Merlin on the moors

Today I've been down to Groves Bank (old CJS Office) to retrieve some bits out of the archive (Niall's deep litter filing system - works very well, he found the relevant pieces of paper remarkably quickly). The roads across the moors are madness, full of dawdling holiday makers it's only four miles but took over half an hour! Just to remind us not to grumble about visitors enjoying what we have all year long on the way down there flying alongside the car was a beautiful adult female merlin, she kept pace with us (at 30mph-ish) for a short distance then lifted up and over the car before flying ahead of us and dropping down into a disused quarry.
Some days are just magic.
(Picture from RSPB, click on it for more about merlins)

2000 jobs!

Since January 2009 CJS Weekly has carried adverts for over 2000 new, not previously advertised, paid UK countryside, conservation jobs. Not forgetting the voluntary and training opportunities too! Monday's edition is already online and will soon be printed ready for mailing. This week it's 10 pages with 79 new paid posts, 51 of which came direct to CJS.
The local Royal Mail offices are being reorganised and the the collection of your CJS from the offices is changing - we have everything crossed that there are no hitches (!). Troublesome sagas continue with BT, we thought it was all solved and everything back to normal but then we got a letter requesting bank details for the direct debit for the new Rent-a-Ranger phone account, after quite a while listening to lovely canned musak a real person assures us that the direct debit has been set up and it is for the correct BT and bank accounts - watch this space. But remember if one day you can't reach us by phone you'll know that it really did go pineapple shaped (10 times worse then pears) and they've cut us off.
This week the owl has been back on the telephone wires, but we think it's one of last year's youngsters as it's a bit smaller and the colouring is paler. Last night it was considering bat for dinner (or should that me breakfast?). There were two pipestrelles flying around the eaves and one was definitely chasing the other. We're not sure what was going on as they're both the same size and have been seen in proximity before - if you have any suggestions please let us know.