The Toad in the Hole

kingfishers do it for me everytime. Only ones I've seen this year were a couple on the Shroppie just outside Nantwich. Last year I went canoeing a couple of times in the Broads and eventually lost count - maybe 20 plus different birds in a day ( best guess, a couple might have been repeats). I'm heading up to Scotland in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping for otters (though I have seen one in Greater Nottingham, a couple of years ago)

I'm not going to get too exercised if otters are reducing the number of fish in some of these chronically overstocked carp ghettos. A muddy eutrophicated hole in the ground doesn't really do it for me aesthetically. Otters, cormorants, goosanders, herons - They are basically watery grouse moors when it comes to mysterious predator losses. Otters were made scarce by righty humans, not nature

Straight swap for a feral disobedient food thief? odd noises from the kitchen this morning - 30 kilo 11 month old retriever "puppy" head first in the galvanised dustbin I keep the dog food in. Used the old labrador as a step to get the required leverage to knock the lid off. Silly old sod hadn't even moved out of the way

Ah, but if you smash the egg, it just lays another. The trick is to get it to waste time trying to incubate a dead egg

The great and the good at Defra reckon that in terms of grass lost/ crop damage 3 canada geese are equivalent to one sheep. At one stage waxing the eggs was in vogue - supposedly kills the egg, but the geese carry on sitting, but I don't know how effective it was. netting and removal, sterilization have all been trialled, but I think in the long run killing them is the only really effective control method - that runs straight into public protest like building a brick wall on the motorway, though - but then I've had protests about sheep on nature reserves being slaughtered, which says more about people than geese, I guess.

Can I muddy the keb thing further? Back in the late '80s when I did a bit of work with BTCV, they called them "chromes" (No idea if that's the correct spelling). Never heard them called kebs before today.

crikey, how did I miss this? Will give it a go at some point

There are now signs along the main drag by the old big piling, but there is mooring on the arm or towards the lift bridge/ scrap yard.

Waggoners is still a goner, I'm afraid, but it's still worth stopping and having half a day wandering on the Mosses - about as alien a landscape as you'll find in the lowland midlands, though the horseflies will be out later in the year. In Llangollen and for beer, seek out the Ponsonby Arms on the road towards Trevor. Lots of beer and an excellent jukebox. Same people as have the Sun on the A5, which is a unique pub. I love it (the Sun), but it isn't to everyone's taste. Jazz on a Thursday, more....exciting bands on some weekends. If you want a more sedate evening, then Gales winebar or the Cornmill. Both are excellent eateries (though Gales was once quite contraversial back in the days of Dry days in Wales). Really not impressed by the Lion Quays - trying a bit too hard and not really getting there. Oddly enough the old golf club at Chirk marina is now a splendid little bar with good food and real ales. Not sure it's getting the footfall it deserves, yet. Also worth stopping at the Sun Trevor. pub is ok, but if you can face the uphill haul, the walk along the Panorama underneath the limestone outcrops and the old quarry/tramway is fantastic, or you can do it via Dinas Bran from the basin. Eitherway well worth burning the calories for.

<pedant> alarm's and camera's what? </pedant>

just watched the llangollen one, and I appreciate it looks like I was in the minority, but that was a spectacularly dull TV. There was maybe a 30 minute programme in there, but an awful lot of filler and repetition as well. I suspect there is a really good 90 minutes of TV about their relationship with each other and with the canals, but 4 hours? Even with the excitement of "home" landmark spotting (my boat was visible for about half a second in one of the aerial shots), I gave up after they got on the train. I'm afraid I prefer my boating luvvies with a more adventurous streak - Timothy Spalls programmes are a hoot!

Oooh, now then. I know the answer to this (I think). When I was watching the snowboarding, I could occasionaly see a shadow, but I think I saw the setup when I went to the Mountain Biking at the Olympics. It's sort of like a cable car, but with a HD camera (like you see in the noses of filming helicopters) slung below. Really impressive tracking shots as the bikes (or in this instance snowboarders) zoom downhill

Lovely video. Thesedrones are becoming much more common. I've a friend uses one of these things for surveying glaciers - second time they used it when they were testing it (or perhaps more accurately, when they were testing the FIRST one) it flipped upside down and dropped out of the sky. He keeps the bits in a carboard box in his office as a reminder

Diesel, dirty water and wood smoke. Objectively it's probably not that nice, but for me it's so strongly associated with down time and escape that it's my favourite smell in the world

Dome of the more excitable hirers on the Llangollen take the 90 degree turn at Trevor like that. One properly pranged itself on the drydock a few years ago. Not sure what happened , but there was a lot of diesel in the cut the next day

Anyone know hoe the Llangollen fared? After last years firewood bonanza, I'm not sure what's left to blow over, but it must have had a fair bit of wind last night. We were going to bob over to the boat for the weekend, but I'm not so sure now (other than to make sure it still floats

You also need to be careful of what pesticides have been used on horse paddocks. aminopyralid based herbicides are sometimes used on horse paddocks to control weeds, but pass through the horse and can be present in manure - allotment holders are v. careful about where they get manure to avoid this, so I'd be dead careful about shovelling up random dung off the path.

Tonight will be bad... And tomorrow beyond imagining!

The llangollen now has a multitude of 48hr moorings. There are about 150' of 72 hour moorings in Ellesmere, and I think that's it. Certainly no 5 day moorings any more. It is now pretty much entirely set up for continuous cruisers and holiday boats. I appreciate as a weekend boater, I've gone from being pretty much the norm to an endangered species, but a few slightly longer period moorings can make a real difference if you want to make longer trips, but don't have the luxury of a baby boomer pension and no outside committments.

Yeah, I know, but it was a good location for those of us not blessed with a full fit out and cursed with still having to work for a living.

Up until the last couple of years, this was one of the few non 48 hour moorings on this canal, which made Wrenbury a useful staging post if I ever needed to leave the boat for a few days. Not sure there are any left on the Llangollen now

rush of wine blood to the brain. Yes, Australia

Native of New Zealand. There are an increasing number of escapees. Used as an illustration of the Scientific Method, doncha know?