Sad but True

The ultimate Birdforum thread seems to have petered out. This is entirely my fault, and I apologise. I had been attempting to stoke the fires with snide comments about quite how pitiful it all was, to no effect whatsoever, and so had even gone so far as to suggest that they were in with a chance of beating the Slender-billed Curlew thread, which rolled for months and months and topped 1000 posts. This appears to have been the last straw, and there hasn't been a new post since Sunday. Oops. Perhaps I should create an anonymous username, "shitstirrer2127" springs to mind, though it might already be taken, and write "Lee Evans/Steve Webb (delete as appropriate) you are a big girl's blouse!" or "Has anyone on this list seen a Southern Pochard?" and see if it miraculously springs back to life. Or perhaps not, and the fact that it is sinking into the depths of the web is in fact A GOOD THING.

And anyway, I feel that this blog has been sailing a little close to the birding wind of late, you know, talking about current affairs and stuff, not really what I'm aiming at. What am I aiming at? Er, other than total weboland domination, not much really. Write a bit of nonsense here, write a bit of rubbish there, get paid in Swarovski binoculars on a per-post basis, that kind of thing. With precious little to say, I'm feeling a weekly roundup coming on, what do you reckon? Scintillating? Almost.....

Saturday afternoon
School Summer Fete. Yours truly mans a "Name the Fluffy Owl" stand, whilst simultaeneoulsy running a "Find your own bug and have it identified!" stand. Total sales of name the owl tickets, £2,132,092.50. Total sales of bug-pots, £6. Or maybe £5. And three of those were my own son and two of his friends. Total bugs found, two 22-Spot Ladybirds, a beetle whose name I forgot, an aphid, and an unidentied tiny fly. Sorry no refunds. I spent most of my time admiring the real owls on the stall next door, as did everyone else. And I still don't know what the fluffy owl was called.

Saturday evening
Howard's BBQ for friends, Rainham volunteers and bird bloggers. An entirely sober affair, much jollity is had with an ex-RSPB collection Robin, and Howard definitely does not stick Christmas Tree lights up his nose. Devastating news of an ID faux-pas, and that my Lesser White-fronted Goose photo shows a Pink-footed Goose. I attempt to explain it away. Later on, we do a spot of mothing, and Muffin outclasses us all in the ID stakes. Top moth award goes to the six Swallowtail Moths. Sorry, five Swallowtail Moths, as I accidentally crushed one whilst losing my balance fairly late on.....

Sunday morning
Arise with immense headache; blame beer. The morning passes slowly to say the least.

Sunday afternoon
Still feeling like shit, I assess how many beers I drank, conclude not enough, and decide that I am ill. We watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Birdforum en famille, and then with a temperature of 2,345 farenheit I go to bed at 6pm.

Monday
My headache has gone, and the fever has reduced fractionally to 98.6 farenheit. However I have god-awful stomach cramps and lower back pain like I am 39 weeks pregnant. It is all I can do to take the children to school, then I come home and collapse. But only for a moment, as I then have to spruce the house up as we have a visitor. The list of Brownie point-earning tasks is long and varied, and I even clean up the desk that Mrs L has been promising to clear up for approximately fifty-thousand years. It takes me fifteen minutes, but blogging about it loses me all my Brownie Points.

Tuesday morning
As the sharper amongst you will have noticed, that's today. I'm feeling a lot better, and have done some shopping, repotted Pie's sunflowers, done a couple loads of washing, and photographed some Hoverflies. I'm guessing you're sick of insects, so instead.....