Snippets

Today is cold, wet and windy. We have had a lot of rain recently and is certainly beginning to feel rather wintery. A couple of weeks ago we had some strong easterly gales (an unusual wind direction for here). During them a group of cattle egrets turned up on the grass near the harbour looking rather bedraggled. Looking them up in the bird book I found that some do turn up from time to time in the autumn, blown here from South America, but they don't usually survive the winter here. The puzzling thing is that they would need a westerly wind to get here, unless they had been blown from Africa but that seems unlikely. They stayed a couple of days and then disappeared. They were very shy so I couldn't get very close to take pictures.
At the weekend our clocks went back an hour so that has made it extra gloomy in the afternoons. Unfortunately I was working nights so Saturday night was extra long. We are now 5 hours behind UK. Time here is a bit unusual as there is Stanley time and Camp time! I think it is that people on the farms don't change to summer time so that for half the year they are an hour different to town.

I think the colder weather combined with my trapping efforts has reduced the earwig population in the polytunnel - too late to grow much though! However the number in the house has greatly increased. When I moved my boots in the utility room this afternooon there were at least a dozen hiding under them.

The upland geese have returned to the garden, mostly grazing the lawns. The wind netting fence has stopped them walking into my vegetable plot but 2 did fly in one day and were then trapped in there! I have several times seen them standing on top of my rockery looking over the fence at the vegetables rather longingly.

A couple of weeks ago I put a wanted ad in the penguin news for fruit and flower plants or cuttings. A lady at Fox Bay on West Falkland kindly sent me 4 young blackcurrant bushes on the plane. Someone in Stanley gave me a bag of strawberry runners which I have put in pots in the polytunnel for the winter. I have now been offered some raspberry canes and some rhubarb roots by different people and a retired couple who I met at the swimming pool gave me lots of cuttings of shrubs from their lovely garden and also quite a lot of plants. With all the rain it has been quite difficult getting them all planted. People are very kind.

I also advertised for a wheelbarrow but didn't get any offers so I bought a new one which is making moving all the rocks from the area I am digging much easier. The next time we went to the tip we saw one there but it was smaller than mine and I resisted the temptation to take that as well.

Tommorrow is a public holiday for the queens birthday and there will be a parade in town with representatives from all the forces, youth organisations, councillors and the governor. There is also a visiting military band. Most people here are very patriotic.