Is this motorcycle too smart for its own good?

Today I took my motorcycle to the dealers because the information display said that a light had blown, but when I checked they all seemed to be working.

They checked it for me and all the lights WERE working.

So what's happening - faulty display? No, apparently the system works on electrical resistance and a bulb can change its resistance, especially when it's about to blow. So I don't have a blown bulb, but my motorcycle knows that I soon will have.

Is that clever, or is that just a waste of time?

Me and my fiendishly clever motorcycle.

Watching nature from my garden

I have spent a lot of time watching nature this year, mainly from my patio. It's surprising what you can see from your own garden.

For a start, we see a lot of buzzards. These magnificent, big birds have only been around for the past 10 years, recolonising the countryside after years when numbers declined due to gamekeepers and pesticides.

They are now very common and I can see them most days. They spend their time zig-zagging across the terrain looking for carrion or easy prey. Earlier in the year, I witnessed the rookery's early-warning and interceptor system spring into action when a ranging buzzard came too close. The rooks nesting in the large horse chestnuts on the old A47 saw the buzzard getting closer and closer to their roosts. I don't think it had baby rook on the menu, but they weren't taking any chances and dispatched an interceptor to harry the buzzard and drive it away.

Last week I watched a replay, but with a difference. I was in the garden and heard the distinct "mew" of a buzzard. It was over the bypass, quite low (less than 100 feet) quartering the ground and heading south towards the rookery. I expected a robust response, but there wasn't a flicker, the buzzard flew right across their trees and not so much of a caw from the rookery. Obviously, all the young have fledged some time back and were probably out in the fields feeding, so the rooks couldn't care less about Mr Buzzard.

As well as buzzards, we get a few red kites. These are very common a little to the west, in Rutland, and also on the rubbish dump at Eye, where they scavenge alongside the gulls, but they don't venture as far east as Thorney very often. They are easy to tell apart as the kite has a distinctive forked tail.

Watching buzzards carefully, I have seen this manoeuvre repeated several times and I guess it's a means of moving across country very quickly. The bird will catch a thermal and soar higher and higher until it's almost lost from sight. It will then take a bearing and begin a long, shallow dive, arrow straight and increasing in speed until the bird is really flying very fast; so fast that it quickly disappears from view. It's a very efficient way of getting from A to B as it expends little energy, using rising air like a glider and then taking a fast route to the next thermal (exactly what a glider does, in fact, although the buzzard certainly thought of it first).

Summer is chugging along, the wheat in the field next to our house was harvested last week and the straw was chopped by the combine-harvester and left lying on the ground to be ploughed in later. Wheat straw is much shorter than it was 30 years ago. When we came to the fens, we'd see fields of corn flattened by heavy rain and this rarely happens now, the wheat (and barley) stands neatly with the field crossed by tramlines where narrow-wheeled tractors have sprayed the crop. I can remember crop-spraying from aircraft and one year, a helicopter was used to spray the fields right next to our house. I much prefer the new method.

Longer wheat straw on older varieties meant more straw to dispose of. Farmers would leave this in lines where the combine had harvested and then burn it. Four three or four weeks in August the air would be full of smoke and it was really quite unpleasant, even if we did get some magnificent sunsets. Straw-burning was outlawed on environmental grounds and so our late summer air is now much cleaner.

Anyway, the harvested wheat field seemed to be attracting some insects and that, in turn, attracted a large flock of house martins, which are busy fattening themselves up for their journey south. They spent a good 20 minutes swooping and twisting over the field and it's amazing to watch. The small birds are so skillful, using their stubby, forked tails and short powerful wings to execute amazing turns.

As I was watching them, there was a loud, rumbling roar above. This was two RAF Tornado fighters practising dog-fights high overhead. This is a very common noise and not always welcome on an otherwise peaceful, sunny day but this was a clear morning and I could see the two planes very easily against the blue sky. They were executing some amazing tight turns and making an enormous din as the afterburners kicked in on full-throttle climbs. The Tornado is one of the most manoeuvrable planes in the sky thanks to its computer-aided, fly-by-wire technology, but for low-altitude work (and fly-catching) nothing beats a house martin.

I have made a determined effort in the past couple of years to create an environment that is good for insects. They have repaid me by caterpillars eating all my solomon's seal and mizuna, but there has been a definite increase in insect life and frogs/toads.

One of the things I've done is plant many more flowers which are good for pollinators and it's been interesting to see what "customers" the different flowers have attracted. honey bees love blackberry flowers, also cosmos and sedum; butterflies get really excited by buddleia; hoverflies have enjoyed the verbena bonariensis and bumble bees have fallen asleep on the heady nectar of the teasels. The flowers that have been most interesting to watch have been the globe artichokes at the allotment. Bees hurl themselves at the flowers and burrow down into the mass of soft petals to get at the nectar. They almost disappear from view and emerge covered in pollen, like an unpopular politician hit by a flour bomb.

Bees collecting nectar from the Globe Artichoke flowers. They hurl
themselves into the bed of petals and swim down to the nectar.

When I built the summerhouse, I made it as hedgehog-friendly as I could. Max and I even constructed a hollow chamber within the concrete base where a hedgehog could hibernate. I've seen the odd hedgehog in the garden since then, but they've hardly been beating a path to my door. A couple of weeks ago, Bert and Irene's granddaughter, who volunteers for a hedgehog rescue group, brought two hedgehogs for release back into the wild.

We lodged the open box to allow them to "escape" under the decking and I've not seen them since, although I am putting down water and some hedgehog food. There was a male and a female and the male was a large chap. I'd like to see hedgehogs in the garden, but they will choose where they want to live, not much I can do about it.

Footnote: I'm pleased to say that on August 25, I let Holly out before coming to bed and there was a hedgehog on the patio, probably one of the two released a couple of weeks previously, although I can't be sure.

Moving out of London

It has been a busy weekend for me and for Max and Inna, who have decided to make some major life changes.

Max has given up his job teaching geography at Dulwich College to return to university to study for a Masters degree. Inna has given up her job as accountant for a large property management company and is seeking work in Leicester.

As a parent, you want your children to be happy, healthy and financially secure (probably in that order), so it was a bit of a shock for us to hear that Max was no longer happy teaching and was going to give up his job to return to university. He wants to do a Masters in environmental studies and work in nature conservation.

He's found a course at Leicester University and they will live with Inna's parents in Wigston for a year.

Once Max qualified as a teacher and seemed to enjoy the challenge of teaching, I expected him to stick at it until retirement, especially after landing a job at Dulwich, one of the country's top private schools. When he told me his plans, I did give him a bit of a talk - are-you-sure-you're-doing-the-right-thing sort of talk - but his mind was made up. Living in London was making him depressed and he wasn't enjoying his job any more. He also pointed out that his career change was just that - a career change: he was going to study at university, improve his qualifications, fatten his CV - it wasn't as if he was going to join a New Age Travellers' commune and live in a converted bus.

So this weekend, I hired the biggest van I could find and helped to move their belongings from Penge in south London to Wigston in Leicester, with the overflow sitting in my loft and my sister's garage in Thorney.

I've only moved three times in my life - from Northwich to Warrington, Warrington to Bretton and Bretton to Thorney. This is Max's fifth move and probably Inna's sixth and when I asked Inna if she felt sad leaving Penge, she said that it had been OK, but she wasn't sad to leave - she never expected to stay there very long.

There was a bit of moving hassle even before the move began. I'd booked a van from Thrifty Van Hire in Peterborough and it had all seemed nice and straightforward. However, they didn't take a deposit, card details or e-mail and something made me a little suspicious, so I made a note to call on Thursday (the day before the van was to be collected) to check the booking was still OK. When I called, they had no booking down for "a Mr Rayner" and had no van they could offer me. It seems they had booked it for the previous weekend and I hadn't shown up - of course I bloody hadn't, I'd booked it for this weekend! The chap said he'd see if he could find me something and ring me in the morning, but I knew very well that he wouldn't, so I got busy (at 5.15pm on Thursday) to see if I could book something for next day. I thought it best not to tell Max.

Actually, it took only about five calls to find somewhere with a suitable van at an OK price and the new company - Nationwide Van Hire - also dropped off and picked up the van. So on Friday afternoon, there was a massive white Mercedes van filling (absolutely filling) our drive.

I left at 6am to be in Penge for just after 8am. I like driving vans, I enjoy the view and the respect you get from car drivers, who know most vans are driven by time-short psychos who won't hesitate to cut you to pieces. It was a lovely morning and I was set for a nice drive, listening to the radio, but then the oil warning light came on after 15 miles. The van was a Mercedes and having owned a Mercedes I knew what the problem was. Mercedes cars (and vans it seems) don't have dipsticks. The oil is checked via an electronic sensor and the idea is that it's so easy to check the oil, that you'll do it regularly. Of course, that doesn't happen - when you get in the car (or van) you want to be driving away, not running through an oil-check sequence. Also, because there's no dipstick, the service mechanic has to measure out the oil and add just the right amount. Mechanics are used to glugging in a can-ful and then topping up until it's at the right level on the dipstick, so this is something of an alien concept to them. On my Mercedes car, there was also conflicting information from the manufacturer on exactly how much oil to add, so once Andy Bunyan added a little too much and the oil warning light kept coming on to tell me that.

I guess that's what happened to this van. The warning light came on every 10 miles or so and I soon worked out how to switch it off; then the "service due" warning popped up! It made a change from the oil warning, so I let it be (I couldn't work out how to get rid of that). I thought the van had cruise control and was looking forward to a nice relaxing drive, but it turned out to be a speed-limiting system. You can set a speed and once switched on, it won't let you exceed that speed! I guess no-one ever uses it.

I arrived in Penge about 8.15am, turned round in Victor Road and pulled up outside Max and Inna's with one wheel on the pavement. I couldn't have a cup of tea (everything packed) and I couldn't have a wee (Bathroom full of boxes) so we got straight on with it. Damo (Max's friend) was coming to help, but for the time being it was just the three of us.

There were two big challenges - the big, L-shaped leather sofa unit and the bed/settee from the upstairs bedroom.

We started with the leather sofa, which we have put in our lounge until they need it again. The people who delivered it said it wouldn't go through the front door and porch, so they lifted it over the wall into the back yard, then through the kitchen, dining room and into the lounge. Max and I got it straight out of the front door - easy! If that was easy, the sofa bed was less so. It's not especially big, but the stairs are steep and narrow and have a 90-degree turn at the top and bottom. We got jammed at the bottom

Max and Damo had manoeuvred the thing up in the first place and it had nearly finished the pair of them - it had to be easier going down. We tried several different approaches, all largely the same, but it kept getting jammed at the bottom. In the end, a little bit of extra force got us round the corner and it was plain sailing after that.

The van was piled quite high by the time we'd finished, but everything was in and sorted for about 10am, which is when Damo turned up. We finally left at about 10.30am with me leading and Max following in the Fiesta. The first stop was Leicester and my sat-nav wanted to take me somewhere there was a toll. I can't think where that would be (the London Congestion Charge doesn't operate on Saturdays), but in any event I went the way I thought best and the sat-nav kept telling me to turn off or turn around until we got to the Market Harborough turn-off on the A14 and then, at last, we were in harmony.

It took about three hours to get to Wigston and for the first half I was entertained by commentary from the fourth Ashes Test match against Australia from Trent Bridge. It was the third day and England won by an innings within the first hour. That means we've regained the Ashes, but to be honest it was something of a hollow victory. There have been three Ashes series within the last three years and I'm sick of playing Australia. I enjoyed the New Zealand tests at the start of the season much more.

Michael, Inna's dad was waiting for us in Leicester and I think that he and Marina (who was working) will enjoy having Inna home again. We'd packed the van as scientifically as we could, but we still had to take some boxes out to get the stuff we needed. it was unpacked pretty quickly and, after some lunch on the patio (it was a lovely sunny day) we set off for Thorney. Actually, by the time we reached Thorney, all we could think of was beer and barbecue, so we left everything in the van and unpacked the next day.

Tom, Lucy, Emilia and Julia were there, so it was best to do it next day when they would be at the cathedral in Peterborough, organising Julia's Christening.

We'd got some space in my sister's garage and also in our loft, while the big leather corner unit was to go in our lounge for "active storage". We'll get a new suite when Inna and Max are ready to reclaim it. Holly is under strict instructions not to sit on it, but I went through into the lounge this week and found her full stretch. I think that's been the only transgression.

It will be good to have Inna and Max closer; we saw them fairly regularly, but I hated the drive to Penge (we always found ourselves in a traffic jam somewhere - normally the Blackwall Tunnel). Leicester should be close enough for a quick visit.