Friday Update!

After much clever persuasion from Vivien, myself and a staff member where Lucy lives, she finally agreed to have the Oxford-Astra Zeneca Covid-19 Vaccine today, thank goodness! Vivien also has hers next Sunday too! Vivien and I have to keep our fingers crossed, that Lucy doesn't get any bad side effects tonight or tomorrow – if she does, its highly likely that she will refuse to have the second dose! 🤞

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This week I made my first ever Millionaire's Shortbread for my colleagues at work. I was very pleased that they turned out OK and everyone said they enjoyed them, but what a faff! Took forever to make and because I like quality ingredients, it also cost a bomb to make. I made double the recipe (40), which meant I purchased four big slabs of Bourneville chocolate, just for the topping bit! You have to wait for the shortbread layer to cool, then wait even longer for the caramel layer to chill, before you finish off with the chocolate layer! Extremely yummy, but it will be a long time before I make them again!

 

I noticed this evening on Twitter, that a campervan was asked to leave the Holme reserve car parks this evening! Funny how campervans are strictly not allowed to park on NWT or NOA reserve car parks overnight NORMALLY, never mind in a lockdown! They should be fined twice at least!

 

Lucy McRobert has penned a very well written article "Call It Out" via Twitter and Birdguides. It made me think about how I feel about birding alone. When I'm birding along the Norfolk coast I feel pretty safe to be honest and have only had a couple of incidents where I felt potentially unsafe. Most abuse I have encountered, has been via the internet from evil trolls, which I noted Lucy has also had to suffer with, after reading her article. As Lucy mentioned in her article, I was also very saddened to read about a female birder (via Twitter), who was sexually harassed recently, at a nature reserve in broad daylight – she very bravely and publicly shared this with her Twitter followers. Its truly wicked, that this has now affected her when going out birding alone and how much she now has to think about her every move and every man she encounters.

I certainly haven't felt safe in lockdown around my area of King's Lynn, where I would rarely go birding normally – I hate it and find myself constantly checking around me. Its dreadful when you find yourself sussing out people in the distance with your binoculars, trying to work out if they are an OK person or not! We as women, shouldn't have to feel like that. I don't take my camera gear with me and only take out my cheaper spare binoculars and often don't take my phone either! Its not a joyful experience at all, but this is the only choice I have right now. Its either birding in King's Lynn or stay at home! I CAN'T WAIT to get back to the coast!!!

My only great joy at the moment, is being able to to see the distant waves and Holme reserves from high up on a Ringstead back road, whilst on route to a community patient I see once a week in the Thornham area! Roll on the 29th March!