.

I had my own gorgeous apartment, decorated with a tree, nice paintings and comfy furniture (with the Eiffel Tower and much of Paris viewable from the windows.) It was snowing outside, of course, it being Christmas, but plenty of indoor games were provided, such as cards and puzzles so no need to go out. I did visit the Moulin Rouge and saw dancers dancing the Can-can. Saw the Arc de Triomphe, paintings at the Louvre, went on a boat ride down the Seine… Oh and there was a resident little Cocker-type dog at the flat, and a cheeky black and white kitten.

There was a rather nice, but busy, café nearby which I went to every day, and various artists to watch along the banks of the Seine. Nice, too, to hear the gorgeous bells of Notre Dame. (Haven’t they made a wonderful restoration job there!)

Had my hair done in La Coiffeur, enjoyed the delights of the Pâtisserie, explored the Metro, went ice skating, and kept my eyes peeled every day for new appearances of Santa. He popped up all over the place!

By now, you’re wondering why I hadn’t mentioned this wonderful adventure to any of my friends and readers, why no photos on Facebook, why all the hush hush secrecy?

Well, because it’s all make believe fiction of course! I HAD been to Paris, exactly as I said, but it was a virtual holiday courtesy of the Jacquie Lawson annual advent calendar. (Those of you who are my friends would have received a JL Christmas Card from me – or should have done!)

I treat myself to the advent calendar every year, not merely because they are good fun, but the animation is incredible. With different things to look for every day, games and ‘events’ to collect, an apartment to decorate and the actual scene itself… the entertainment value is superb.

Last year the theme was an English Edwardian house, my favourite was a few years ago when the theme was Devon. Part of the fun is, every November, wondering what the new theme will be. I’ve a whole year to wait now…

Finally, a smile to share for New Year


Happy New Year to you all.