Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

  My amaryllis fell off the kitchen dresser today. I have watched it for about two months as it developed eight huge trumpet-like, bright red flowers. It has been a wonderful display but, as if on cue, it toppled onto the kitchen floor, spilling compost, cracking the pot, and marking the end of an era. The celebrations are over, and we are well and truly into January 2021 and a new lockdown. January is named after Janus the Roman god with two faces – one looking back and one looking forward. But I am not keen on looking back to last year and I don’t expect you are either. It was interesting, though, when Radio 4 told us about early editions of The Archers. I have followed this programme for 70 years, on and off. I was five years old when it started, and I listened every evening along with my father who was a farmer. We heard Dan deciding to get rid of the horses and replace them with tractors, which is what we did on our farm. The horses went to the knacker’s yard and we boug...

My case is packed, ready for a few days away. Of course, I have not been able to go. New lockdown rules caught up with me. I wanted to go to the coast, but it was not to be. I have decided to leave my packing, if the case is there, in the corner, I feel that the holiday is imminent. On the coast the gulls will be shouting over the roof tops. Their calls will be echoing the sea-side excitement. I will miss them. There is still a ray of hope, though. Did you know that you can see a seagull in your teacup? Or in your mug or pan, come to that. I remember my physics lecturer telling me about it many years ago. I reflect on what he said every time I stare into my mug or into a pan to stir a sauce. Look for it at your next coffee break. It is to do with the reflection of light rays, from a light source, hitting the curved sides of a container. They are ‘bounced’ off at different angles and create two curved bright ‘wings’ of light. Leonardo noticed it and drew a careful diagram to e...

Have you ever thought about the first two letters in November? A month beginning with ‘No’ does not bode well, and it seems to have even more meaning in our situation now. I have been trying to change ‘No’ into a positive, though it is hard sometimes. Early November has always been exciting. There is usually an electric atmosphere in the air, caught first by children, who are in tune with these things, and then spread upwards to the rest of us. Bonfire night always brought light into dark nights and, even if I did not go to an organised bonfire, I could sit at a bedroom window and watch. The night sky always lit up with bright colours shooting into the dark. I can remember bonfire night when I was a child. Living on a farm, we had huge piles of hedge clippings and we added to it with sacks of dead leaves, collected from our woodlands. There were no regulations then, and we played with the gunpowder and lit the twigs without a thought. But we didn’t have many fireworks, we could n...

An endangered bird is in danger in our ‘safe’ garden. The spotted flycatchers nesting in our climbing rose have successfully reared four nestlings. Suddenly, one morning the young fledglings flew to our woodland, one by one. The frantic parents are feeding them, but it is an even harder task now they are not all in one place. Desperately looking for extra food the parents have taken to going into our greenhouse through the open window. I think that they are attracted by the plentiful supply of flying ants in there. The problem arose when we found a flycatcher anxiously trying to get out and the window had closed. You see when the temperature drops the window automatically closed trapping the bird inside. It needed to get out to feed its young and it was desperate. It was flying with its beak full of insects. It flew from one side of the greenhouse to the other, backwards and forwards until, tiring at last, it fell to the ground. Now we have had to leave the greenhouse door open...

I have a library book that should have been returned eight weeks ago. I normally download my books but this time I didn’t. It is called ‘ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ’ by Maya Angelou. I think I do too. We must do what we can to stay happy. But will the library be happy with me? What is the fine for all those weeks, I wonder? Should I just post it through their letter box and make a run for it? No, some sort of amnesty will apply. Hopefully, things will work out. Another thing that makes me hopeful is that the spotted flycatcher has arrived again in our garden. The last of our migrant birds is on the RSPB red list, there is cause for concern about how few there are left. Their numbers have dropped over 90% in recent years. We don’t know why, but if you see this little bird in your garden you may have the right conditions with enough food, lookout perches and perhaps suitable nest sites. The spotted flycatcher is a brown bird, like a house sparrow but a little larger. It loo...