AnneMarriott

Ah, the Wandle! - I remember it well (used to live in Wimbledon). We had a pair of little egrets here but as with other water birds I haven't seen them for a while, especially dabchicks which used to be ten a penny - and I still miss our resident water rat on the stream across the road. On the other hand herons are commonplace . Lots of Egyptian geese locally and of course hundreds of Canada geese. Swifts now very rare and never any screaming parties nowadays. We live across the road from the Jubilee River, a man-made flood relief stretch of water from Maidenhead to Windsor, which has been beautifully landscaped with reed beds, marshy bits, scrapes, fish hatcheries and all sorts of wildlife havens. It's quite fascinating.

Incidentally our first sighting of red kites was in West Wales several years ago. We were so excited! Now they're very common here and I see at least one every day. Beautiful birds!

At 6.30 am this morning I was out on my permitted exercise allowance (aka dog-walking) and spotted a kingfisher for the first time in ages. Too cloudy and dark to get the full value of the colours, but a spirit-lifting moment, just the same.

Would the small birds know that?

Of course you are right! We had a nuthatch visitor as well as a treecreeper and I always muddled them up. Haven't seen either for ages. Our frequent visitor woodpecker family congregate mainly on and around the feeders or perch on the fence. If they are on the tree it's just to wait for their turn on the feeders - not much climbing in evidence. Although there are a lot of green woodpeckers in the woods and fields opposite the house we never see them in the garden.

Lucky you! we had a regular treecreeper visitor to our garden, appropriately enough dashing up and down the weeping silver birch, but I haven't seen it for a couple of years now. Perhaps the preponderance of red kites has something to do with it?

Did anyone else clap for the NHS and other front line workers yesterday evening. We did, discreetly in the porch. We heard one other person clapping and then our nextdoor neighbour came out and joined in, so we know there were at least four persons in the Datchet/Eton/Slough/Windsor area ...

Ditto - and the same goes for Sainsbury's.

?

Oh dear, I feared as much. So sorry to hear it, but I bet Minkus will think all his birthdays have come at once

Without wishing to pry, Katherine, how is all this affecting you?

Yes - Registered charity No. 211775.

You have to fill in the form for one ticket, choosing your option of refund/credit/donation, submit it and then click on the "send another form" box to do the same for the second ticket. This may save you a long wait on the phone.

I had fewer than you, but forgot to uncheck the donation option for three lots of tickets. I wasn't willing to make such donations, still smarting from the notorious marketing strategy that seemed to discourage regulars and increase prices as a means of doing so, so I resubmitted the options and emailed the box office to explain. No idea if it will work and I'm embarrassed to have added to the box office's workload, but the complicated system was a real pain.

Interestingly on my last supermarket trip on Wednesday I spotted an employee (management, no less) scurrying off with 48 rolls of loo paper, two packets of dried pasta and 24 bottles of water and loading the lot in her car. Needless to say there were no loo rolls or dried pasta to be had - and I didn't bother to check the water situation.