Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

  “To beaver or not to b…”   Brian in the Archers is against beavers and says that they are an absolute menace. He has a friend who had a damaged fence caused by beavers. They are smart and strong, and tunnel into riverbanks and fields can get waterlogged, he emphasised that it is lunacy to introduce them. There are reasons for and against. We still do not know who will win the argument. Did you know that beavers are native and were here 400 years ago and can create an environment where wildlife can survive? Are they natures engineers who can manage water or are they a menace? Shropshire Council and Shropshire Wildlife Trust have made their decision and released two beavers from Scotland to an enclosure in the riverbed in Shrewsbury, hopefully to control the scrub growing rapidly there. I would love to see a beaver, but I do not think that will happen because they do not come out when we want them to, we have no control of that. “You should have seen me twenty years ag...

  ‘Penalty notice’. There it was in bright contrast writing under the windscreen wiper. You could not miss it shining out with its black and yellow squares round the edge and in a polythene cover, which it needed as it was pouring with rain. My friend had been to the hospital for an appointment but had not been able to park on the site, so drove to a side road and parked there. But the wait was long and she came back to a parking fine. Now Shropshire has had a good idea. The Council is to run a free Park and Ride service to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Hopefully, gone are the days when I had to go with Mr T so that he could drop me off at the main entrance and then find a parking space. There were no worries about parking when I did the Big Garden Birdwatch last weekend. Even though it was bad weather I could look out of the window and watch. My top bird was the blue tit. At one time I had ten eating from the feeders hanging from my magnolia tree with its buds already swellin...

  ‘No signal’, it said and a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark came up on the screen. What did it mean ‘No signal’? We were watching live TV and then the picture started to break up and the sound was jagged until the screen went blank. I went to my mobile internet and looked up the Wrekin Mast but there were no faults detected. I searched BBC, Freeview and anything else I could think of. Nothing. Then I went on social media and there it was, ‘Has anyone else lost their TV signal?’ I was not alone. Eventually I found out that high pressure caused the problem. It seemed like the old days when in the 1950s our black and white TV frequently deteriorated into dots and dashes because of a technical problem. A notice used to come across the screen saying, ‘Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’. Then ‘Do not adjust your sets’. It was not as if there was much to adjust except horizontal hold and vertical hold. So, despite the warnings we wiggled the aerial and kicked ...

 I could not believe it. But it was true, even in the frosty morning there they were – like little glowing lamps punching through the frozen soil and fallen brown leaves. My aconites are out.  Their bent flower stems pulling the glowing flower heads up into the air. There are no leaves yet only the green ruff collar surrounding the yellow petals. But one flower does not make the spring. Winter is not over. Last week my sister contracted flu. She had to ring 999. My sister was ‘lucky’ when an ambulance came and then ‘lucky’ again when she was given a bed on a ward where she could be treated. Over the week the ward filled with people with flu and then another ward filled and then another. The nurses were rushed off their feet as we waited for the medicines to take effect. Eventually she began to feel better and was home by Saturday relived to be back in familiar surroundings. And we had a familiar sense of Deja-vu when we decided that it was time to wear masks again. Even th...

  I knew the answer! Straight away I shouted ‘kestrel’ at the TV. It was University Challenge and Amol was asking about the ‘windhover’. You sometimes see one hovering over the roadside verges, keeping in one place and only moving its wings and tail to balance. Mind you I did not manage to answer many more questions this time. Our kestrel has not been around for a while and I know that their numbers are dwindling so I was pleased to see it his week on the wires above Oak Meadow. It sat there with its hunched orangey back lighting up in the winter sun whilst it was intent on a little creature in the grass below. In the darkness we sometimes have the owls over Oak Meadow, but did you know that at night the light pollution is altering insect and bird behaviour? Robins are singing in the ‘dark’ and creatures are becoming confused with the constant light. There are only six international dark sky reserves in the UK and our nearest is in Wales. In Shropshire I have been to Carding ...

  ‘Press here’ says the letter from the Council. It was to find out more information about road closures. Now that seems sensible except that this was not an email, it was a physical letter on paper. How could I click on a piece of paper?   It was not even a simple web site name, there were more than thirty letters and digits, and of course I could not copy and paste because it was not on my mobile. In this digital world we seem to have muddled real life with computer internet. I have been using my computer to sell things. I am having a clear out and some items are too good to throw away and some are too big for the charity shops. But you must be careful. I ‘sold’ a lovely pine cupboard for the bargain price of £10 to someone online. He was coming to collect around 10am. Then I had a text asking if I would agree to bank transfer. I did not want to do a transaction on mobiles using banking apps with someone I did not know. ‘Cash please’ I tapped. ‘Ah OK. I’ve only got £5 ...