All the Queens soldiers....

Sunshine and showers this week, "nice weather for ducks" apparently. So, I thought I'd go and feed them.... I love feeding the ducks. I've never seen an animal so chuffed with a bit of bread. Waddling around, smily beaked contented muffled quacks.

Busy Sparrows collecting all the bits others have forgotten about.

The Mallards try and be camouflaged, but have one showy bit just so they can feel 'special' too.

I gave this chap loads of bread because he'd got a poorly wing. He ate tons, he won't be hungry tonight.

You little ba#&$*d!!! Poorly wing! He'd took me for a chump. I'll remember you...cos you look like all the other hundreds of Canada geese. Damn, he'd got away with it.

The Swans were slow to arrive, and after admiring themselves in the wibbly wobbly reflection of the car spot lamps, came over for a snack. They played nicely and took the bread gently. Just as well for such a big bird. All was fine until the bread ran out.....

"WHERE'S MY BREAD?" Legs were pecked, pockets examined, cameras lunged at, and finally....

SWAN ATTACK!! Oww! I left him to it hoping he'd realise his mistake, but no, he was going to chew on this arm until he could pull a chunk off. There was nothing I could do. All the Swans in the UK (if unmarked and on open water) are owned by the Queen. A law dating back to the 12th century meant I would be in big trouble for harming a Swan, you could get 7 years transportation! Hang on, a free 7 year holiday to the Australias, didn't seem so bad....but on the other hand, my arm was beginning to hurt. Ooh! Blood! Well, a tiny bit.

"Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't have got away with it if you didn't know the Queen. "......."Yes, alright I'm going!"

It was probably bedtime anyway.....

Catnip capers.....

The cats are fond of playing 'hide and seek'. I'm not sure if I taught them or they're teaching me. If you would like to play too, here is the recipe for success..... First you need the right apparel. Humans are big compared to cats, so you are at a distinct disadvantage. Camouflage evens up the odds!

Next you need a big bag of drugs. Catnip is the favourite , give it a good rub to make it extra potent. It's a shame this doesn't work on humans, but it leaves cats quite discombobulated.

Finally, you will need a large basket of cats. Any sort will do, and as many as you can find.

Sprinkle liberally with catnip, and stir gently until you hear a loud purr.

Quickly tip your cats out. You may find that some stick to the sides, but these can be coaxed out with further catnip. Allow to settle until the initial frenzy has subsided giving way to a druggie playfulness.

Lucy was intent on bending the rules even though there weren't any, and it was decided that the garage roof was deemed out of bounds.

Max hadn't quite got a handle on the matter of scale and seemed pretty sure that I was hiding in the old chimney pot.

Lenny was ingenious when it came to hiding places but just hadn't got the patience to stay hidden and couldn't resist another peek. He was quickly caught.

After an hour of intense game play, Lucy eventually fell victim to too much catnip and fell asleep in the compost heap.

With Baggy hiding so well nobody ever found her and Lenny being called in for tea, Max was declared the winner by default.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of a small black fluffy kitten with a white nose flash answering to the name of 'Baggy', 'come here', 'dindins' or pretty much anything as long as it's in a friendly voice then please get in touch......

'Lost' stones of Fauld...

For years as I have driven along this road 15miles to the north, these huge white stones have intrigued me. They look so out of place and I have always wondered how they got there.... My investigations led me 3 miles away to this sign. Most English footpath signs point to such places as, 'Dingleberry Bottom' or 'Weston-under-Lizard', you know normal villages with normal names.

This one is different. In fact it's probably the only one in the country....I hope!

Another sign you don't see everyday.

This is the crater left by the biggest unnatural explosion anywhere on Earth until Hiroshima!

At 11.00 am, 27th November 1944, 4000 tons of high explosive blew up. A mushroom cloud 50 yards wide and upwards out of sight, threw out mounds of earth and rock up to a ton in weight and scattered debris for up to 11 miles away. The crater left was 400ft deep, 1/4 mile in diameter and covered an area of 12 acres. Afterwards the surrounding area was covered with a fine dust 4 inches deep, quietening footsteps and creating a moonscape. The blast was heard in London and recorded in Geneva as an earthquake.

Below these hills was a gypsum (a white rock used for making plaster) mine, which was being used as an arms dump. A vast amount of high explosive were stored as the build up to the Normandy invasion. As well as being a dump, bombs were repaired here. Returning bomber aircraft would drop any remaining bombs into soft marshland, they would be recovered and fixed at this site. It is thought that it was while work was being done on one of these, coupled that many of the bombs were stored ready armed ready for use that the tragedy happened. 70 lives were lost, 18 bodies were never recovered. Upper Castle Hayes farm, with all its buildings, wagons, cattle and people completely disappeared.

Thankfully, there wasn't a sympathetic explosion and the majority of the dump didn't explode, but even so buildings many miles away were damaged and the top of Fauld hill was removed from the skyline. The countryside was littered with live ordnance, Mills bombs, land mines, anti-personnel, detonators and 4000lb bombs. Rescues in the mine took 3 months due to pockets of gas, 10,000 tons of rubble and 6 million gallons of water from the nearby reservoir. One search party reported finding a cow standing in a field, twice its normal size, bloated with air from the shock wave. They tried to put it out of its misery by shooting it, but it failed to fall. On closer inspection it was found to be already dead, the angle of its legs holding it in the upright.

For many years the truth of what had happened here was not disclosed. Kids used to play in the bomb hole, rolling rocks down its steep sides. It was not until recently that the area was fenced off and signs erected. In 1974 it was revealed that the explosion was caused by "bombs being taken out of store- primed for use and replaced unused, with detonators still installed." There is some speculation that it was actually caused by the impact of a German V-2 rocket. Parts of a fin similar to that on the V-2 were found. The V-2 rocket entered service in January 1944, it was the worlds first ballistic missile reaching a height of 55 miles before returning at supersonic speed and impacting at 1,780mph. The theory says that this is why there wasn't a 'sympathetic' explosion, as most of the stored bombs were displaced from the mine before they exploded. Many of the successful V-2 attacks were kept secret by the goverment in order to not demoralise the population or allow the Germans to calibrate their aim.

In the fields around the site are many of these war time buildings. They seem to be old shafts, now capped, many of them with signs of large calibre gun emplacements.

It is apparent that these mine workings are still in use and are quite extensive. I found this ventilation shaft relating to it some 2.5 miles away.

I couldn't quite see in, even using the camera held up high. A small pebble dropped in revealed an almost bottomless pit! Who knows what secrets it hides....

See things in a different light......

You may know that as well as seeing in normal light, most digital cameras can see far more... In fact they can see well into the infra red band of the spectrum, and this is where the fun begins. In order for the camera to pick up the infra red you have to filter out the rest of the visible spectrum. You can buy infra red pass filters but they're rather expensive. Here is a cheaper way...

First see if your camera can see infra red. To do this, switch it on and point a TV remote at the lens, press and hold one of the remote buttons. You won't be able to see the light, but if your camera can then your half way there. Next, sort out your old photos, or more exactly the negatives, remember those, before all this electrickery gadgetry digital malarky? Now, what you're looking for is the bits at the end of the negatives, the spare bit that has no image on it but has been exposed and developed. It should appear dark reddy brown. Transparent bits are no good.

You need enough of this stuff to cover the lens, and you need three to four layers. Clip them together or tape them at the edges and then attach them to the lens in such a way that no light can get in around the edges (you'll have to figure this bit out by yourself).

I used a camcorder for these photos, which are better suited for this because they are biased towards being able to film in low light etc, while digital stills cameras specialise in good depth of colour and so often filter infra red out in order to maintain a correct colour balance. To combat this, either take your camera apart and remove the cyan correction filter (only do this if you have an old camera that you don't mind ruining, as inevitably you are left with a matchbox full of spare bits that no longer want to go back....all modern cameras are assembled by minute elves, this is the only way to make them so small), or set to 'low light' / 'night shot' etc.

Eyes look spooky under infra red vision!

Best results are achieved on a bright sunny day. It won't work when it's dull, cos there's barely enough light for the camera to operate with. You may need to manually adjust the focus as well.

If anyone has any success with this I would love to see you post the results.

Many insects and particularly bees can detect infra red, this is why they are sometimes attracted to what at first glance seems like a rather plain flower, but under infra red often display patterns you wouldn't know were there.

Open water shows up inky black. Use a polarising filter (if your camera can cope with even less light!) and you will be able to cut the reflection and film fish which shine brightly!

Some car windows have special layers on them to block sunlight and they show up opaque black.

Finally, a warning... Humans reflect infra red and so show up light. Some types of clothes don't reflect infra red so appear invisible. In some circumstances your camera will work like X-ray specs!!! Might seem to good to be true, but BEWARE..When Great Aunt Flo comes to visit wearing her new light summer dress you could see a sight that no mere mortal was meant to see........my eyes!!!

The Ups and Downs of Derbyshire....

With all the recent flooding, I decided that perhaps somewhere high up might be more suitable for a day trip. The Derbyshire Dales seemed the ideal choice. We headed for the Peak District National park about 40 miles north. Great roads on the way up which zig zag through the countryside. We arrived at the village of Wetton, high up above the Dove Dale valley. Parking was complicated by a stubborn chicken that kept on insisting on running into the space every time I made a move, it was eventually lured away with a piece of pork pie. We decided to head towards Thors cave. There was a footpath but as always we wandered off as the next field always seems more interesting. It wasn't long until we found ourselves in the middle of a field of what we hoped were friendly cows. One cow was particularly curious, and came over. She was a gentle chap/ chappess and so we distracted her with an apple so that we wouldn't be followed down the steep slope.

We could see the headland of Thors cave in the distance and making our way over to it managed to rejoin the path.

The cave entrance is sloped and you have to scrabble to get in. It's not the deepest of caves, but we came prepared with head torches so that we could explore. We managed to get to the far back, and even with torches it was difficult to see your footing. It was cold, windy and a little bit creepy as this was the site of a Bronze age burial.

Back in the light we took some photos. I briefly considered taking this alternative exit until I looked down and realised how the ground dropped away abruptly.

Our boots were now wet which made the way out quite perilous. The slope wasn't that steep but it had been worn smooth by thousands of feet over the years, and beyond the slope was a very steep drop that I was keen to avoid!

It didn't help that all the handholds were worn smooth too.

This photo was taken halfway down to the valley floor where there was a natural break in the Hazel coppices and you could glimpse a view of the cave above. It seems hard to believe that this headland was formed under a warm shallow sea somewhere south of the equator.

We made it down onto the path in the Manifold valley. The path is actually the old route of the Leek and Manifold Light railway which used to bring tourists to the region in Victorian days. The River Manifold runs alongside the path and curiously disappears below ground in certain stretches only to magically reappear further on.

The path was OK but a little too easy and anyhow we needed to get back and it wasn't heading the right way. There was an enticing hillside to our right and it didn't look too steep, we thought we'd give it a go. The plan was to get to the top, walk along the ridge and circle round to the village. It started off as a gentle slope but soon we were climbing on all fours!...

I began to think we might have underestimated things a bit when the birds of prey we had seen wheeling overhead were now alongside. The hillside got more and more vertical, but "just keep three points of contact and I'll be fine" I kept telling myself. Quickly I snatched a pic of the bird alongside me and then, I looked down... Suddenly I felt the need to have four points of contact and stopped moving. Frozen there for a while I eventually decided that I was more up than down and had better just get on with it.

It got really windy as we approached the top, which made me dig my fingernails in all the more. I was soooo glad to be at the top looking down on the Falcons, or Kites (never did figure out which they were).

The view of Thors cave from the top was spectacular. Most of the hard slogging done, it was a relatively easy walk back to the car. The chicken was being called in for its tea from the neighbouring farmhouse, that sounded like a good idea so we headed off....

Scamp by name, scamp by nature....

I'd arrive home late at night, pausing for a while listening to something on 'Talk' radio often I would hear a plaintiff little (((meooww))). Scamp had seen the car and had come across the gardens from where he lived to say hello. When I opened the door he'd hop on in, have a bit of an explore and a fuss, before settling down on the rear parcel shelf to have a wash.

I always felt obliged to stay a while as he'd made the effort to come and see me even if it was raining or cold. One day he stopped coming....

I later heard from his owner that he'd turned up late one evening with most of his tail missing and minus one leg! The vet had found teeth marks on the bone. Scamp had had a terrible time and was lucky to be alive. His owner thought he might not make a full recovery and wouldn't be able to be let out again. Months past and I didn't see Scamp....

Today there was a ginger and white ball of fluff up by the cold frame, it was Scamps favourite spot, he could keep an eye on the bird table and any arrivals by car from this lookout. As I approached, a cat skulked in the bushes, nervous at my advance. I called his name, a pause, a quick shake and then an athletic leap onto the lawn. Only three legs and no tail wasn't going to hold Scamp back as he bounded down the lawn. He was his good old self, smarming around and rolling over wanting his tummy tickled. Welcome back Scamp, always fluffy in the face of adversity....