Barnacle Geese

Quite amazed by the sheer number of Barnacle Geese around Helsinki. Every park and lake seems to have them. In the UK these are winter birds. They look a bit like Canada Geese, but are smaller with different markings.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose .

UK Litter

Without exception Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland are virtually litter free. You sense civic pride. In the UK have we no pride? Why do we drop litter in the first place?

Surely we can get someone to clean our mess? Surely if Estonia with its tiny population can have no litter we can do the same? Basically we are litter louts in the UK!

Coventry Canal

The wives of my wife's brothers walking along the towpath of the Coventry Canal a few days ago.

Lichfield

My brother-in-law lives in Lichfield north of Birmingham. The walk into Lichfield along the side of Stowe Pool is delightful.

Home

It seems hard to believe we have lived in our current home for almost 5 years. We lived in our previous home for 37.5 years. At first, we thought we'd be very homesick and miss the "old place". Actually we haven't. I guess we still have the familiar things all around us like furniture and photos. Our bungalow has our stamp on it.

Where I came from in Devon

This photo appeared as one of my FaceBook memories earlier. We have lived hereabouts for a very long time.

We had a part share in some land near here in the early 1400s.

It is entirely possible one (or several) of my ancestors manned the promontory fort at Bolt Tail in the distance thousands of years ago.

Painted rocks

This seems to be a nationwide craze, especially with young people. Yesterday we were visiting friends with young children and they had loads to re-hide. I saw one in Devon a few weeks ago. You find yourself looking all the time!