Week 3

Week 3 was a week of ups and downs. Starting with the ups, equipped with my new pair of Barr & Stroud binoculars, I began the week with a visit to Wicken Fen nature reserve. Wicken Fen was recommended by the camo wearing gentlemen I met at RSPB Fowlmere (see Day 2 and Day 3 blog posts) as a good place to see short-eared owls.

It turns out Wicken Fen is run by the National Trust which on the downside means paying £10 for entry but on the upside means there is a cafe & toilets. Similar to Fowlmere there was a list of birds on a board at arrival that could be seen at Wicken Fen including the elusive kingfisher. In fact, the Wicken Fen website announces there are over 9,000 species to discover. Similar to my Fowlmere experience, I found a remarkably small number of those species - approximately 7. Certainly no short-eared owls or kingfisher but given it was the middle of the day, the chances of an owl were low.

I did, though, manage to add to my official all time list of birds (running since start of October and now totaling 15!), by adding a number of water birds including the great cormorant, shoveler and green-winged teal.

Week 3 was also the week I finally gained access to the hallowed grounds of the golf club having successfully navigated the induction meeting/interview. I played nine holes with my eldest son. There was a slightly strange beginning where I was questioned fairly intensively by another member as to how I'd managed to secure my particular tee off time. It turned out the General Manager had booked it for me and told the member it wasn't available. Whilst it doesn't make for very interesting reading, it was actually a really enjoyable first nine holes where neither me nor my son stomped off a hole in a fit of pique. But if it helps, the sausage sandwich at the end was pretty awful. I'm not sure how they achieved it given the sausage appeared slightly burned on the outside but it was cold on the inside.

Other ups included attending Spurs 1-0 win over AZ Alkmaar. For context, having been on the waiting list for a season ticket for a number of years, at the start of last season I was surprised to find that I was able to get two season tickets on the lower tier, not too far from the half-way line. That was until I turned up to find we were within two seats and a reluctant steward of the away fans area. Fortunately commuting into London has honed my ability to act completely unaware of everything that is going on around me, which now extends to a bespittled away fan leaning over the barrier shouting various derogatory insights as to their views on Spurs as a team and myself should I choose to engage in eye contact.

For the AZ game, though, we managed to get seats on the opposite side of the ground where various older, more gentrified Spurs fans kept telling people to sit down. To my surprise, I actually found myself missing the febrile atmosphere created by sitting near the away fans especially the jumping, chanting, flag swirling fans of European teams. They always seem to bring a conductor with them who stands with his back to the game and co-ordinates all the songs and chants.

At the outset of this post, I mentioned some ups and downs. Time is running short as i need to give the impression to my wife that I haven't been sitting in bed writing this for most of this Saturday morning whilst she's been out actually getting stuff done. Downs included a painful left wrist - so much for the advantage of snow boarding in my earlier blog post; a heavy cold - my nose ran so much I woke up with a cold sticky trail running down my neck onto my pillow; moved to sleep on sofa at 3am because didn't want to wake wife with sneezing and blowing said runny nose; and, unexpected additional tax bill of £4K. That sucked.