Forget Me Not

Since Anthea's death in 2001 we have sent donations to Leukaemia Research in her name, many of you have kindly donated refunds or added a little extra to your subscription and we pass all of these onto LRF to help their vital research work. In their most recent communication LRF mentioned Forget Me Not Funds as a lasting tribute. It seemed very fitting that Anthea should have fund of her own and so we created the Anthea Carson Forget Me Not Fund, all donations made to date have been transferred to the new fund which has an opening balance of almost £1200. We will continue to send your donations to LRF but now direct to Anthea's fund, you can send your donations direct to the fund, please make sure you mention Anthea. If you donate direct to LRF (and are eligible) you can giftaid it thereby increasing your donation by 28p in every £1. There is a form on our website which you can complete and send to LRF, Click here.

British Tigers

And no we're not talking rugby (although we will if you want, how do you think Tigers will fare against Bristol tomorrow then? and what about the Lions selections?)
This is a countryside site so we're actually talking about the Scottish wildcat which is the focus of our fascinating feature article this week. With the horrifying thought that there could be as few as 400 pure bred wildcats left making them rare than the bengal tiger. Click on the logo to visit the site and find out more.
CJS Weekly is now printing and post allowing will be with you on Monday, the digital copies are already online so log on to check the latest vacancies of which there are 87, 53 of which came direct to CJS. this edition is 12 pages long.
The windows are progressing well, scaffold down on Monday and then the downstairs ones go in. The dogs are still on tenter paws and watching every move, it's good job they've not learnt to climb ladders, although it won't be long before Hebe figures them out!
Enjoy the sunshine whilst it lasts.

Crash, bang, wallop...

Apologies for the noises off when you phone us. The builders moved in today and are putting in new windows, thankfully not in the office but across the front of the building. Lots of new windows means it may take a while.
The office dogs are wearing themselves out, watching everything with great interest and a little anxiety about all the extra people coming and going and being gun dogs are sitting at point waiting to be sent to retrieve whatever was felled by the last big bang. I don't think they'll need much exercise this evening!

End of another week

It's been really quite quiet this week, only to be expected after the Bank Holiday but somehow not being busy makes it feel like a long week. Well, thank Crunchie it's Friday and the presses are now rolling with CJS Weekly, a quiet week leads to a short edition, only nine pages this week with 60 new paid posts. This edition also includes the May Training Calendar which is four pages of professional events and courses. There's also news from Durrell (home of CJ). Our latest new recruit is settling in well and is already picking up the CJS peculiarities.

Foggy weather

It's been misty on and off for days, yesterday evening the fog (yes, proper fog the seriously thick, visibility down to feet type of stuff) rolled in. This morning you could only just see across the road and it's not lifted all day. It's brought with it dank and dismal conditions, so much so we've actually relit the wood burner for the first time since mid-March.

Good heavens

It's Easter (or Eostre if you prefer) already. Where is the year going? Well Easter or not we're still here bashing out your copies of CJS. The big printer is still not mended, "we've not seen that before", they said! The engineers are talking to their next up who's talking to the manufacturers. Someone will contact us early next week to let us know the next step - I think it's new machinery time but that why we lease and don't buy so it's their problem and not ours (except for not being to print colour properly so we have to use the other smaller printers and it takes for ever).
In the mean time this week's edition is (fortunately) all in black and white and is even now falling off the printers, it's 12 pages this week containing 88 new paid posts, 57 of which came direct to CJS. The digital version will shortly be online and the paper editions will be collected by Royal Mail tomorrow for delivery on Tuesday (Monday being a Bank Holiday).
First swallow in the village has been sighted by AW's father-in-law this morning. The field in front of the office has had ewes for a few days, this morning the first lambs were born, spring is here and summer is just around the corner (yes, we know one swallow does not a summer make).
Have a good Easter, we'll be here on Monday and there are a few jobs booked for the website.

BBC - oops

You really would think that the BBC Countryfile would know better, and that they would double check before their relaunch in the new prestigious time slot (Sunday evening for those of you who haven't caught it yet). The second episode has coverage from our neck of the woods or rather moors and was trailed at the end of the last show on Sunday, complete with footage of Berwick upon Tweed.... er what??

They leapt from this lovely view of Whitby harbour and Abbey to this one of Berwick.

Never mind, don't forget to switch on next Sunday to see the real area!

CJS Monthly

It's not Friday the Thirteenth is it?
This morning the broadband disappeared (it reappeared later after kicking lots of different bits of equipment and several cups of coffee) and then one of the colour printers broke down - it's only just been serviced! So as a result the Monthly publication is still printing - in bits on the older slower printers, we've got our fingers crossed it will be finished in time to get it in the envelopes and out in the post tonight. This month there are five pages of hard copy and an additional seven online for the events diary.
The digital version is already online, click here to read it.
But the sun in shining and although it wasn't quite warm enough to eat out at lunch time it soon will be and the building is covered in scaffolding in preparation for some new windows after Easter, more on those another time.

Photography

Any budding photographers out there?
If you've any photos of British wildlife you might like to enter them into a new competition, you could win up to £5,000 and see your work exhibited around the country. We're sponsoring the Habitat category of the British Wildlife Photography Awards, other categories are sponsored by organisations such as WWF and Natural England. The Wildlife Trusts, National Trust and National Trust for Scotland are also supporting the awards which were launched on Wednesday. Click on the link for more info.
After the excitement of the reappearance of the Owl and arrival of a noctule bat the wildlife spotting died down a bit but the first tortoiseshell butterfly was seen yesterday and the first swallows int he area have been reported in the local paper.
But on to more mundane things, like CJS Weekly. Which is now rolling off the printers, 11 pages this week with a monster 186 new paid posts, of which 126 were sent direct to CJS, there are also a couple of pages of voluntary posts. Don't forget that although next week is Easter CJS rumbles on as usual so digital copies will be available on Friday but paper editions will be a day or two late (thanks Royal Mail).

Return of our owl

This morning the blackbirds were kicking up a louder than usual yammering. A quick glance up at the telephone wires, and yes there she was. Our tawny owl was back. We've heard the owls hooting virtually every day for the last couple of weeks and they have been very active in the evenings but this is the first re-appearance of 'our daytime owl'. And very welcome she was too (we assume she's a female because of the size).
Add to that yesterday evening a big bat was heard patrolling the vicinity, the bat detector came out and at around 22mhtz we heard the squelch of a noctule. this adds to the pipistrelle we detected a few weeks ago.
So all the nighttime beasties had better be aware, the predators are out and active.