I heard two new ones this morning….
The Marsh Tit
The Coal Tit
Monthly Archives: February 2024
Bird Listening February 2024 in the UK
I’m using the Cornell Lab’s Merlin App to listen and record the birds I am hearing locally,mainly on my dog walks.
I’ve been impressed by the cacophony of sound I hear ,and I thought it would be nice to know what is making it.
The process is very simple ,press record on the app.The app will record the birds singing and also identify the songbird.It also identifies the location and makes a list of my recordings so I can look back and see the pattern of where these birds are and maybe give an indication of their prevalence.
So far ,for February 2024,I have heard the following. I have, for my own enjoyment, tried to find a phototo to match the sound from the public domain photos.Forgive me if it’s the wrong bird,but even in winter, there is such a variety and it is so beautiful listening to their songs.My ear is tuning in more and more.
House Sparrow
A Robin
A Goldfinch
A Great Tit
A Magpie
A wren
Green Woodpecker
Black Headed Gull
Blue Tit
Jackdaw
Chiff Chaff
Starling
Rook
Chaffinch
Goldcrest
Long Tailed Tit
Blackcap
Songthrush
Reed Bunting
Dunnock
Redwing
Wood-Pigeon
Filed under Short Stories
His Numbers Came Up.
©️GeraldineBanks2024
It had started in his teens, petty theft,a bit of fun to brighten the day. Local shops,High Street shops when him and his mates were in town. If there was a store detective ,so much the better because there was nothing better than playing cat and mouse with them.
His thieving career had gone from strength to strength.He had left school and gone to work for a company selling insurance. He was very patient to begin with,had worked steadily to show his willingness to learn, and to be a great team player.Slowly he earned the female boss’s confidence, she had a soft spot for him. She was the cosignature for the cheques.
It was mana from heaven. Small amounts were siphoned from numerous accounts. After a couple of years at the insurance company,unbeknown to his bosses, he had tripled his miserly salary with these small amounts and was having a full-blown affair with the Financial Accountant, who was totally besotted with him.
Still ,things move on ,and he met a girl,the same age as himself ,and he fell in love with her.He no longer wanted anything to do with the insurance company’s financial accountant.
“George,you say you want to marry me,but how can we save for a house with your salary?” she said as they kissed goodnight on the doorstep of her parents.
“Not a problem.” George thought to himself,as he kissed her on the cheek and said goodnight. “I’ll sort it.” he said “You wait and see.”
And she did wait and see,in a few weeks her George had got a new job at another insurance company ,this time with management prospects.
“You wait and see…” She thought back now how many times George had said that to her ,and it had come true.
To be honest,the money always arrived for them to fulfil whatever plan she had in mind.She hadn’t been extravagant,she just wanted the best for George,her, and the two children.
George , in the meantime,covered his increasing liabilities with clever manipulations of his portfolio of clients.He spread his risk and looked at the long term.A forensic accountant would have difficulty in tracing the many small sums he had filched.Infact, the sums were so far under the radar that George knew they would not be noticed.It was his style.
However,the nine to five grind was getting him down ,and he dreamed of winning the Lottery and not having to work and grift to finance his modest lifestyle.So each week he bought a Lotto Ticket.The odds were impossible he knew, but why not him?
But,you know what happened next ,don’t you? George’s numbers came up.He won the Lotto. £1million pounds. Overnight, he was a millionaire. He ticked the box,no publicity, it made him think.He decided not to tell anyone,not even his wife whom he loved dearly.
He decided that going to work ,nine to five wasn’t a bad thing. Now, he had some serious thieving to do.He could cover his tracks with his lottery slush fund,he would stay one or two steps ahead of the auditors
And so George continued his thieving ways not because he needed the money,but for the thrill of it and because he had read an article in a newspaper a long time ago about The Duke of Triminster and how he owned almost half of the UK,and was the fifth richest man in the World.
Unbeknown to everyone,the Duke was knocked off his perch by a shady character called the Duke of Whitechapel,who now owns the mortgages,leases and copyrights of properties in the country of his origin,the UK , and indeed ,when the interest takes his Lordship , global rights.No one knows his identity and he likes to keep it that way.
He’s no Robin Hood, and he lives quietly with his wife in a retirement cottage by the sea. She brings him his afternoon tea out to his “project shed” in the garden, which has an interesting array of electronic equipment that George loves to tinker with.
“It’s his hobby tinkering .” His wife would say ,when the neighbours asked about George ,who they very rarely saw,but seemed to have every electronic gadget ever invented delivered to his house by a steady stream of Amazon delivery vans.
George never let’s on, but the thrill of the thieving never left him ,and there were still even bigger fish to fry.
Officially, he was retired and enjoyed receiving his married man’s pension each month,which he avoided paying tax on .That was a matter of honour,he had paid his taxes all his life.He was not going to be taxed on his pension.
“It takes a thief to catch a thief,” George knew that wasn’t true. He would never be caught, thieving ,was an art, a science, and his obsessive love.No matter how many thieves there were in this world, George would outsmart every one of them.It wasn’t to do with lottery or luck ,his numbers were always coming up and it was a thrill.
Filed under Short Stories
The Smiths at Number 5
©️GeraldineBanks2024
The neighbourhood had really pulled together,thank heavens, they had got rid of those dreadful Smiths.
The Reverened Platney sat in his study,his head in his hands not quite knowing if what had happened over the last three days was a bad dream.
He had not realised how much hate could be generated against people deemed not “fit to live with” by a most respectable and thoughtful community.He had been an unsuspecting party to events ,and he felt ashamed.
He had not exactly been duped by the Commitees arguments,he had felt at the time that he could counteract the vitriol against Elena Smith,her husband and their children with his logic and a healthy Christian outlook,but events had overtook him and in the end he had been forced to vote with the Committee and had been one of the signatories on the expulsion order. His hands had been tied,and now the Smiths were gone.He realised what a fool and a coward he had been.
The Smiths had arrived in the village of Baysea on the South Coast of England about ten years ago.They had bought a small cottage with a bit of land and were very much welcomed by the village as “fresh blood” within the community,with their three young children who would boost the local school numbers and protect it from closure.
Elena Smith was a yoga teacher,her husband had been “something big” in the city,but now planned to “do something small” in agriculture in their little village.
It was the refusal of invites to coffee mornings and Church Council meetings that gave cause to the community to feel slighted ,and it was generally agreed that that the Smiths were a bit ” standoffish.”
However ,when it became clear that the Smith’s planned to home school their children ” for religious reasons” and that as a result of this and lack of numbers at that the Village school would have to close.The Smith’s were deemed “outsiders” and the “Welcome Mats” to the newcomers were no longer proffered.
Indeed , the parents of all those children who were forced to make the five mile a day bus journey to the new school in the town blamed the Smith’s entirely for the loss of their village school. It was a resentment that they harboured for many years to come and would have damning consequences.
Elena Smith had little to do with the community in Baysea.The cottage that her and her husband had bought mortgage free had been known in the village as “Wildflower Cottage”, for the obvious reason that the meadows surrounding it were indeed full of wildflowers in the Spring and Summer.
The Smiths loved the flowers and kept the meadows as they were ,but again , citing “religious” reasons the name of the Cottage was changed to “No.5”
It was the local postmaster who spread the word about the change of name to the villagers. Some thought it,an expression of witchcraft , confusing the word pentacle as a 5 sided figure when it was usually six or indeed a square.Others thought that Mr Smith was some sort of UFO enthusiast and perhaps 5 had a significance to him for reasons they could not fathom.They were all stumped when they were told that the reason for the change was “religious”. They asked themselves what was wrong with the name “Wildflower Cottage.”
Over the years, Elena had often walked or cycled to the village shop from the cottage. She needed necessities like milk ,eggs ,and sugar and occasionally had the odd letter or birthday card to send.No one spoke to her ,and she spoke to no one. Was it strange?Elena did not think so. She had no desire for idle chatter,it always led to trouble,so she was not in the least bit concerned as increasingly the village seemed to turn against her.
There were , however , her children,one of whom was now in her teenage years.Stella was a very beautiful and an inquisitive teenager.Mature beyond her years and having just had her sixteenth birthday with her extended family in London,returned to Baysea determined to integrate into village life.
She got a part-time job in a small arts and crafts business. It was there that she met the Reverend Platney’s son Josh, who was 18 years of age and about to head to university to study physics. Stella was Josh’s first serious girlfriend. It was a platonic friendship to begin with,but once Josh was at Exeter University,Stella visited him ,and the relationship blossomed and was consummated many times on her visits.They became an item.
The Reverened hoped that through Josh, he would find out more about the Smiths,but this had not been the case. Infact, Josh became increasingly distant from his father and when he graduated after three years at Exeter and moved to do a PhD in London,he lost contact with his son altogether.
Reverened Platney was hurt by this,but was always reassured when he bumped into Stella in Baysea .Stella lived with Josh in London but would occasionally visit her parents at Baysea and would tell him that Josh was fine, but that his thesis was proving very difficult and once he had got that out of the way things would get back to normal and he would be in touch.
Josh never did get back in touch and Josh and Stella disappeared from Baysea. As far as the Reverened was concerned, they had disappeared from the planet.
The Reverened Platney felt uncomfortable the night he knocked on the door of Number 5 and asked to come in.Elena answered the door and told him it was not convenient.
“Mrs Smith,I just want to know if you have heard from Stella,I miss my son so much.” He pleaded with her.
“No,no,you must understand,that children grow up,they have their lives to live.I’m sorry I haven’t heard from Stella either,but I don’t worry.They will get in touch when they are ready.It’s a very busy time for them in their lives. We must not be selfish Reverend.”
“But,I just need to know…..” Elena shut the door gently in his face.
This incident had made Reverened Platney very angry.Nevertheless ,if Elena Smith did not want to talk to him, what could he do?
The other two Smith children,who had reached the age of twelve and fifteen prior to their removal ,were often seen around the village and working on Mr Smiths smallholding.They were good looking, quiet and polite.They would occasionally speak when spoken to but on the whole said very little and seemed very happy with their own company.
Mr Smith grew vegetables very successfully and left any extra produce he grew on a cart for the villagers to help themselves to ,which they did.
One rainy Monday ,The Reverened Platney received a letter postmarked London one .His hands trembled as he hoped against hope that it was from Josh,his son.
“Dear Dad,
I am very sorry that I have not contacted you for such a long time.I’ve finished my PhD. and am now a Doctor of Physics.
I wanted to ask, have you seen Stella? Has she been back to Baysea?I haven’t seen her for six months now. She left with an overnight bag and said she had to attend a work course and would be back in a few days.She hasn’t returned ,she was three months pregnant.I’m out of my mind with worry.
Things here are very strange,the Police say they can’t help as Stella has no papers,passport, or anything. As far as they are concerned, she doesn’t exist.What does it mean?I’m worried sick about Stella and the baby.
I would have rang you,but as I said ,things are very strange here,I’m pretty certain the phone is being monitored, and I’m sure Stella felt she was in some kind of danger. Please write and let me know.
It’s getting really difficult to travel here,otherwise I would come and see you.There’s a lot of anti here,protesting and the like against everything on all sides,but mainly anything different from the status quo.Whatever the status quo is?
Anyway ,dad,let me know if the Smiths have heard anything?
Love Josh.
The Reverened Platney reread the letter and placed it on the table.
He thought to himself. “No papers,no passport.”With things as they are, that’s a very dangerous situation to be in. Being a member of a National Church,he knew about the new restrictions on people’s freedoms and the government’s plan to protect society from pernicious influences.He felt it was right,that the government should intervene to protect the moral fabric of the country.That is why he had been the third signatory on the removal of the Smith’s from Baysea.They were to be taken away tomorrow to a “holding facility”. It was too late,he had done what he felt right at the time, and now he was not so sure.It was too late to change anything.
The Police would take them away tomorrow, and Baysea would never see the Smith’s again. Whatever had happened to Stella,no one would ever know.
He would write to Josh and let him know what had happened,but not that he had been instrumental in the process of removing the Smiths.He didn’t need to say anything about that,he had not been the only one to want to get rid of them. He had advised the committee what was possible.
But,what about his grandchild?What had happened to his grandchild? ,He took Josh’s letter in his hand and crumpled it as the tears ran down his face.
The End
Filed under Short Stories
thenotsomightyom 