Month: February 2026

Rembering Rob

b

I’ve drawn Rob as a grizzled mariner: the guy who scans the horizon for pods of rogue orcas; a safe hand at the wheel as the sun rises over the Sahara off the port bow.

The Ikinoo sailed safely past the rocks where my great 4-times grandfather Billy’s ship, HMS Africa, was stranded in the great storm after the battle of Trafalgar before being towed to Gibraltar.

I’m so sorry now that Barbara and I didn’t take the opportunity to join Rob and Karen at Gibraltar or Barbate to follow in Grandad Billy’s foootsteps, but so glad that we caught up with them in Greenock two years ago, we’ll miss him.

Rob died in Lanzarote on the 9th February, the day before what would have been his 53rd birthday.

Published
Categorized as People

Laughs, Riffs and See-saws

bird sketches

There’s a bit more enthusiasm in birdsong now. The strident see-saw of the great tit, the varied riffs of the song thrush and more substance to the song of the robin. At Brodsworth this morning we heard the laughing call of a green woodpecker – but didn’t spot the bird itself.

A wood pigeon poddles along, following a potential mate. She’s not impressed. She keeps looking over her shoulder then waddling on. I’d describe her attitude as embarrassed. He is apparently taking these backward glances as a come-on. He keeps following her along the railway sleeper edging of our 6 foot-square raised bed, round and round like the figures walking endlessly around the stepped ramparts of an Escher illusion.