CASUALTIES OF WAR

One of the more unfortunate casualties of the recent incursion into our home of our tiny interloper and our subsequent declaration of war against the little blighter, and after which we did the - admittedly long, long overdue - de-clutter and chucking out of the rubbish and "contaminated" stuff, was my mother's last birthday card to me, written in a very shaky hand during the summer of 2013, in which she took a moment to thank me for everything I'd done (Which is, incidentally, to my eyes at least, not very much at all, but there you are).

In the normal, everyday world, of course, this sort of thing would have been chucked out long ago, but with my tendency to over-sentimentalise things and just pile them up to be dealt with later, a dusty pile of old birthday cards can occasionally gain an undue importance in the great scheme of things as they sit there, unremembered and not bing thought about until long after they ought to.

After all, these things are just "stuff" after all, and the real thought mattered when it mattered and it's the memories that really count, don't you think, and not the bits and pieces surrounding them…?

Of course, it was those very bits and pieces that made me think about it that afternoon, of course, and the wrenching sense of guilt as that particular card joined all the others in the black bin bag will stay with me a while, I suspect, along with my wonder that our councils insist upon us using such bags even though they rip and tear for the simplest of reasons.

I looked at the pile of bags that our suddenly very necessary clear out had created and wondered whether the bin men would take any or all of them, given that we might have exceeded our fortnightly "quota"…? I had, of course, miscalculated which collection week it was the previous week and accumulated more outside already than were strictly necessary, but our post-apocalyptic cleansing seemed to have created some kind of a mountain of the blessed things. I suspected that I might just be making a trip to the tip the following weekend when I ought really to be attacking phase two of that very same clear out.

The "mum" thing was a very poignant moment, however, and, along with some of the other "precious things" that had to be discarded as "casualties" our our own private little war, it did serve to remind me that having stuff brings with it the responsibility of looking after that stuff, otherwise things like this will continue to happen. I already suspect that my precious collection of old comics that languish in an as-yet unreachable dark corner of the attic will no doubt already be lost to the unseen marauders, which will cut me to the very quick given that some of that was being "sort of" counted upon for my retirement fund.

Meanwhile, I've noticed that, instead of it getting easier, it's felt far, far tougher this Christmas than last to be completely without parents as I now am. Somehow, I suppose, I'd rather expected last Christmas to be tough, and so it proved less tough than I imagined it would be, but with time being allegedly such a great healer, and this being another year on, I think that I had come to believe that it would be a breeze, so, rather naturally, it turns out not to be.

This year, however, I suddenly find myself looking around for my little rituals and routines and finding that they're simply not there and, whilst I was never the biggest fan of the season, I'm finding that I really am starting to miss all of those daft little annoyances which both got in the way of and contributed to yet another disappointing Festive Season for me.

Hang on to your memories, my friends, because sometimes they're all that you're left with.

S.U.R.A. II

T'was three weeks before Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Except for...

Last Saturday didn't start particularly well for our interloper, or at least one of our interlopers, if we get really unlucky.

Basically, and not to elaborate too much for anyone just contemplating their breakfast, the Snap Trap I put down did it's job, ("AutumnWatch fans, look away now...), and the creature was found bereft of life and needing disposing of, which is not a job for the squeamish, I can tell you.

The Beloved did it... I held the (double) bags open to receive the body.

Somehow it looked simultaneously both more and less harmless in this state, and, whilst we felt terribly guilty and bringing it to this end, we knew that we'd given it the humane trap option (which it had declined), and put enough deterrents down to persuade it to move out, but it had stuck around and, to be frank, knowing its fate is a lot better than merely wondering whether it's gone.

Anyway, after that start, for us the rest of the weekend was spent in a cleaning and de-cluttering frenzy as we set about scrubbing down anywhere where we thought that its grubby little paws might have touched whilst simultaneously being on the alert for any manifestations from any of its cousins and putting that ghastly expanding foam into anywhere we thought might have been an access point.

We hope they don't find that stuff to be tasty at all, although I suspect that it's lethal, given that I spent much of the weekend masked and gloved like I was in an episode of "The X-Files".

(Kids - "The X-Files" was a long-ago TV series about investigating paranormal activity, UFOs and such, and there were often chaps in Haz-Med suits about dealing with their fictional interlopers. It was pretty good, at least for the first few years, and then - as you'll find with most things as you get older - then got a little disappointing and rather outstayed its welcome.)

Honestly, talk about over-reacting, but I suspect that there are medical professionals dealing with those awful outbreaks of disease in Africa who are less well protected than we were last weekend. (Bet I still manage to come down with something lurgy-like, though...)

Some discoveries were alarming, to say the least.

Inside the fireplace we thought we'd found one of its hidey-holes, and we duly swept it all up, despite most of it being debris that had cascaded down the chimney for what is very probably several years now.

The worst though was when we started moving the cookery books from the lower shelf in the alcove and discovered just where it had hoarded all of the grain it had removed from that microwaveable grain hot water bottle that it had emptied.

To be honest, you do have to admire the tenacity of the wee timorous beastie if it shifted that much of the stuff a mouthful at a time, whilst simultaneously being utterly appalled by the amount of time that it must have had to do it without us even noticing, and also, you really can't help wondering whether it did it alone...

Meanwhile, it had also, perhaps ironically, nibbled at several of the cookbooks, whilst taking a particular shine to Nigella, which should probably tell us all something significant, I suppose, especially as all nibbled books went straight into the bin bags with little in the way of regret - even though, if the circumstances were different, they'd still be much-treasured volumes I'm sure.

Sadly, after a weekend filling more bin bags than the bin men will reasonably remove, I wish that I could say that there haven't, as yet, been any more sightings, but we remain on jittery alert, waiting for this saga of horror to continue, and finding droppings in unlikely places to suggest that it's far from being over...

There are less than two weeks to go until Christmas, and still we can't even begin to give any thought towards that...

S.U.R.A.

I'd had my suspicions for a while, of course. There'd been those troubling things that resembled nibble marks on the apple that I'd unwisely left overnight in my lunch coolbag, along with the similarly shaped hole in the uneaten brunch bar packaging, and that weirdly stale pack of crisps, but I didn't know for sure until I was on the phone to an old friend who had unwittingly interrupted "2001: A Space Odyssey" and saw something flit across the floor between the TV stand and the large storage box in the centre of the room.

Was it, perhaps (I hoped) just a very large spider...? Now, when that's the option that you're hoping for, then you really know that you've got a problem.

But really, I already knew... and, whilst the rest of the telephone conversation passed by in a bit of a blur, and the film was destined to remain unwatched beyond the imminent unnecessary repair of the AD35 Unit, my first priority was to explain my suspicions to my Beloved and wait for the inevitable fallout.

"Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam… I S.U.R.A…"

Then, with as much calmness and rationality as we could muster (which wasn't much...) we started moving the furniture and the clutter around and discovered yet more evidence all but confirming those suspicions, as the contents of one of those microwaveable grain based heat packs was scattered around in various parts of the room.

We beat a hasty retreat, and then spent a sleepless night thinking that they were everywhere. It's amazing, really, how something so very tiny can assume such vast proportions in the mind. There might, hopefully, only be one of the creatures about, but in my head, the entire house is now just like that scene set in the sewers in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", every cupboard door being opened resembles the roof panel being lifted in "Aliens", and when I get downstairs in the morning, I expect to have them collapse on top of me like a mountain of Tribbles when I open the door.

Even opening up a packet of biscuits makes me think of "Fawlty Towers" (...and you KNOW which episode I mean...!), every shadow, every noise, every movement noticed out of the corner of my eye makes me think that there might be something unexpectedly about to leap out at me, and it is, quite frankly, disturbing to think that I can be so easily disconcerted to this degree.

The next day we called in at the DIY store and bought what we hoped were some "humane" options, because we're nothing if not wet liberals until you scratch our surfaces, and so, later on that evening, the little trapdoor boxes were set out, and the sonic devices plugged into the sockets, and, on the advice of several of the Beloved's colleagues (a surprising number of whom had had similar experiences), various other techniques were applied so that the house currently positively reeks of peppermint oil, which is, incidentally, far preferable to the slight smell of damp straw that my subconscious is now conjuring up everywhere.

We didn't get an actual sighting for another 24 hours, when a documentary we were watching about alien infiltration in science fiction got interrupted by my Beloved spotting a movement across the fireplace towards the bookshelves.

Getting myself suitably gloved up, I tentatively ventured into the corner, shifting all manner of furniture and television equipment in order to do so, and, moving book after book, I finally came face-to-face with the beastie myself, so that I can now confidently identify it as being of the Long-tailed Field persuasion.

I thought that I had it trapped, slamming book after book towards the back of the shelf to restrict its area of operations, but, sadly, when I removed the final volumes, this tiny magician had vanished, and there was nothing to be found other than the vast hole in the masonry from when the workmen fitting the boiler before last had re-routed the gas main.

That we immediately covered with as many bits of stone and rock as we could easily lay our hands upon, with plans already in hand to return to the DIY store and immure the lot with whatever ready-mix concrete-y stuff and massively toxic expanding foam I could get my hands on and hopefully easily handle, then we vacuumed and swept up whatever debris we could and pretty much abandoned the living room once again.

I then, of course, freaked myself out totally by going onto the internet and reading about the horrors and diseases associated with this sort of situation, before making it worse by reading about their breeding habits. I'm now so very freaked out by this, in fact, that for a week I've hardly slept and barely eaten, and, despite the fact that it does appear to be restricted to one room, I'm convinced that the little devils are scurrying about everywhere and all of the time.

There's also the massive sense of shame that we've allowed our lives to come to this, which is going to be very difficult to shake off...

I'm even prepared to freeze a little by not turning up the thermostat despite the cold snap, thinking that it might pack up and go off in search of somewhere far cosier.

Then, everything went quiet, and we had no sightings for about four days, possibly because we were heading to bed and hiding under the duvet at about seven o'clock in the evening due to abject terror. We started to relax a little, thinking maybe that shutting off that hole had driven it elsewhere and it wasn't until we got home later on Friday evening, having finally managed to get ourselves to the DIY store and get the equipment we needed for a weekend of cleaning, sealing and reclaiming our home from the intruder, that we saw it again.

And so, knowing that this way lies madness or, at the very least, a phobia or three, we've decided that it's time for us to stop playing Mr and Miss Nice Guy and get seriously mechanical and old school on its furry little backside, despite the fact that we might have to rescind our "AutumnWatch" credentials.

Of course, you realise, this means war...

DUCKS

I failed to come up with anything to write about today, so instead, here’s  a picture of some ducks...

SOMETHING FISHY

I’ve been to any number of public aquariums in my time from the “Blue Planet” in North Wales and the rather special basement of the California Academy of Sciences, to a rather intimate little place on Anglesey, but my favourite, by far, is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, possibly because it was the very first “proper” one I ever went to.

It was suggested as a possible place to visit by the mother of a friend of mine, the much-missed Nancy, when we travelled together for a while back in ’96. To be honest, at first, I wasn’t all that convinced because, first of all, I’d never really heard of it and I had lots of other parts of America which I was keen to explore as that was my first ever trip there, and it also felt a little like I would be spending rather too long indoors. I also wasn’t all that interested in “wildlife” back then, either, but I went along with the suggestion anyway. After all, it wasn’t just my “holiday” was it...? And Nancy and her husband had been terribly welcoming to this young stranger arriving upon their doorstep and had looked after me rather well, so it would have been churlish to refuse that one request to alter my itinerary, such as it was.

The visit was primarily to see the advertised big new viewing window which was due to open that year but, unfortunately, we had arrived weeks too early for that which was a bit of a shame, but even so, I was rather “blown away” by the place anyway and I can honestly say that the seeds that were sown on that day led to me becoming far, far more interested in the impressive antics and sights of the natural world in later years, so I will always be grateful for that, and, if I am in the area, it’s always top of my list of things to go and see.

I didn’t get many pictures on that first visit, just the very blurry front half of some kind of a shark and a shimmering blur of the anchovies that swim in a huge cylindrical display tank that sits in the middle of a hallway, but it was enough to remind me of a happy day well spent.

This year, however, we came armed with all of our latest camera equipment having joined the digital age during the more than half a decade since our last visit and, whilst I’m still far too impatient to be bothered with all that “settings” nonsense and consequently still get far more pictures of blurs set on a blue background, between us we got a few rather good shots, even though I had to spend far, far too much time next to the largest picture window failing utterly to get my much-desired “good” picture of a shark and somehow managed to fail to successfully record the rather cuddly sea otters at play as well.

But the Monterey Bay Aquarium remains a hugely inspiring place to spend half a day or more even if you’re not particularly taken with looking at sea life. The many viewing windows are vast and impressive, as are the huge display tanks, and, as an opportunity to see some of the natural wonders of our planet that you would otherwise never get to see, or just to watch someone in a wetsuit feeding some fish, it really can’t be beaten. The work that they do in promoting the problems of the sea life of the bay and wider ocean and in helping to conserve it is all rather wonderful too, and, all-in-all, despite the fact that you might want to dismiss them as being a “zoo”, I think that you’d have to list them as being amongst the “good guys” of life.

As an aside, the Monterey Bay Aquarium also doubled as the “Cetacean Institute” in 1986’s “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” which is possibly why the railings in the outside areas which overlook the bay always seem so very familiar to me, but that, crucially, really is not the reason that I first allowed myself to be persuaded to go there, honest...!

Anyway, if you are at all interested (and why wouldn’t you be...?), here’s a link to their live webcams which I hope that you’ll enjoy. Don’t forget that they are eight hours behind UK time, so it might still be the middle of the night over there when the sun is shining over here (some hope!), but there are definitely live fish feeds about 10.30 in the morning and 2.30 in the afternoon local time, which are always a lot of fun.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/cam_menu.aspx

MARTIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

Okay, before we start, I’d just like to say that they’re not really “Chipmunks” at all, and I’m fully aware of this. In fact, they’re “Californian Ground Squirrels” but “Martin and the Californian Ground Squirrels” just really didn’t have the same snappy ring to it. Anyway, all of the other people around us were, in our general ignorance, calling them “Chipmunks” too, so, until I got home and had access to such things as Search Engines once more, “Chipmunks” they remained.

At least in my head.

When I’m on holiday these days, I like to go and photograph, in my own inept way, as much of the local bird life as I possibly can. This started when we began to encourage the wee feathered beasties into our garden, continued as we began to visit nature reserves and bird sanctuaries a few years ago, and became a habit when we specifically went on a “bird-watching” trip on the Nile a couple of years ago.

Nowadays it’s probably the bird-life that makes up the second-most bulk of the vast quantities of photographs we return from any trip with, after any impressive pieces of architecture that happen to catch our fancies and then get the living daylights snapped out of them.

Anyway, as I clambered over various coastal rock formations in my attempts to get my inadequate telephoto equipment close enough to the birds to get a half-decent snapshot, we became more than a little aware of these rather cute, furry creatures that kept on coming up ever so closely to us, presumably begging for food.

They seemed awfully tame but, as their cousins are back home, I was pretty sure the locals regarded them as total pests. Nevertheless, they were an example of local wildlife and we thought that we might not get another opportunity to see them again, so we snap-shooted the Bejesus out of them and went back to our bird-watching.

A couple of hours later, we pulled up at a large car park at a “Vista Point” because I was screaming to use a loo after bolting down far too many free refills of the coffee at our diner of choice that day on top of a bucket of O.J.

Oblivious to my surroundings, I gratefully dashed off to the “Public Restrooms” (sorry if this is all getting too graphic…), and, as I walked back feeling much relieved, I noticed that we had stopped at “Bird Rock” and, just across a narrow stretch of water there were hundreds of Cormorants, although it rapidly became apparent that “Bird Rock” was mostly occupied by a vast quantity of Seals and Sea-lions all packed together like a Hieronymous Bosch depiction of hell.

The endless honking should, of course, have alerted me to this.

Watching the watchers

Anyway, as this was a “Vista Point”, a coach-load of tourists from Japan had pulled up and were busily using the pay telescopes to view this rather impressive wildlife scene and, as I approached them, it became apparent that there were also many more of the little furry “Californian Ground Squirrels” running about, only this lot were as tame and as fearless as they come, presumably after having been fed by countless other coach-loads of tourists and others over many years.

Anyway, this lot were so comfortable with human beings that they would let you get within inches of them and not run away which, to someone like me, aspiring to take the occasional half-decent wildlife shot, was too good an opportunity to miss.

(I bet the little furry harlots pose for everyone else, too, but I was still rather impressed with these cute little bundles of fur anyway…)