23rd October. Eastern Gem

I hardly slept last night, stomach churning, panic and on top of this Beth's cough kept us all awake. Browsing the Internet at silly o clock did nothing for my insomnia and the photos of the Eastern Crowned served only as a laxative (I kid you not). By 4am I had hatched my plan. I would get up at 6am and wish Beth a happy birthday, give her the presents and leave around 7. This was met with some objections from Jo, but I assured her that I would return for 2pm to collect Beth from her lovely mother. Everything went to plan I even managed to throw myself around on the Wii Dance Mat for a couple of minutes, just to show willing. With this I was on my way north. An hour into my journey and with positive news of the warbler I pushed on and arrived at South Shields by 9:30. After around ten nervous minutes I picked it up and got excellent scope views of this subtle eastern gem, further excellent views and I was happy with my lot and left returning home at 1pm with no damage done.

Quite a modest crowd for a first for Britain

National Pie Day

Today is National Pie Day. With this in mind I called at Morrisons and bought a steak and ale pie, which I ate whilst having a walk round Orgreave. Rather unfittingly this was not a good pie, it was full of gristle and the mixture was far too sloppy causing it to fall apart. A rather disappointing pie scoring just 5 points, though this was the only blip of an otherwise perfect day.