Interesting week. On Monday I couldn't get skateboard bearings for the boys in the Tees Valley so I got them from the excellent skate shop in Goodramgate York. On the way back to the car I ran into Dominic a guy I knew in the mid 1980s at Juniper Communities home for learning disabled folk in York. He was a resident there and I once took Dominic and three of the other guys on a weeks boat trip up the Vale of York going up the River Ure and then the River Swale and locking into the Ripon Canal. Dominic remembered this really well as well as him trying to steer the boat and sending it straight into the bank. He has balance problems and if I hadn't turned the wheel quickly we would have rammed the boat into the bank. Peter Beale another one of the guys fell into Ripon lock earlier on when I wasn't to awake because of the huge party we had had the night before when two of my friends Joe James and Peter Dodds suddenly surprised us in the boat the night before . Health and safety : what health and safety. They came with a lot of drink so it had to go . The drink had to go! When we got back I told the Juniper management committee members about our adventures and they thought it was great . Different times: we are to safety conscious now although I must admit if I did the same again I would have two coworkers and two residents. Dominic was well and it was good to see him again. I have many great memories of stuff I did with the guys at Juniper , camping , life skills training Youth Hosteling, cycle trips, pubbing it . If they'd given me a job there I would have stayed for good . Perfect job for me . They offered me money but I couldn't take it from a charity! They fed me a lot though! Oh well the life skills training I got from the Juniper guys certainly prepared me up for raising two boys and I have to say I have done and continue to do more or less the activities I did with the Juniper guys! But with no drink. A good week and Miles was awesome at the skate park this week he even had the BMXers and Roller Bladers clapping him on with his new trick a foot plant. Doesn't mean much to me either but when you see it it is so cool. Good week.

Just got back from a nice two hour afternoon walk with the family at Whitley Bay , North Tyneside. We should have had a friend with us meeting us there but she didn't turn up. Naughty friend : but I hope she is alright. We saw a flock of juvenile Curlews as well as one of Ringed Plovers and the journey up there was worth it just to see those birds . One of the Curlews was halfway in the water and given that it was separate from the flock we think it may be a Green Shank because the bill was curved differnrtly to the other lot . Identifying juvenile birds can be difficult. I got a new bird identification book this week, one of the best , as well as a massive flower guide for Fo and me . How to please my lady ? Get her the latest and one of the best guides to flowering plants! I reckon my marriage will survive another week! Phew!

When the lads were younger we went Fast Eddies a soft play area in Spanish City in Whitely Bay an Edwardian mock Hindu temple sort of building , but because all the children were belting around so much we renamed the place "sweaty Eddies". Our boys had many nice times there . We also saw a flock of what we thought were Sandpipers today as well but the jury is still out on that one . A nice afternoon out but I would have liked our friend with us as well . Maybe next time.

I took Miles skateboarding this morning and he was a running wild. So were quite a few of the other men, teenagers and some scooter kids who barely seemed to out of nappies! Good for them ! In the afternoon we went to see my Mum which we hadn't done for the last two weeks because she was very ill with the various flu bugs , bad flu bugs , may the researchers annihilate all of you , so didn't feel like being visited . We walked around Easby Abbey first and as we started saw what we thought was a Buzzard but with the new binoculars we could see enough detail to see it wasn't so we are going down the Goshawk or Rough Legged Buzzard line . Most of the path around Easby hadn't caught any sun so it was thick ice and impossible to walk on so we went around the edges . The Castle Walk in Richmond was completely out of bounds for the same reason . Sort of milky mellow quality to the late afternoon light today . Totally gorgeous !

A good day yesterday. I did a Baha'i stall in the center of Durham and the 17 mile drive in was lovely looking over to Weardale and the high Pennines with low mist filling the valleys and gills . Magical. The stall was good but very cold .

In the afternoon went back up to Durham with the family and had a nice 4 mile walk through the low afternoon sunlight from Shincliffe to Durham city Center and saw 13 Goosanders. Don't ask me why there are so many and they were separate sightings because we saw them in different parts of the river. Could be its coming up to breeding time . The new binoculars work well and Fiona was very excited . They are also handy for looking at rocks and landslips as well. Very exciting but mellow walk. Sometimes I think I suffer from Seasonal Over The Top Disorder. Its been to exciting a weekend what with tooting and hooting my way through the gig at Heighington with the appropriately named trio "High Risk Strategy! It went well but they had a singalong bit for the last set and my harmonica doesn't do singalong so I left. Bebop to Blues but no singalong. A nice night out and I will be playing with them again but without the singalong I hope!

Fiona had school planning work to do today , Miles wanted to do his maths degree work and Clifford was still in bed so I went out to Saltholme RSPB site on Teesside for the morning and early afternoon. The birds were thin on the ground at Saltholme and I just missed a flock of Waxwings but I did have a good ramble around in the winter light . I bought some new binoculars at Saltholme and they were great so in the early afternoon I went to Durham and did the usual Durham walk and saw seven Goosanders, yes seven , this sighting blows a hole in my idea that Goosanders were congregating around the open water in the River Wear because the ponds and lakes are frozen but on the other hand most of the ponds and lakes at Saltholme which is 5 miles from the coast are still frozen and its colder inland . Still that's a lot of Goosanders! Driving back to Darlington with the sun setting orange golden it was a great end to a nice holiday.

My Mum was ill with one of the lurgies going around at the moment , bad lurgies, so she was not up to a visit and the lads wanted to stay in so Fo and I went off to do a couple of hours of twitching at Saltholme RSPB site in the heart of Teeside(or hell depending on how you feel about heavy industry : I like it : heaven) . We went straight over to where its likely to see Long Eared Owls about a kilometer from the entrance and saw two of them and because it was a couple of hours from sunset and darkening a little bit they were getting a bit restless which was nice . They usually don't do anything at all for hours. The warden had the huge Optricon lenses set up and they were really helpful with information as well as jokes because just behind where we all standing there was a very muddy bog and they kept on saying to newcomers to the group "to not step back or we may never see you again!". After this we strolled over to a newly opened section up a 50m hill and just as we got to the top the warden there said " You must be the luckiest man alive ", " Could be right" I thought, "because we have spent the last two hours tracking down this Bittern and here it is " . It was amazing because we were looking down onto it from about 100m away and it was in full view , apparently very rare even on the 4 square miles of RSPB site they were on . Fiona was delighted and excited especially after the Long Eared Owls! Great gal: charm her with a bird sanctuary on a cold day , see very rare and I mean very rarely seen birds and she just swoons and falls into your arms or possibly a ditch if there's one nearby! Its happened ! In spite of the cold wind my binoculars did steam up a bit but that was also because of the excitement of seeing the Bittern moving around amongst the reeds and that is even more rare than rare. We then went over to another hide and saw the Water Rails and Fo was utterly enchanted by them . They're rarely seen either although they exist in pretty much most large reed beds you will come across in the North. A very nice afternoon out and the view over to the Transporter Bridge from the Haverton Hill Hide was magnificent in a Lowry sort of way with the gaunt Cleveland Hills of the Tontine in the background . I fall just a little bit more in love with the Tees valley when I see views like that .

Yesterday was Fiona's birthday so we went over to celebrate at her Mums in South Lakeland stopping over for a walk in the Howgills . They were lovely all clean and washed by the recent snow and ice . We solved a mystery about the scree slopes thinking for quite a while they were formed by eroded rock from above but in this case we were completely wrong because they are formed by the erosion of the soil cover which in the Howgills is very thin and made up of well over 70% small stone laid down as glacial till at the end of the last ice age . We were lead astray because the scree is nearly always near rock outcrops but the give away was that looking closer at the outcrops the scree is greatest where the outcrop forms a funnel to channel water therefore faster water more erosion . Drift geology : love it . There is even an alluvial fan effect seen on every river as the water spreads out as it comes out of the channel. You see it in a sink every day!

Barely a bird to be seen yesterday although we saw three Field fares. Fo was still very drained from her recent cold/flu so we split from the lads and they went up to the Calf the highest point in the Howgills and Fo and I pottered over to Cautley Spout and had a good look around with the binoculars . Fo's Mum was in good fettle and Fo's sister was there as well as the lads cousin India. A very nice day out and a lovely celebration of Fiona's Birthday with the food (and cake : must mention the cake : its middle class to mention the cake : Fo will be mad if I don't mention the cake although she doesn't read my blog much : if I did a cake blog maybe she would : then again I could mention the cake in every walking blog because we could have a "cake break! instead of the biscuit break on the walks) Anyway ; I've mentioned the cake !