Pond life

 I haven't had much to report here the last few months, nor much inclination. It's been such a troubling, dispiriting time. Ukraine, of course, but also the death of Taylor Hawkins following so quickly on the heels of Mark Lanegan. I love drummers and I loved the Foo Fighters. I hope Dave Grohl and the rest of the band - not to mention Hawkins' family - have had the love and support they must need at this awful time.

On a more positive note, my wife and I went to see Simple Minds in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago. They were fantastic, anchored by the phenomenal drumming of Cherisse Odei. How she found the energy to keep going through two long sets of older and newer material was a thing of wonder. On a less positive note, we were almost the only people in the arena (besides vending staff) still wearing masks. I know a few were, but the vast majority didn't bother. And, unsurprisingly, we both came down with something horrible a couple of days later. It's not Covid, though, thank goodness. I've nearly lost my voice with a throat infection and have had to cancel a few online things this week, just to rest my vocal cords. (Cords not chords, as I originally wrote. Too much guitar theory).

Back onto more positive things - I've been delighted with a new development in my ponds. As regular readers may know, I created a couple of ponds three years ago. Frogs appeared at the end of year one, and then returned at the end of year two. This year I haven't seen the frogs yet (it may be that April has been just a little bit too cold) but I have had newts!

There are at least three, of which this one seems to be the biggest:

These really are fantastic creatures. I believe this is a smooth newt; one of the others is much paler and with less pronounced patterning but I presume the same species.

The newts may well have gobbled up a large quantity of frogspawn that was kindly donated to me a few weeks ago, (or the cold may have done for the spawn) but as of yesterday there were still one or two tadpoles swimming around so all may not be lost for the next generation of frogs. And I hope that with warmer evenings, I may get a glimpse of the frogs from the last two summers.

I'm thrilled with my ponds and the surprises they provide.

RIP Mark Lanegan

 I'm getting sick of this shit. Cobain, Cornell, Lanegan. All gone.

Ornithologists wanted

I took this photo a week ago in wetland in the Cynon valley. The duck was swimming with a group of mallards but doesn't fit with any of the pictures in my books of immature or eclipse plumage for that species. The closest match I could find for it was a female Garganey but it would seem unusual to see one in January as they don't normally visit our shores until later in the year. I'm not very good on waterfowl so any assistance greatly appreciated. Whatever the duck was, it was a striking bird with beautiful caramel-coloured plumage. Perhaps it's something really obvious but I'd still like to know.

Help put this duck out of its not-identified misery.

New Art Riot #7

 I haven't posted any art here for a very long while, but I did splash some paint around over Christmas. Here is the result. Not quite sure if it's finished yet, but I'll certainly put it aside for the time being before revisiting with a fresh eye. Acrylic ink on untreated canvas board.

An F1 pundit writes

 Unquestionably that is not how you want a world championship to be decided. The procedure at the end was irregular and Mercedes are right to be feel aggrieved. Ordinarily Lewis Hamilton (who was far more gracious in defeat at the end of the season than Max Verstappen was on last week's podium, when he flounced off) would have won under the anticlimactic condition of a safety-car finish. However, Mercedes should cease with their challenges against the result and just accept what has happened. Verstappen is not an undeserved winner. He has driven well (if aggressively) throughout the season, both teams have at various times benefitted from odd decisions, and yesterday's result was always going to be on a knife-edge.

This can't be twenty years old...

 

I liked the album this is off very much when it came out, but it's only since putting it on my running MP3 (at my pace, it's just right for a 5k) that it's really revealed its secrets to me. This song contains the late Edwin Morgan's wonderful recital of his poem "Scottish Fiction", worth - as they say - the price of admission.

Boosterism

 With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly, there's an understandable push to press on with the booster jab program. I've been waiting for my call-up for weeks, so I was relieved to get a text advising me that slots were available at my local vaccination clinic. I called the number and was arranged a time and date to get my booster. When I arrived, however, they had no record of my booking. Apparently this wasn't the first time that day that the third-party call centre handling the bookings hadn't passed on the relevant details to the clinic. As a consequence, there was no slot available for me - even though I was there, ready and willing to have my jab. I even had my vaccination history with me. I was offered no option but to go home and call the number again. This being a weekend, though, I won't be able to get through until Monday, at which point I'm back to square one.