Chaffinch

 I was standing talking to BiL in his back garden recently when a bird started shouting loudly from one of the shrubs. It flew out so I could see it was a chaffinch which made me realise how rarely they are seen now. I've never seen any on the feeders here. BiL's garden backs onto fields and although he only feeds birds with sunflower seed hearts he gets more variety on the feeder than I do here.

In the book 'An Illustrated Country Year' by Celia Lewis it says they are common and they are common in many parts of the country. I remember them hopping around the table when we were having coffee and cake outside at a café in Cornwall or Devon many years ago, like sparrows would have done in Suffolk, now sparrows and chaffinches are both harder to spot .

Then by a weird coincidence at Bank Holiday Sunday's car-boot sale I spotted this and picked it up to look at the base and yes it was another Beswick bird, question was, was the lady selling a dealer and would want a few £ or just someone clearing out? So I asked how much and when she said 50p it had to be bought!

Oh dear, I did say there would be no more but I now have 3 Beswick birds, that's almost a collection. The Wren and Blue tit will come out of the box for spring and the Chaffinch will be for Summer, that way they won't be dust collectors and I won't get fed up with them.

June on the bookshelf looks like this..........

The piece of Poole pottery shaped like a buoy (it's a small bell) was found in a Charity shop in Ipswich in 2022 , it hasn't been out on display before because it got wrapped up and tucked in a corner of the box that I keep all the bits in and kept getting missed . I had a sort out a few weeks ago and found it. About time it was out of the box!

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A Very Rare Film Review

 Not a rare film, but a rare review as I hadn't been to the cinema for ages. I discovered the Regal in Stowmarket were having a morning showing of 'The Salt Path' yesterday. All the other times were afternoons and evenings (watching tennis times!)

As most people reading this will already know the film is based on the book Raynor Winn wrote about the 600 mile walk  on the South West Coast Path that she and her husband Moth did after losing their home and their money and at the same time Moth's diagnosis with a rare brain disease - Corticobasal Degeneration.

They had invested money in a friends business and when the business failed leaving huge debts they were taken to court by their friend, battled for 3 years but eventually losing and had to forfeit their home which was a B&B business in Wales and all their money. They decided that the only way to cope was to pack a few belongings, tent and sleeping bags and to start walking.

Walking seemed to help with Moth's condition despite the extremes of weather they encountered on the way. Luckily a friend offered them accommodation of a shed for the winter in return for turning the shed into a holiday let.

The film starring Gillian Anderson as Raynor and Jason Issacs as Moth has gorgeous views of the wild lands, wildlife and coasts of that part of Great Britain, which for me was one of the best parts.

Their walk was in 2013 and the book published in 2019, which was when I read it and was soon a best seller. The film wasn't as tear jerky as I thought it was going to be thank goodness and  there were only 4 other people in the audience.

12 years on from his diagnosis Moth is still alive and Raynor is still walking and writing. Since the first book there have been two more, The Wild Silence and Landlines and another due to be published in October.

Raynor Winn is not the first person to write about this walk - I read "Five Hundred Mile Walkies" by Mark Wallington way back in the late 1980's.

June Country Days on the 2nd of the Month

June - my favourite month of the year, meteorologically the start of summer (or  wait to the 21st for the astronomical start)

It is thought that June is named after the goddess Juno or possibly from Iuniores which was the lower level of the legislature in the constitution of ancient Rome.

Calm weather in June, sets the farmer in tune

 The weather pattern for June often alternates between spells of stormy weather and shorter periods of dry calm. The farmers prefer calm and warm with night-time dew to speed up crop growth and statistically June is England's sunniest month.

 

Summer Moon Walk . An Illustration by Angela Harding from her  book 'A Year Unfolding'

Other people in the past have also enjoyed June and written poems

 

Christina Rossetti said in her poem                    Summer

If the year would stand

Still at June for ever,

With no further growth on land

Nor further flow of river.

If all nights were shortest nights

And longest days were all seven,

This might be a merrier world

To my mind to live in.

JUNE 

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine

  The Month of Marriages!  All pleasant sights

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

  The foliage of the valleys and the heights.

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

  The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;

I am the mother of all dear delights;

  I am the fairest daughter of the year.

From 'The Poets Calendar' By Longfellow 

And another written for children by Irene F Pawsey

Month of leaves,
Month of roses;
Gardens full
Of dainty posies;
Skies of blue,
Hedgerows gay,
Meadows sweet
With the new mown hay.

Flowery banks,
A-drone with bees,
Dreaming cattle
Under trees:
Song-birds pipe
A merry tune—
This is summer,
This is June.

And way, way back in 1557 Thomas Tusser said in his Five hundred points of good husbandry

In June get thy wedehoke, they knife and thy glove,

And wede out such wede as the corn doth not love;

Slack no time weding, for darth nor for cheape;

Thy corn shall reward it, or ever thou reap.

I think this means - keep weeding that garden!

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Sue