Staring up at the sky

The weather has been beautiful this week, less like spring and more like summer. I’ve been working on the base for my greenhouse and, as usual, it’s turned into a bigger job than I thought.

The greenhouse was just too large to sit on the area where the conifers once were, so I’ve had to take down a retaining wall and expand the area, rebuilding the wall and taking it a brick higher than it was to get the level I need.

It didn’t take long to realise I needed more sand, so the job was put on hold while Travis Perkins delivered a tonne, deposited in a big bag on the drive. Tomorrow, I will hire a cement mixer and get cracking in earnest. It should be finished by Friday afternoon.

As well as a good bit of digging and pick axe work, there has been a fair bit of thinking time, drinking-tea time and staring-at-the-sky time. We really should spend more time staring at the sky, it’s surprising what you can see.

On Tuesday, I heard the tell-tale mew of a couple of buzzards circling effortlessly in the warm, rising air. They were circling and heading north to south, about 200ft high, looking for lunch. As they got over our house, the rookery on the high trees along the old A47 came alive with squawking as the rooks recognised a threat. They may have young chicks in the high nests and there’s nothing like a tasty young rook for dinner if you happen to be a buzzard.

Like the RAF spotting a Russian bomber, the rookery dispatched an interceptor – a rook which zoned in on the nearest buzzard and immediately attacked it. They didn’t bother with the second bird, which was lower and kept a wider mark, but the first one got a real roughing up.

The rook is a much more nimble flier, it can turn faster, out-climb and out-dive the bigger raptor. Despite the buzzard giving it some warning cries, the rook just kept diving in at it, biting at its tail and grabbing a feather. The buzzard didn't want to interrupt its free ride and was reluctant to join the scrap. It kept its wings outspread and let the thermal take it away from its attacker and over the rookery. The rook stayed with it for a good five minutes and then flew back to base. I wonder if they have a rota, whether they take it in turns to ward off potential threats or whether this one is the resident scrapper? I wonder if it's a male bird or a female?

I said they were like the RAF scrambling an interceptor and, a little later in the day, we had a close encounter with the RAF. There are fewer low flights across the village these days, but we get the occasional Tornado bomber flying low. They're not flying supersonic, but even so, you don't hear them until they are on top of you and you don't see them coming because they are flying so low. I was just having a lean on my spade, when I caught sight of this one coming over. It was very low - lower than the buzzard - there's a brilliant broadside view of the plane at a slight bank as it skirts the village, an explosion of noise and then it's across Bukehorn Road trailing a thin plume of exhaust smoke undulating behind it. Holly, meanwhile, has gone barking crazy; running up and down the garden - she loves loud noises!

The nights are drawing out and there was a wonderful sunset yesterday evening. I was able to watch the orb of the sun disappear over the horizon. Some time after sunset, it was still quite light - too light to see many stars - but Venus was brilliant, climbing higher in the western sky. It's really shining in the hour after sunset.

I'd watched it for a few moments, when I was aware of a flicker above. It was a pipistrelle bat, the first one I've seen this year. It would be enjoying the warm weather and the insects which have exploded into activity.

Today, I'd just finished digging out the line of the trench where my greenhouse base will go and was enjoying a beer on the patio. I was looking up at some gulls soaring high on a thermal when I spotted three familiar shapes. They were swallows - well house-martins, to be precise, but no-one talks of the first house-martin of the summer.

Like the bat, they were enjoying a meal of insects carried up in the warm air. Anyway that's a date to mark - April 15: the first swallow. I know one swallow doesn't make a summer, but there were three of them, so I guess it's officially here.

Footnote: I was sitting in the garden a couple of days later and saw another buzzard up in the air. Like the one buzzed by the rook, it was circling on thermals, heading north to south, soaring without beating its wings and gaining height quite quickly. As it got over our house, I expected a rook to be dispatched to head it off, but instead the buzzard folded its wings slightly and headed dead west in a shallow dive at great speed, aided by a brisk easterly breeze. How wonderful it would be to be able to fly like that. It didn't beat its wings once, just used air currents to get around at high speed.

Cars I have owned - No 12: Peugeot 405 STi

The arrival of the Peugeot 405 marked something of an upgrade in my company car line-up and also something of an upgrade in my career path.

For the previous three years, I'd been group editor at Sharman Newspapers, running their free newspapers - the Peterborough Standard, King's Lynn Trader and the Rutland and South Lincs Classified.

It was an interesting job and I enjoyed the mix of editorial and commercial responsibilities and also heading up a team of about a dozen journalists. We punched above our weight, often beating competition to stories and it wasn't hard to look good within the Sharman group where standards were pretty low.

I remember one week, we had pretty much put the Peterborough paper to bed on the Wednesday with just a few pages to clear on Thursday morning before going to press. That Wednesday evening, a fire started in the escalators leading up to what was then the main tube concourse at King's Cross station in London. The fire spread rapidly and plastic ceiling tiles created poisonous fumes. More than a hundred people died.

We realised quickly that lots of Peterborough people, who worked in London and commuted via King's Cross, would be involved (and possibly dead). I got a call from our chief reporter to tell me the fire had happened and we dispatched a couple of reporters to Peterborough station to interview people as they got off the train.

One of the changes I'd brought in was to get reporters to carry simple point-and-shoot cameras so they could take their own pictures of things like head-shots. Previously, reporters had written words and photographers had taken pictures, so this wasn't a popular move among either group and the local branch of the NUJ had been involved.

On this evening, the change was critical in gathering the news. Reporters were able to spend a couple of hours at the station and ask people about their experiences as they came through the turnstiles. We got great eyewitness accounts of the biggest story of the year and were able to localise a national story.

We remade the first few pages of that week's newspaper to carry a full account. Our daily rivals in Peterborough hadn't thought to interview people at the station and were carrying pretty much a Press Association wire account of the disaster.

It was a good night and we covered the story really well. As well as getting lots of Peterborough people who had been involved, we also got people from March and Wisbech and my team were smart enough to get pictures and interview those as well so we could offer the story to sister newspapers.

On Thursday morning first thing, I called the editors of those two titles to tell them what we had and it ranks as one of the most frustrating hours of my life. First, they were not good journalists; what news sense they may have had was long atrophied and they also viewed me and my operation with suspicion and contempt. Because we worked for free titles (and they were paid-for) they considered themselves better than us and also this was their press day and they'd already put their front pages together. Changing the lead now would mean a remake of several pages and they weren't that clever at making quick changes.

I called the editor of the Cambs Times and couldn't believe it when he said his paper was done for the week. There was still five hours before he went to press and he could have easily gone big with this story (March man's account of London horror fire - how I escaped the King's Cross inferno). I managed to browbeat him into taking the story, but wished I hadn't because I think he used a single-column on page three. The worst was Roger Green, editor of the Wisbech Standard. He couldn't understand why I thought he'd be interested in a London story. The answer was: "because there's a Wisbech man involved you fuckwit." He didn't run the story until the following week - nine days after the event and he rarely spoke to me after that (I don't think he liked being called a fuckwit).

By the way, the Urban Dictionary describes a fuckwit thus: A person who is not only lacking in clue but is apparently unable or unwilling to acquire clue even when handed it on a plate in generous portions. I think I got it spot on. A few years later, I made Roger Green redundant. Sadly, he was killed in a car crash on the Wisbech bypass, so he didn't enjoy a long, happy retirement.

Well, back to my Peugeot 405 STi. The reason that I acquired this car was that I had a new job. We had been told that the Sharman family was to sell their newspaper group to the Thomson Newspaper Group, one of the largest publishers of regional newspapers in the country. The non-family senior management - the likes of Roger Green - were terrified, they were convinced we would be sold and closed. I remember Gavin Fenton, general manager of Peterborough office voicing these concerns to me. I told him that was crazy - why would anyone buy a newspaper group to close it down? "We'll have to wait and see, I suppose," he said.

I didn't wait to see. I knew there would be change and I reckoned that change meant opportunities, so I found out who was in charge at Thomson's and wrote to Bill Heeps, their chief executive and told him that I was excited to hear the news of the sale and I would be keen to have a role within the new operation.

I didn't hear back from Bill for a week or so, but he was due to meet the senior staff at our head office in Fengate and he called me to say he'd see me there. He said he was pleased to get my letter and he'd fix up a meeting with Keith Barwell, who was going to be running the group, and there would definitely be an opening for me.

He asked me if I'd introduce him to senior staff, so my colleagues gathered in the boardroom for nibbles and wine were gobsmacked to find me introducing Bill Heeps to them and him treating me like a favourite son. My letter had clearly struck the target, I was the only person to have stepped forward and because Bill was also an ex-journalist, I think he felt comfortable with me.

The craziest part of the evening was when I introduced Bill to John Sharman, senior of the Sharman brothers and chairman of Sharman Newspapers. John had been negotiating with Keith Barwell regarding the sale but had not met Heeps. He must have been staggered to find himself being introduced by me and the look on his face was priceless.

However, John was also an opportunist and immediately got through the pleasantries to ask if Thomson's needed any non-exec directors on the newly acquired group. He'd be happy to help. He was charmingly brushed off. He was desperate to know how I knew Bill Heeps. I didn't let on the truth and told him that I'd come across him before I worked for Sharman's.

Soon afterwards I was invited to an interview in Luton with Keith Barwell. Keith was a character, full of energy and during our chat, he kept jumping up out of his chair and plunging his hands deep into his pockets, pacing about the room and sitting down again. He offered me a job as assistant MD with Garethward Ltd, the company that would run the old Sharman operation and I said thank you very much.

It meant a large pay rise for me and also a new car. Ben Clingain, the new MD, told me to sort out my car and basically left it to me to choose. We didn't have a company car policy and I thought I was pushing the envelope by choosing a sporty 2-litre saloon. Later, I learned that I might have gone for a BMW or a Mercedes and got away with it.

Barwell had started the Luton Herald and had made a small fortune from a group of free newspapers in Bedfordshire. He was so successful that he had closed down the Hemel Hempstead Gazette (owned by Thomson's). Heeps had thought Thomson's should get a piece of the free-newspaper action and so he bought Barwell's business, made Barwell MD of Thomson Free Newspapers and gave him a pot of cash to acquire other groups throughout the UK. The plan was to have one free newspaper group covering the entire country, with a common brand and one rate card so cross-selling of ads became easy and ad agencies could book regional campaigns by talking to one man instead of 20. It was a great idea, eventually sunk by over-ambition and the economic crash of the 1980s. Sits-vac advertising and property ads were the essential fuel for these big free titles and when they dried up, the model no longer worked. While the lean-and-mean Sharmans would have battened down and weathered the storm, Thomson Free Newspapers was to be sunk.

Its legacy, if anything, was a series of culture shocks to Thomson Regional Newspapers (the parent company) which helped them rethink their business for the better. Challenging established thinking is always a good thing, sometimes by allowing you to steal good ideas and sometimes by allowing you to learn from other people's mistakes.

The aspect of TFN culture which had the biggest effect on the parent group was the company car policy (or lack of it). You have to appreciate what a massive perk the company car was back in the '80s and how it defined the status of your job (and your importance). Keith Barwell used company cars like carrots, so if you hit your targets and he liked you, you might be driving around in a pretty good car. By way of contrast, ad managers and editors in the Sharman group has 1.6-litre saloons - Vauxhall Cavaliers or Ford Cortinas - while Luton Herald Series ad managers drove C-Class Mercedes.

Jealousy being what it was, the generosity of company car allocation in Thomson Free Newspapers really grated with the parent group, whose MDs had a choice of either a Vauxhall Senator, Rover 800 or a Ford Granada. Keith Barwell believed that perks and incentives were an essential element of his success and he guarded our company cars.

However, there was one famous incident where things came to a head. He'd told his MD at Luton - Enzo Testa (a wheeler-dealer of Italian extraction) that if he hit his targets he could have a Ferrari as his company car. Enzo hit his targets, making TFN a shedload of money in the process, but when Barwell put in to the main group to buy the Ferrari, it caused a sensation and was subsequently blocked. It was a badge too far in the eyes of the Thomson executive.

Barwell was now in a tricky place - he'd made a promise to Testa and Testa had delivered his side of the bargain. As a compromise, he gave his new car - a Jaguar V12 - to Testa and bought himself a new one. There was nothing Thomson's could do and you can imagine the look on the faces of their MDs (driving around in their Ford Granadas) while a TFN MD had a V12 Jag! Soon the MD of Northampton Post Series had a Jaguar, while Ben Clingain (in charge at Garethward - the old Sharman group) had a Range Rover V8.

I probably sold myself a little short with my choice of car - a Peugeot 405 STi, but I was fairly happy with it, apart from some steering wheel judder at speed (as if the wheels were out of balance). That was the biggest issue and one that I never really solved. I don't think the garage had a clue - Peugeot was not a mainstream manufacturer in this country at that time and their dealers tended to be smaller businesses. My car came from a garage out in the fens between Wisbech and Long Sutton. They sold tractors and agricultural equipment, with a couple of car franchises (Peugeot and Subaru, I think) tacked on the side.

The engine was a four-cylinder, eight-valve job with a maximum 120bhp and a decent spread of torque, so it pulled well and was nice to drive. Top speed was 122mph and 0-60mph was 11 seconds.

The main problem with the car, apart from the juddery front wheels, was its dominant understeer. It really didn't want to turn into a corner and the lack of power steering added to the driver input needed. You spent a lot of your time at the wheel fighting the car to get it into a corner. On long fast bends, you'd be arm-wrestling the bloody thing to keep it on line.

I think it had central locking, there were certainly electric windows and front head restraints. It was a heavy car and seemed quite well built, probably the last of the heavyweight Peugeots.

The front seats were quite short, I'd have liked a bit more leg support, but it wasn't a bad car to drive. I clocked up a few miles between Peterborough and Middlesbrough when we were transferring print and closing the press at Fengate; also between Peterborough and Cheltenham when we were negotiating with a company to provide Apple Mac computers to allow full-page make-up on screen.

The longest family trip I can remember undertaking was for a holiday in Scotland. We rented a cottage called Tangy Lodge on the Cambletown penisula. It was a lovely place, looking west across the sea. You could see Gigha, Islay and Jura (Inner Hebrides) and also the north coast of Ireland (it's amazing how close it is).

I had the 405 for just under three years, until I left to become MD of Central Press Features. After three years, it was showing some signs of wear and tear. The main bodywork fault was a really small one, but it really stood out. The car had a black rubbing strip through the bumpers with a red strip running all the way around, which continued along the side of the car doors as a protective strip. However, they'd obviously sourced two types of red plastic strip and the one along the sides of the car faded to pink in the sun within two years. It spoilt the whole look of the car.

My next car, also a company car, was a little less sporty, but a much better car. It also had power steering and so driving it felt as if I'd been carrying a couple of heavy shopping bags and put them down at last. It was, guess what, another Vauxhall Cavalier - my third and last.

Also see:

Ford Popular - click

Bedford HA Van - click

Morris Mini - click

Vauxhall Viva HC - click

Citroen GS Club - click

Morris Marina 1.3GL - click

Talbot Horizon 1.1 LS - click

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.3L - click

Datsun Stanza 1.6GL - click

Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6L - click

Ford Escort 1.6DL - click

Fanesca, bunny jumping and the Great Fen Project - Easter 2015

Lucy and the mass of ingredients for Fanesca

One thing about being retired is that bank holidays, which used to be so important, have faded to pretty much zero status.

I was having a haircut last week and Jason wanted to know (standard barber chat) what I was doing for Easter.

I told him the family was coming up and went through all the detail. I don't think he was paying proper attention because (10 minutes later) he asked me exactly the same question.

This time, I said: "Nothing much; truth is, when you're retired every day is a bank holiday." People who are still working don't want to hear that, but that's how it is. I haven't often appreciated how nice it is not to have work commitments, but I did then.

However, Easter was something to look forward to because Tom and Lucy, and Max and Inna were coming up for the weekend.

Lucy had been planning a special Ecuadorian dish for Easter Sunday. It's called Fanesca and comprises several types of bean and corn, vegetables and spices served with dried salt cod, also little, deep-fried pastries (called Empanadas) and plantains. Preparation took some days and some planning. There was one type of bean which is very bitter and has to be soaked, then boiled and cooled several times over several days in order to make it edible.

In Ecuador, you can buy these beans ready to pop into your Fanesca, but over here they are available only as a dried pulse, so the dish is a lot more work. The Ecuadorians also eat a lot of corn. This is like the maize or sweet corn that we eat over here, but the pieces of corn are much larger (as big as broad beans) and they are dropped whole into stews or soups. The Fanesca contains a good helping of these and they had to be imported from Ecuador (courtesy of Nidia, Lucy's mum).

We ate this on Easter Sunday and it was very good (also very filling). I'm not sure I liked the salt cod (first time I'd had it), but the rest was delicious. It was also the first time I'd eaten plantains (which are like large bananas, but taste like potato when eaten raw). These were shallow fried and floated on the soup, along with the Empanadas and sliced, hard-boiled egg.

Fanesca with egg, plantains, empanadas and salt cod floating on top

Lucy is now looking pregnant, there's a very obvious bump, and we know that she is having a baby girl. She is also feeling pregnant; she gets tired and can't walk as far or as fast as the rest of us. It's staggering to think that in 12 weeks (or so) she and Tom will be parents. I remember what a life-changing experience it was for me; it's going to be just the same for them.

Lucy is now at the reading and writing stage of her master's degree and no longer has to attend LSE for lectures. She's done well, being in the top two in her group, and has been accepted on the PhD course at LSE. She is funded by the Ecuadorian government, which is fantastic, but the downside is that for every year she is funded, she will have to spend two years working in Ecuador. She already owes two years and the PhD would add another eight years or so to that.

She had been hoping to get a scholarship, but unfortunately, missed out on the limited places. With a new baby to look after, it may be worth deferring the PhD for a year and applying again for a scholarship in 2016. I can't help thinking that being pregnant was a factor in her missing out this year. It shouldn't have made any difference, of course, but putting myself in the shoes of a sexist academic at LSE, I can't help thinking that it might have done.

Anyway, Ecuador is a lovely country, if not as rich as England and our grand-daughter (Julia or Henrietta) would be fine there. It would mean, however, annual trips to South America, via Madrid not Miami so Holly (and Holly's successor) would have lots of kennel time to suffer.

Apart from Fanesca, Lucy brought up her favourite board game, so Max, Tom and I played a lot of Catan and did a lot of losing. Inna refuses to play because it demands too much of a mean streak and so she became honorary banker. I didn't win any games (not mean enough). On Friday, we had a walk up to the allotment. Lucy is keen that I try to grow some Ecuadorian corn and she brought some that she had successfully germinated in London. They have underfloor heating in their kitchen and it seems to be the best thing possible for germinating seeds. I've planted some in pots under cover and will also sow some directly into the ground. Lucy has high hopes, but I suspect that giant corn used to the intensity of an equatorial sun, will struggle at our latitude. However, the proof of the pudding, as they say ...

Tom is also growing lots and lots and lots of chillies. He bought four up for me as plugs and I'll keep them in the kitchen for a few weeks until the weather is warmer and they can go in our little plastic greenhouse. Hopefully, I'll have my proper greenhouse erected soon and they should thrive in there.

On top of the motte at Fotheringhay Castle.

On Saturday, we all had a trip out to Fotheringhay Castle, which Inna found disappointing. When she heard we would be visiting a castle, she expected stone walls and tapestries. Fotheringhay's walls have long since been pulled down and all that's left now is a huge mound (the motte) and some artist's impressions of how it would have looked. Nevertheless, it's an impressive location by the side of the River Nene and an important place historically - being the birthplace of Richard III and site of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots (mother of James I).

Richard III is big news at the moment, his body having been discovered in Leicester and his remains now reburied in some style inside Leicester Cathedral. Richard and the other dukes and monarchs of the House of York also get a good showing in Fotheringhay church.

Holly has been going to a dog-agility class on Sundays and this week it was an Easter special with hunt-the-egg games and a bunny hop (essentially a long-jump for dogs). Holly went into the big dog group, but was out very quickly, being outclassed by labradoodle Jasper and another mixed breed. She did get a place in the small dogs group and beat a Jack Russell and a Cocker Spaniel to take first prize.

I'm not sure whether Holly will ever make it as an agility dog, but it's good for her to go and I think the mental, as much as the physical, exertion tires her out.

Tom and Lucy went back to London on Monday evening, but Max stayed on another day and on Tuesday, we all went to see the Great Fen project south of Peterborough. This is an ambitious attempt to convert a large tract of agricultural land back to fen (as it was before drainage). The site is adjacent to Whittlesey Mere, one of the largest tracts of inland water in Britain in the 19th century and controversially drained for farmland in the 1850s. Today, it would have been designated as a site of special scientific interest, but back then it was just development land (or water) lost at a huge cost to wildlife.

There are nature reserves at Holme Fen (where there's a large wood of silver birch) and at Woodwalton, where the Rothschild family established a nature reserve at the beginning of the 20th Century. The Great Fen project aims to connect these reserves (which are about four miles apart) and some farmland has already been bought and is gradually being converted back to hay meadow and fen.

We walked around one of the new areas and then through Holme Fen to the Holme Post, which was a wooden beam driven into the soil  and cut level with the ground. Erosion and shrinkage of peat exposed more and more of the post until it's now more than nine feet below the original land level. The original oak post has been replaced by a cast-iron post at the same level. Perhaps the project will stop further erosion.

At the north end of Holme Wood, there is a large mere and it was packed with noisy waterfowl. Holly could hear the noise from some way away and was desperate to get to them. She needed a tight lead. There were lots of cormorants, plus ducks and geese and the woods had a scattering of yellow Brimstone butterflies - signs that spring is here.

Balancing on a fallen trunk in Holme Wood and (below) on the
shore of a very noisy mere.