Goldcrest in Garden

1) Most exciting thing this week: we had a goldcrest in the back garden! I was doing a work phone call at home, in my comfy swivel chair by my study window, watching the usual bunch of sparrows, chaffinches, blue and great tits popping into the bird feedery on the apple trees, enjoying a spot of sun while it lasted. Furtive flitting through the creepers along the back fence -- a little round warm-brown wren with cocked-up tail (much shorter than Aussie fairy wrens). That's exciting enough -- we only get very occasional wren visits, and only during the winter. I was vaguely wondering if we might possibly get a pair of wrens together some time, when there was another tiny brown flitter along the fence. But it didn't seem quite the warm wren-brown, and there seemed pale markings. So I reached for the binocs -- and there was a distinct yellow stripe on its head. The bird book showed it was more likely to be a goldcrest than a firecrest -- either is officially Britain's smallest bird, by a whisker from the wren.

We haven't had the goldfinches visiting their special nyger seed feeder for some time now, but we do have robin, blackbird and starling back as our regular winter visitors.

2) We are celebrating our wedding anniversary by having a long weekend, and playing extra Scrabble after dinner at nights. We were thinking of going to Oxford, but the museums we wanted to visit there are both closed for re-building/renovations. We think we probably ought to throw some sort of party, what with this being our 25th/silver etc. May get around to it, but just at the moment it all seems a bit too much exertion...

3) Permaculture design day down at Picketts Lock on the Lea last weekend, a Council planning forum for re-development at the Old Town Hall just across the railway line the other night, demonstration at the new Civic Centre about the Wards Corner campaign on Monday, planning meeting for a Seed Swap I'm running in Feb on Tuesday, residents association AGM on Thursday...