Peter Reynolds

Today I started a new blog on Paradise Valley, the beautiful heaven on earth where I am so fortunate to live.

This will be where I write about walking my dogs , Capone and Carla, and all our adventures in deepest Dorset.

Yes, the expectation is ridiculous but Barack Obama continues to fulfil his promise at every stage.

His “First 100 days” is the point at which everyone will seek to pass judgment but I acknowledge him now.  This man remains a beacon of hope.  His personality and integrity shines through everything.  His direct, considered and incisive answers to questions reveal a leader who is exactly what the world needs.  I believe we deserve

Barack Obama In London

him too.  Other current political issues show the seedy, self-serving, mediocre individuals we have had to put up with for far too long.

I was immensely impressed with his announcement on plans for the US car industry which was an object lesson in how to deliver bad news, how to tell all parties involved that it is time to get real.

He arrives in London and with supreme capability immediately addresses the world economic crisis and arms reduction, apparently making more progress on both in hours than other politicians have made in years.

Hail to the Chief!

Or so Peter Mandelson would have us believe!  Congratulations to him.  If he can do it so can I.  I can reprise him too.  My first ever published article in the national press (The Independent) toyed with my confrontation with the man himself at the junction of Ledbury Road and Westbourne Grove.  It must have been about 1994.  I think around the time of his mortgage scandal. I was gently cycling southwards and as I crossed over this dishevelled, unshaven and grumpy looking character loped along the Westbourne Grove pavement and wanted to cross.  The look he gave me when I didn’t give way was enough to freeze the blood of any parliamentary minion and only then did I realise who he was

My abiding memory is of his crumpled shorts – so crumpled.  As if they’d been screwed up tight in his fist before beng worn.

And at the instant I think to myself “hasn’t he aged?”, I know the same must be true of me.  He has done so with dignity and now looks more the statesman than the aggressive spin doctor.

All hail Peter!  You’re back.  And in fine fettle!

So Nicole Cooke, carrying the Welsh Dragon high, cycles to a gold medal and sets the standard for the British Olympic team.

Meanwhile, at home, far too many people are adopting a cynical, world weary attitude.  Shame on you!

Barbara Ellen, sexy new columnist at The Observer says “Call off 2012, Beijing Is Boring”.  Well, she may be appreciable eye candy (useful for all those soirees columnists just have to attend) but she is resorting to the oldest trick in the journo’s book – if you can’t say something sensible then slag it off.

More disturbing is the pub talk, the man on the Clapham omnibus who also claims to be bored.

Listen killjoys, cynics, non-Welsh Brits, in a fortnight’s time there will be a tear welling up in your eye.  You’ll want to and, undeservingly, will, feel part of it.  Your patriotic spirit will be reborn and you’ll be screaming as the next British runner, cyclist or egg and spooner takes gold.

The Olympics are a wonderful, inspiring celebration of mankind.  I remember them throughout my childhood and I am cheering for our boys and girls from the very beginning.  The rest of you are welcome to the party however late you arrive.

So just as they chose to invade Afghanistan on Christmas Day, the Russians have chosen to invade Georgia on the day the China Olympics open.

It is by no means certain why they choose such an occasion.  Perhaps it is to draw attention to the event while the world has an international focus.  It may actually serve to emphasise the message they are sending by this action.   On the other hand, it may be that Moscow hopes our attentions are distracted by the Olympics and it will be better able to get away with this sort of conduct now than at any other time.

Russia is asserting its might for its strategic interests in the same way as the USA does.  There will be many innocent lives lost.  There will be massively increased profits for Russian and Western arms manufacturers.

Ultimately Georgia’s destiny must be to be truly independent so Russia’s action can only fail and should be abandoned immediately.  On the other hand there is much talk of agitation in the area by the USA, possibly CIA warmongering.

I fear the die is cast – thousands are going to die. Perhaps it will continue until November when Barrack Obama becomes President-elect and insists on peace.

The worry is that we are all playing with high stakes.  Last year Georgia openly cooperated with the CIA to arrest a Russian trying to sell bomb-grade uranium…

High summer.  A blanket of thick grey cloud and a force four or five south-easterly blasts a fine drizzle into my face.  We’re checking out the aftermath of yesterday’s invasion and the pleasant surprise is that there’s no evidence at all of the drama that was played out near the Langstone bridge.

The world, his wife and about a thousands grockles invaded our space yesterday all in search of a dying whale.  Actually there were probably about a hundred turning the sea wall in front of Langstone millpond into a grandstand.  It’s a well known fact though that one grockle causes a disturbance in the Force equivalent to 10 locals so the initial, instictive estimate is more accurate.

Sid, the harbourmaster, came into The Bluebell at lunchtime on Thursday and relayed the news.  I took a walk up there with the dogs out of interest and the fantasy of a five figure photography fee.  To be honest, I don’t understand the fuss.  I know that Captain Kirk and Mr Spock have helped to endow whales with mystic, spiritual qualities but I see more interesting, exciting and tragic things nearly every day in Chichester harbour.  When the grockles arrived the following day I don’t think one of them turned round and noticed the 30 odd little egrets roosting in the trees just a few yards behind them.  The television crews certainly didn’t.

The entire area was in gridlock.  Glorious Goodwood and the whale turned our local paradise into an extension of the M25.  Television crews and photographers with lenses as long as my arm clogged our roads and pathways.  In the harbour itself, massive RIBs, the inshore lifeboat, helicopters and even a police boat added to the mainly manmade drama and the huge cost of it all. All credit to them though because this morning when I walked past the millpond where yesterday there was even a tent erected for the press and the multiple veterinary, wildlife and eco professionals, there wasn’t a single scrap of litter to be seen.

The same morning that the sorry whale paddled up the channel between Thorney and Hayling, Capone, Carla and I were on the other side of Thorney, in our latest favourite spot, waist deep in the saltmarsh grasses.  Our friend the heron came into sight and as we sidled up towards him I was delighted to see that his mate was there.  My longest lens is a mere few inches so, as best as one can with two dogs squabbling over a stick, I tried to get closer.

The birds took off and escaped me but as we reached the limit of that direction where a vicious barbed wire fence hinders any further progress,  I saw them both on the side of the river bank.  Then I saw double, for perhaps 60 or 70 yards in front of me were four herons casually watching the water and thinking about breakfast.

This was a truly remarkable sight.  Much more interesting to me than a enormous, sad mammal lying in the mud and I managed to record it at the limit of my zoom lens.  This was my scoop, captured in glorious Kodak colour while the grandstand roared and cheered and applauded.

It was heartwarming to see Karadzic looking frightened and vulnerable before the very dignified Judge Alphons Orie at the war crimes tribunal.  We must now grant him undeserved due process before he is sentenced, undoubtedly to life imprisonment.

I am deeply and fundamentally opposed to the death penalty but I will glady make exceptions for subhuman monsters like Karadzic and Mladic as the Iraqis did for Saddam Hussein.  It would be good to see Karadzic twitching and jerking at the end of a rope.  In fact, why not spare him the drop and let him strangle slowly.

I saw this boy on BBC South Today.  Incredible!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7532050.stm

Where else in the world is there anyone as consistently, ever-increasingly sexy and gorgeous as Christine?

What future is there for those of us who are too old, too ugly and too hopeless?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7529694.stm

It moved me to see how Welsh pride and hwyl transcends race and religion as Sarika Singh emerged from the High Court and was determined to say “I am a proud Welsh, Punjabi Sikh girl”

If I was to say that I bumped into Capone on the foreshore posing as a Japanese tourist you’d say I’d flipped.  Were I to propose that some 30 exotic herons were nesting at Langstone millpond you might think I was exaggerating. To say that the maize in the field next to my house grew a foot in the space of one humid Saturday…

Well it’s all true.  Unfortunately, my greedy anticipation of some innocent scrumping in the sweetcorn field has been thwarted.  A previous pilferer assures me that it’s cattle feed and the more you boil the cobs the harder they become.  It does amaze me though, the way this stuff reaches for the sky.  Planted in May as two or three inch shoots it now averages a foot above my head and, yes, on that very hot and humid Saturday it put on a full twelve inches.

Behind Langstone millpond I counted 28 little egrets nesting in the broadleaved trees. This feels more like something that you might see in the African bush but there they are, distracting me as Carla’s beady eyes focus on the coots and mallards taunting her from the pond.  Little egrets were unseen in the UK until 20 years ago but now they seem to be taking over Chichester harbour due, we are told, to the effects of global warming.  I wonder when the ostriches and flamingoes are going to arrive?

As for Capone’s antics well I wish I’d had a camera to record them.  It was in the leg pocket of my trousers, the strap dangling carelessly.

As Capone put in another withering Ieuan Evans style run down the nearside wing he managed to pass his head through the camera strap.  The pocket was ripped clean off my trousers and as he felt the weight he came to a shuddering halt and turned back to look at me, my camera hanging round his neck.  He thought he was in trouble but not for long!

We’ve discovered a truly magical new walk recently.  It’s as close to virgin territory as you can get on the south coast.  I’m pretty sure that there’s no other humans have passed there in many months or even years, perhaps not since some maintenance work was last carried on the Thorney Island airfield approach lights.  Judging from their sorry condition that’s been a very, very long time.  It’s on the right side of the MOD boundary so I don’t think I’m in danger of being shot on sight.  It’s saltmarsh with acres of waist high grasses and patches of damp but parched and cracked mud that sounds hollow as you walk across it.  The dogs thunder across it sounding like a herd of buffalo and there’s a pair of herons, huge cormorants and shelducks always in the same place, vastly offended by our invasion.  Walking here is an overwhelmingly soothing experience.  Cares and worries just evaporate and I find myself returning to the car with a wide, involuntary and peaceful smile.

Only three days after that sweltering Saturday the temperature has dropped 10 degrees and out on the foreshore under thunderous skies there must be another 10 degrees of wind chill.  My two favourite dogs are about 40 yards out squabbling over a stick in the heavy chop that’s thrashing in from Hayling.

Rain or shine, calm or wind, it’s just perfect out there.

Before I am outblogged by a blogger, I have to put in my plug, plugs and more plugs for The Bluebell Inn in Emsworth.  Until now, mentioned only once in Walking The Dog 2, I have certainly been remiss in failing to acknowledge the important part that The Bluebell plays in my life in Emsworth.  I am, after all, desperate for a free roast beef and horseradish baguette.

I am not a pub person.  Or, at least, I wasn’t until I started frequenting The Bluebell but even here I confess that having walked in in the evening I have walked straight out again after discovering a tribe of boorish, beered-up twenty and thirty-somethings.

During the day though, The Bluebell is a delight.  It is only right that I share the responsibility of propping up the bar with Owain and Sid because otherwise it might fall down and where would Giles and Chris and Nicole be then?

Tom,  the former landlord, who I hold very responsible for the genial atmosphere that prevails is presently recuperating at home. My sympathy for him is, of course, not at all compromised by the three weeks he spent in Cuba with his 19 year old girlfriend immediately before his health scare.

Capone and Carla are made very welcome and I am considering starting a fan club for them as potentially a far more lucrative business than anything else I have ever done!

It is no exaggeration at all, though, with or without a roast beef and horseradish baguette, to say that the food at The Bluebell is exceptional.  I have never been less than delighted with anything from a pot of cockles to a baked sea bream.  They even do the best frozen chips in town!

Last week I travelled to Dorset and, just north of Weymouth, called into The Old Ship Inn at Upwey.  There I selected, for £5.95, a ham and tomato baguette which, when it arrived, was probably a fraction longer than the word itself and “filled” with carefully crazy-paved supermarket ham (we have to go metric here because two millimetres thick doesn’t work in imperial) and a couple of slivers of tomato.  That, combined with ten crisps and two slices of red onion, made me appreciate what I have at home.

The Bluebell does not even deserve comparison with that.  Nowhere will you find finer food at better value and if I’m offered a roast beef and horseradish baguette for saying so, I will, for propriety’s sake (but very reluctantly) give it to my dogs.

http://www.bluebellinnemsworth.co.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7527359.stm

I was horrified to see a spokesman from the RSPB on BBC Breakfast this morning make

Kestrel over Nore Barn Wood 8th June 2008

outrageous and disgraceful accusations against the “shooting community”.  He laid the responsibility for all attacks on birds of prey entirely on those who shoot.

Of course, the shooting community has done more to protect and conserve the UK environment and wildlife than any other group over hundreds of years.  The RSPB, which has become an undignified, over-commercialised hotbed of “loonies” becomes more power hungry and sensationalist every day trying to over extend itself into a general environmental organization.  It pontificates about everything from packaging to helping grannies cross the road and, occasionally, birds.  Its primary interest is commercial and it promotes this by such nonsensical, attention grabbing nonsense.

It is appalling that the BBC should allow such blatant lies to be broadcast and without offering those accused the opportunity to respond.

It is also time that someone, and I am setting myself up here, took a long and careful look at the RSPB.  Its chief oddity, Bill Oddie, was recently involved in a verbal punch up over the rights and wrongs of eating game.  No doubt he is more the battery chicken and Tesco sponsored enthusiast.

Alright, I know it’s sad, I’m sad. I just love Celebrity Masterchef!

The programme has always captured me but this series seems particularly special.  It’s the gorgeous, sweet, delightful Liz, the passionate, intense, slightly bumbling Mark or the precise, determined but equally passionate Andy.

The thing that really gets me is the music.  I think it’s what they call “uplifting House”.  It drives progress.  It drives suspense.  It builds.  It fulfills.  And it turns around again.  It builds.  It drives.  The buzz intensifies. And, it, crescendoes.

That’s what really pulls me in and I love this show!  Food is, of course, a wonderful narcotic and the whole experience of this fabulous television is a rush.

The drama never ceases.  I care deeply for each of the contestants.  As their eyes well up so do mine – again! Triumph and disaster.  Amazing how they compete against each other yet weld together as a team, caring and supporting each other.  It’s wonderful to see the pride in Gregg and John’s faces!

Forgive me while I retch at my own sentimental nonsense but I’ll definitely be watching the final!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7520803.stm

What utterly absurd sentences for Mr and Mrs Darwin!  When there are violent thugs loose on the streets, this is the sort of idiocy that brings the law into disrepute.  The judge has made himself look an utter fool and has done nothing at all in the cause of justice.  Clearly these two people were dishonest but the greatest harm they perpetrated was on their sons.  I have no sympathy for the insurance company at all because, by definition, it is engaged in a process of long term, calculated but legalised fraud.  How many years are the directors and regulators of Equitable Life looking at?

Prison is a place for those convicted of violence, not for sad people like the Darwins.  How can the judge live with himself? What rationale can there be for this?  I hope he has no connection with the insurance industry.  He should have no further role in the judicial system.

At last, some straight talking from the OFT about the way the Banks treat consumers.  As if we didn’t know it already but there is no excuse for the way these evil institutions have been allowed to operate and there can be no more compromise or filibuster about the consequences for them. They behave as if they are above the law.  They conduct themselves in ways which in any other context would be defined as theft and fraud.  Whilst they throw people out of their homes, deny legitimate business the means to operate, they let their cocaine-fuelled gamblers take ludicrous risks on ridiculous schemes and all the time present themselves as the backbone of our financial system.

Christ’s rage in the temple is the precise analogy.   It is time that we saw some of these silver haired, grey suited monsters in jail.  Their depth of corruption and manipulation and creation of misery has no comparison.  Right now the financial squeeze we are all suffering is entirely down to the incompetence of the banks in making lending decisions based only on the greed of individuals conspiring to create multi-million pound bonuses for themselves.  They deny honest, hard-working people the means to progress or recover but there is no consequence for themselves when things go wrong.

Let us pray that the OFT follows through on this properly and brings to heel these out of control, rabid dogs.

I admit, I am not a 100% law abiding citizen.  I park on yellow lines.  I exceed the speed limit.  I smoke weed.  BUT I would describe myself as a strong supporter of the police.  Any society has to have rules and that means there has to be someone to enforce them.  I don’t envy the police in their responsibilities and I admire the way that many of them are fulfilled.  If you’ve ever been in a traffic accident and seen the way they deal with such chaos amidst the confusion, fear and danger, you have to admire their training and focus.  If you’ve ever lived in central London and experienced the little shits, wasters and a***holes who plague the streets then you have to admire their patience and persistence.

I think “institutional racism” was probably a fair criticism but then it was born out of the fact that the majority of street violence and crime was carried out by young black men – and still is.  If I was a policeman I’d probably be “stopping and searching” more blacks than whites.  It wouldn’t be my job to worry about the causes and the social whys and wherefores.  My job would be to protect the public.

There is another institution in the police though and its been there for years.  You can call it cynicism.  You can understand it by realising that they see themselves, inevitably, as separated from the rest of us – on another side.  You can appreciate how the ridiculous administrative load they are placed under grinds them down. BUT they can be their own worst enemies when they deal with people in a way that alienates and antagonises those that want to support them.

I had an experience with my local police in Havant recently that, at the end of the day, just makes me sad.  It’s a leadership issue really and whilst I feel pretty sore at the rather stupid young policewoman who tried to stitch me up, I don’t really blame her.  She’s a foot soldier, not gifted with huge intelligence and steeped in this destructive culture of “us and them”.

I had some property stolen from me in what you might call a “domestic” context.  In fact it wasn’t mine.  If it was I’d probably have let it go but I had to get it back and I had no option but to look to the police to do their job and enforce the law.

So, knowing all too well that if I telephoned it in or even went to the police station to report it, I’d just be brushed aside, I made a written complaint.

After two weeks I’d had no response at all so I managed (with extreme difficulty) to find an email address and sent a reminder.  It took several further emails and a number of telephone calls before, nearly six weeks after my initial complaint, a crime reference number was allocated.

Another week later I attended at Havant police station to make a statement.  I very much had the impression that the policewoman was just going through the motions and she was much more interested in any detail that would enable her to write the matter off as a “domestic” rather than deal with the real issue.  I did say to her that I felt I was entitled to rely on the police to take action but I didn’t think that was unreasonable.

Nevertheless, she took my statement and was pleasant enough.  She made some small talk and casually enquired how I had travelled to the police station and where I was parked.

As she showed me out of the police station we met two of her colleagues in the corridor who I held the door open for.  I returned to my car, drove less than 25 yards from my parking space and was suddenly and violently intercepted by a police van driving across in front of me.

The two colleagues I had met in the police station emerged from the van and told me that they proposed to breathalyse me.  They called another car in and I found myself on the pavement surrounded by four police officers being made to take a breath test – which I passed.

Draw your own conclusions.  Mine are that I have no confidence in Havant police at all, in their bona fides, good intentions, integrity, intelligence or even common sense.  I don’t blame the policewoman involved because she’s just a victim of the police culture that creates this sort of stupid, dumb, “us and them” culture.

In the higher echelons of the police force there are clearly some very clever people doing fantastic work on matters such as anti-terrorism and thank God they are.  Amongst the footsoldiers, as well as the heroes and those who understand their role as a public servants,  there are undoubtedly inadequate individuals who choose a uniform to bolster their own self image and who enjoy wielding authority that is beyond their ability.

It is a leadership issue.  If you antagonise, offend, upset and deal shabbily with those you are supposed to “protect and serve” then where do you expect your support to come from?

Our climate seems to be playing many tricks on us these days. Or at least, so the media frenzy about global warming would have us believe. With my personal experience and memory stretching back only about 40 years it’s difficult to know whether what seems unusual in that context is merely just the ebb and flow of nature. This spring and summer certainly seems to have been missing our normal south-westerly winds. Instead they’ve been coming from the east and closer to due south.

It was the return of a more familiar wind direction that gave rise to another rather embarrassing confrontation with the local wildlife and another failure to capture the event with my camera.

As Capone and I pass by Warblington Church, I suppose it’s my many repeated commands to walk to heel in case of any traffic which means that it has become a habit and, try as I might, I cannot encourage him to “get on” and quarter the ground in front as his half-pointer breeding should favour. He just prefers to walk by my side.

As we swing round past the old vicarage and turn south again down the Pook Lane path to the sea, he changes and forges ahead, often unseen, even on the brightest day, in the dark and dappled tunnel of hedgerow. To both sides there are ditches, thick with nettles and to my right, the west, a field of pasture, foot high with grasses. About a third of a way down we pass two great cedar trees. If you look seaward from the Havant junction on the A27 you can’t miss them. They appear to be three but, in fact, one splits right near the base of its trunk.

Right there, with wind in my face, a russet shape with a great bushy tail wanders along the edge of the field, casual, calm and blissfully unaware, my scent blown behind me before any chance of reaching him.

He is less than six feet from me. His feet at my eye level. Even fumbling for my camera does not alarm him. The wind is strong enough to blow away the noise too. My clumsy camera work continues and he walks right past paying me no notice.

Now I have to turn back slightly and towards the ditch. At last my viewfinder is on but I can’t see him anymore. So I part the nettles with my leg and edge gently into the ditch – until I begin to slide.

Arms and face tingling with nettle stings, I have discovered that the ditch is six feet deep and as I try to scramble back up, who should be there looking down at me with bemusement? Capone, of course, complete bafflement on his face as to what these human beings get up to and why!

The other “environmental” issue that has been concerning me are the vast carpets of glutinous seaweed that have been smothering the beaches. Sid, the Emsworth harbourmaster and fount of all knowledge on such matters, tells me that it is caused by nitrates washed down into the sea from the farmland.

It is revolting stuff, perhaps six inches deep, slippery and treacherous to walk over. In bright sunlight it bleaches quickly and dries to a crispy underlay over which the next tide deposits another layer. I was lucky enough to enjoy a day’s sailing in a 45 foot yacht out of Northney Marina and saw great swathes of the stuff as far out as the Isle of Wight. Then suddenly, with no mention of our local problem, “mutant seaweed” choking the Olympic Games sailing venue in Beijing has become a stick with which to beat the Chinese.

I hold no brief for the Far East at all but surely this is just more media befuddlement, cheap sensationalism (even in The Times!). We love to paint them as the great polluters, as incompetent to manage this great sporting occasion. Look closer to home first, skip the all expenses paid trip to China and please, can someone give us some honesty, some straightforwardness and some real information?

Capone agrees too. “Now get on and throw that stick!”

I love eggs, particularly lightly scrambled with loads of butter, or lightly boiled. In both cases with lots of salt, black pepper and fresh granary bread (and more butter). I buy into the River Cottage campaign completely on all the bases of animal welfare, taste and nutritional value.

As you will have gathered, I am also a glutton, so I habitually go for the “Very Large Organic Free Range”. Every time I crack one it runs all over the pan and frequently breaks the yolk.

My father, who has not yet achieved enlightenment on this issue buys the cheapest he can get, usually packs of 15 from Sainsbury.

Regrettably, (and please can someone explain?!!) every time I cook breakfast at my parents’, every egg that I crack holds together tight and firm and upright, looks fresh, tastes better…

I don’t want this to be the truth but it is. Not just once but over a period of months. Something is wrong here. There is someone being dishonest about some stage in the egg process.

Can anyone explain?

He should certainly have been arrested on sight and I could probably have been persuaded that he was shot while trying to escape.  Nevertheless, The AU must condemn him in the strongest possible terms.  Every step they take back from immediate arrest is a betrayal of their people.  At least be clear in your judgement even if you have no courage for action.

An article in Friday’s Times tells of the difficulties facing sailors competing in the Beijing Olympics due to an invasion of mutant seaweed described as “thick as a carpet”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4221527.ece

We are suffering from the same problem in Chichester Harbour and I can personally testify to the deep pile quality of this very unpleasant weed.  I consulted the authority on such matters, Sid, the Emsworth harbourmaster.  He tells me it is caused by nitrates seeping down into the harbour from farmland.  I have seen great swathes of it as far as 10 miles out and around the Isle of Wight.  The tide brings it up to the beach and deposits it in layers four to six inches thick.  It is difficult and slippery to walk over and is bleached almost bright white and crispy by the sun in the space of a day.  Then the tide brings another layer up and massive areas of the foreshore become clogged with it.

Already handsome, overrun with female admirers and, dare I say, happy, now his career as a media celebrity is taking off.  Evan will appear on “This Morning” on Monday (30th June 2008) to promote his bionic hand, his Channel 5 documentary and his general magnificence!  All hail the conquering hero, my son!

When I first saw it, my heart went into my mouth and then dropped in to my stomach as I realised I was looking at a pterodactyl. Loping away from a low branch, it’s massive wings somehow rolling up and then unrolling in an unbelievably slow movement, it rose gracefully, magnificently away from me.

Regaining my composure, with my trusty Kodak Digital at my side, I still managed to miss the chance of a great picture and Capone, my faithful, four-legged companion, just looked at me in disgust before doing his own loping away towards the sea.

Ever since then I’ve been hunting the heron and its mate, for there are two of them cruising the farmland, woods and foreshore between Emsworth, Warblington and Langstone. I’ve seen it perhaps half a dozen times in as many months, once just three feet above my head as I walked down one of Havant’s more exclusive residential avenues. Every time I fumble for my camera, it uncurls those great wings, folds its neck up in dinosaur style and leaves me in disarray.

Every day produces something remarkable in this little haven on the south coast. Across Chichester and Langstone harbours the Portsmouth Spinnaker tower glints bright white in the sun. Crowds of brent geese grow bigger and individually fatter by the day and the oyster catchers screech low along the water’s edge, swinging in formation to display the dazzling zigzags along their backs.

When the brent geese first came in from their summer home in the arctic, they would gather in one huge flock of perhaps five hundred in a field just above the sea. Capone would put them up in a force five south-westerly and they would head seaward in a cacophony of honking, flapping wings getting them nowhere, directly into the gale. I would walk on with them above and all around me, hanging motionless, creating a world of noise and feathers and wind and dog and insignificant me.

Warblington cemetery contains a piteous children’s section where the gravestones are decorated with teddies, windmills, rubber ducks, Rupert and Peter Rabbit. Every day that two minute walk touches me but never more so than on Christmas morning. Then, the really remarkable thing was the intense, beaming smiles that both the bereaved mothers gave me as they tended their child’s grave. Walking into the south-westerly that morning made my eyes water as never before.

The March storms brought both drama and damage, the fields along the coast displaying lines of seaweed 40 yards further back than usual. Other dog walkers who live right on the foreshore told me their roof tiles were tinkling like a xylophone. Parts of Emsworth were flooded. The sea overflowing the mill pond wall filled the empty eight and a half acre pond in half an hour and brought down great lengths of the inner retaining wall. I found myself up to my knees in overflowing sea as it swept in round the sailing clubhouse and caused chaos in the dinghy park.

This morning I left the warmth of Nore Barn Wood and struck out across the most heavily pigeoned stubble field I know. Then to my right a white object caught my eye in the middle of the boggy area that runs down to the stream where the pterodactyl had first frightened me. Capone and I diverted and plugged our way towards it but it was still, inert, probably one of those plastic bags that Emsworth has virtually done away with. We trudged on, me avoiding the cow pats, Capone stepping in every one and relaxed into the warm morning sunshine, another storm promised for the weekend.

It rose again, elegant and yet ponderous at the same time, lofted up and away and gone.

Peter Reynolds 20-03-08

…of I do not know what!

It will be a place for me to compile the work, ideas and experiences that make up my life.  I shall use it to express myself and to communicate about what I believe is important and worth saying.  Anyone is welcome to read, to comment or contribute.  I hope I can bring a little enjoyment, interest or happiness into your life.  I hope I can provoke, entertain, challenge, confuse, anger, upset, infuriate and make your day special.

Peter Reynolds is a writer, communications advisor and proud Welshman. He lives in a small town called Emsworth, between Portsmouth and Chichester on the south coast of England. After “dropping out” from life as a hippy musician, Peter experimented with direct sales and the motor trade before training as a copywriter and eventually making it to the top of his profession as a creative director with Saatchi & Saatchi. Along the way he developed special expertise in technology and healthcare working with clients such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, GSK and the Department of Health. He also worked as a freelance journalist writing for just about every PC magazine then on the market and had a weekly column in The Independent based on the simple idea of riding a bike but ranging across subjects such as politics, sport, technology and the media. Since the 1990s he has worked as a consultant to organisations such as Nokia, the British Army and Pinewood Studios. In 2004 he established Leading Edge Personal Technology as “the magazine for technology enthusiasts”. He continues to write on a wide range of subjects.