At last!

I've been having ongoing problems with the internet connection on my computer for quite some time now. There's a problem with the wired LAN connection, and since it's quite a new motherboard I'm a bit annoyed about that. But it works perfectly on wireless, so for the last couple of months I've disabled the LAN network, to free me of all the irritiating messages about being disconnected, being reconnected, being disconnected and so on. But last week my wireless adapter died.
So on Tuesday, since it was a bright and sunny day (even if there was still ice on the paths at midday) I walked over to buy a new adapter. On the way out the door I remembered that although I had made sure to tuck my camera into my bag, the memory card was still upstairs.
I'm glad I remembered! I'd just crossed the railway line and the canal, and in a garden in the first row of houses, I spotted two waxings. I couldn't get very good photos, so you can't really see the colourful parts. But those crests are so distinctive! I was surprised at how small they were - not much bigger than chaffinches. I think I was expecting something more like a starling size.

We also have one little bluetit, and a little wagtail stomping along. I saw him after an abortive visit to Woodies to get bird seed. They don't seem to have a good range at all since they took over; if it's so poor in winter that I can't even get sunflower seeds, I think I'm going to have to look into something else.

On a postivie note, spiking my apples into the ground with two skewers in an X seemed to have foiled the squirrel, and the blackbirds are happy again.

Recipe Time

Tonight I had what I suppose in modern parlance could be called a "labelling malfunction". What Paul Levy calls UFOs - unidentified frozen objects.

Over Christmas I had needed some duck breasts, and they were so hard to come by that I bought a whole duck and jointed it, freezing the carcass and the legs separately. Since it's now marmalade orange season, we were going to have Duck à l'orange tonight.

It turned out to be chicken à l'orange. With the freezer being exceptionally full over Christmas, the labelled duck legs were in the bottom drawer which normally doesn't have any meat in it, and when I found un-labelled chicken portions in the meat drawer, that was what got defrosted.

In any case, the Feathered Rice that I had thought would be very nice with the duck was equally nice with the chicken - and as I  made the full quantity I took a quick picture of the half that's now safely tucked away in the fridge for next week. Hence the rather dirty looking dish - sorry!!

This recipe is from Ronald Johnson's An American Table - I know I've shared recipes from it before. He describes it as earthy and nutty.  Nutty is about right to me - the aroma is almost like a puffed-rice cereal, only without all the added sugary sweetness.

Feathered Rice:

1 cup (8 fluid oz) rice

1 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups (1 imperial pint) boiling water.

Heat the oven to 400F, 200 C and toast the rice grains on a baking tray till lightly browned - about ten minutes. Stir occasionally.

Reduce heat to 350F, 170C. Transfer the rice into an ovenproof dish with a close-fitting lid. Stir in the salt and boiling water. Cover tightly, and cook for about 40 minutes, till dry and fluffy.

He says you can stir in a little butter at the end if you wish, but neither he nor I think it's necessary.

I know I haven't posted many cards recently - I don't think I even did a December pick, and it's really too late now for any Christmassy ones. But in view of the bitter cold here the last few days, this is still seasonal. I love using alcohol inks to make a plaid background à la Tim Holtz.

Today has not been a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination - the duck being chicken was only the last in a litany of things which went wrong today. But there's always tomorrow...

Reflections

When I left the house this morning it looked set to be a beautiful day - not as cold as yesterday, but a clear sky and some amazing dark mackerel clouds. After I got on the bus, those clouds developed a beautiful red underbelly, which I enjoyed all the way in to town. There was still gorgeous light in town, and with a high tide and the Liffey very still and calm, there were some lovely reflections...

And about an hour later it started raining, and of course my umbrella was at home. I wasn't even coming straight home after work, I was meeting someone from FreeCycle to lend them a book - so when I did get home I was cold and wet. That red sky was a "shepherd's warning" today.

Stop, thief!

I've been putting out half apples skewered into the ground for the blackbirds - in particular we have a couple of hen blackbirds who have been really enjoying them.
But sometimes I would find no remnants at all, instead of finding the empty skins, which I put in the compost.
Now we know why!!
The little rascal - we saw him pull it off the skewer and scramble up the wall with it. Now I've tried using two skewers at an angle so he can't just whip the apple off - he'll have to pull the skewers out of the ground.

Coming back for seconds, looking as innocent as I don't know what!

And all because somebody thought a few grey squirrels would make a lovely, interesting wedding gift a hundred years ago



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Back to work...

...back to reality.
C was back in work on Wednesday, so by the time my turn came round on Thursday it was not so much of a shock to the system. While Thursday was very mild, it was also very dull and grey so it was hard to tell if it was a heron or just rubbish under the bridge in town. Rubbish, in the end - not that it mattered as it was way too dark to try to take any photos.
Today was still unseasonably mild despite the clear skies that made it a lovely springlike day and a much brighter morning. I even saw some buds and catkins out on the way home - I'll be heading out with a macro lens tomorrow, weather permitting.
When I was walking to the bus in the morning I wasn't sure what sort of day it would be - it was one of those days when you feel there's a lid of cloud, with just a little clear sky on the horizon. No time for a proper photo, because my point-and-shoot seems to struggle with these, and this first photo is the only one that I got that accurately reflects the morning sky; the bus came early and I had to run for it.By the time I got into town, there was much less cloud and some beautiful morning light.

It was still looking like a glorious spring day when I left work, but by the time I got home it was grey and cloudy again, so I'm not sure if the beautiful weather was very localised, or very temporary.

A Robin New Year...

Not just one or even two but three robins today, co-existing moderately peacefully. I think it's probably one female and two males. In any case, plenty of singing going on!! All but the first photo are uncropped - he (?) was quite happy perched on the wall with me only a couple of feet away. A narrower aperture would have been a better choice but it was such a grey day that I had it open almost as far as it would go.

We also had a brief visit from what I am assuming is  probably a leucistic pigeon; I've certainly never seen one like this before in the garden. It came in along with two regular wood pigeons.

Christmas Wishes

It's hard to find a suitable seasonal looking photo from last year, as it was so mild. This year looks like being the same - as I type on Christmas Eve afternoon I see sunshine and blue skies. So I'll settle for a card featuring a sort of robin! I actually saw three in the garden today, very rare. We had a brief visit from a pair of redpolls, too, so I hung out a second nyger seed feeder, with the result that there are now 5 goldfinches visiting regularly, but not yet another sighting of the redpolls. Last weekend as I was filling the feeders a rather gormless young (probably, small definitely) grey squirrel got startled. It fell off the wall when it tried to jump up, and then fled into the house. It doesn't seem to have been deterred from coming to scavenge round the feeders, but I hope it doesn't make a habit of escaping into the house. It didn't actually break anything, but did knock quite a few things over with its mad leaps from one perch to another.

Wishing everybody a peaceful and happy Christmas and holiday season. We're certainly looking forward to ours!

This is a photo from a couple of years back when we had snow. I've always thought the crystals looked like trees, so I painted a photo frame, stamped it with snowflakes and used the macro photo as a setting for a little snow-scene. I still have two more frames to come up with ideas for.

Whistlestop church tour

Yesterday morning was very, very foggy  - and cold and damp when we were heading into town for breakfast together before work. I walked back across the city and the fog was starting to lift, with some lovely light!

Christchurch Cathedral

St Audeon's, High Street

St. Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street

John's Lane Church, Thomas Street

St Paul's, North King Street

And one I can't identify, looking towards the Coombe from Cornmarket.

Warm off the needles...

I've been busy knitting recently; this little pink cotton jacket went postal last week, and I'm currently knitting it in a small size in a different colour for a colleague of C's who is due to go on maternity leave over Christmas. Actually, I'd got the cotton to knit a sweater for him, so I hope there'll still be enough left after finishing the jacket. It had to be gender-neutral, which narrowed the choices. Of course he wants a card to go with it - that's finished, while the jacket is still on the needles! I hope to get it finished in work tomorrow. The buttons were on the expensive side but were too perfect too pass up, and work perfectly with both the pink and the green/yellow.

I bought a couple of packs of the felt ornament kits to send to a friend in Greece who likes doing crafts with her two daughters. And I bought a couple for myself to play around with. The lower ornament is pretty much as pictured on the pack, although I added a few seed beads in. It seemed a bit plain, so for the second one I cut some felt poinsettias with a Spellbinders die, and stitched them on with gold thread, using seed beads for the centre. I was happy with how this turned out, and might see if I have time to make a couple more for gifts. The only problem I had was that if I wasn't very careful it was easy to tear one of the bracts off the poinsettia - cut that fine the felt was a bit fragile. In fact, my white felt was too thin altogether and just pulled apart in my hands, so I had to settle for cream.

Glimpses

A couple of Saturdays ago I was frying doughnuts out on the back patio when I saw a glimpse of red that I thought was too vibrant to be just a chaffinch, and I wondered if it could have been a bullfinch. One day last week I'd stopped off at the butchers and greengrocers after work and spotted a couple of these in some trees - and then we did indeed see one briefly on the feeders in our garden. This is NOT a good picture - as well as my normal backpack I had two bags from the butchers and one from the greengrocer so my hands were full.

On Saturday I was out at my aunts, and just as I was getting ready to leave I spotted a whole little flock of long-tailed tits on her feeder. And today, walking home from the bus stop after work I could hear them wheeting away, and was lucky enough to spot one. No extra bags this time, and a brighter day, making it much easier to take a halfway decent photo!

Also on Saturday, coming home on the train I saw the Santa Special steam train in the siding at Grand Canal Dock. I change at Connolly, and I'd gone to the mainline part of the station to see if there was an earlier train from the platforms there than from the suburban, when I heard that familiar whistle. I was in time to get back to the suburban platforms to get a couple of grainy shots and even some video. I think it must some primal sound that everybody recognises even though it's from a long-past era. We hear them going past the house every December weekend coming up to Christmas and we always notice them as being so different to the normal trains. But I'd never been able to find a timetable to take a guess at what sort of times they'd be pulling through the station here. There were a lot of crew on this one. The orange carriages were a blast from my past, since even after the DART ran to Bray, we still used to get those old diesel trains on to Greystones. I think the blue carriages were even older, they all had a crest on them which was something to do with the rail preservation society - poor light made it hard to read.