Welsh Cawl: the national dish of Wales

Not only did I get a haircut today but I have been introduced to the national dish of Wales: cawl.

What with accents and general unfamiliarity on my part, it took awhile for me to understand that my fellow customers or haircutters were discussing a food item.  This is another one of those situations where they were having a good time listening to my accent but not understanding the depth of my ignorance about something as basic to life as cawl.

Coming up at the end of October is the annual Cawl Crawl, in which various businesses or organizations offer cawl and people with tickets go around tasting it.  The money goes to charity. The tasters vote and someone wins.  Michelle's Salon is thinking of entering and offering cawl because they were quite successful raising money in the recent coffee and cake event which raised money for cancer care. A neighboring cafe produced the winning cawl last year with the winning ingredient being a bit of mint.

But I am back at the basics--a bit of mint in what?

Ohhh--it is like a soup or stew.

What else is in it?  Everyone has an opinion.

Traditionally, the basic broth was made with lamb shanks but my neighboring customer uses beef. Sara, cutting my hair, likes lamb but beef is fine.  Someone else sticks to lamb. No one mentions chicken or turkey.

Everyone adds vegetables--carrots, potatos, turnips (called Swedes here) as it is a winter dish. Some add tomatos. Onions--lots of onions.  Onions grow well here; must have onions. No idea of adding garlic.  Herbs--yes, one would use herbs.  Whatever you have growing (as if one would really ask about that.) Sara likes to add pearl barley and sometimes lentils. No one present added ham or bacon but agreed that some do this and it is tasty.

How is it served?
Not a simple question.  Some pour off the broth and serve it first maybe thickened a bit with oatmeal. Then the meat and veg as a plate of stew.  It is grand with a plate of bread and cheese.  (Sighs of satisfaction around the salon.)

Others weigh in on a soup with the broth, meat and veg in the same bowl but agree that the cheese and bread are brilliant.  There is general agreement that if they enter the Cawl Crawl, it will have to be this way.

The logistics of entering and serving out soup are daunting as they have such a small place.  How many crock-pots can they command? It will be too cold to serve outside by the end of October.  We all agree that it will be too bad that I will not be there for such a fun time.

There is some hope that I will get a taste of the soup as some restaurants serve it nowadays.  The cafe down the street makes it well--they won last year, remember.  But so far they have not had it this year even though the salon staff have been asking.  Not wintry enough.

Me--I trot down the street to the first cafe --the Farmer's Cafe.  Sounds right but no sign of soup.  A really good hamburger but not the Welsh National Dish.

Checking back with the salon--go a bit further to the Fisherman's Cafe.  I will try another day.

Here is a recipe from the Welsh government which I can try some time. Since I always make chicken or turkey soup, it will be an culinary adventure.

Later:
The haircut. Not that bad. The things that look like wings are the top posts of the wrought iron chairs where I am staying.

Aberystwyth: Birdwatching in Mid-Wales

Birds, scenery and much more in Wild Wales.
Aberystwyth is the city of Ceredigion, on the coast of central Wales.  Famous to me because of the sure presence of Red Kites--a bird that is pretty rare generally but abundant here.

I have joined a small birding group to explore the hills and coast of central Wales.  It has been great to have the expertise of local bird guide John Davies, who knows every nook and cranny of these complex hills and valleys. We stuck to one county and found 66 different species.  This is the tail end of summer and the earliest touch of winter.  So we might get anything in our sights. I could not miss the Red Kites soaring around above our hotel.

As often is the case, there were many other interesting things to look at as we poked around.  My companions were interesting people from England; and I became aware of George Borrow--who wrote the original travel guide to Wales, getting Victorian society interested in travelling to Welsh beauty spots.  I am following in his footsteps.

But this an up-to-date place too.  It is the site of a very popular police drama set in and filmed in Aberystwyth and environs.  BBC has produced Hinterland which has turned out to be an international success.  To my chagrin, I can only get it in welsh while i am in Walse though it is in English too. But where we watched a beautiful stream for dippers, a murderous episode had been set-- so we had stories for our wait.

Aberystwyth
A coastal city, these guys resisted the Normans longer than most other parts of Britain. But in the 14th C, they were brought within the realm and have been a Normanl/Welsh city ever since.  The University here has its roots in the earliest days and is still an important university especially in agricultural research.  I like it because it has a beautiful old main building on the waterfront.  With such a beautiful building, learning must surely prosper.

The remains of the Norman Castle are also on the waterfront and delightfully had the last of the season's House Martin, White-bellied swallows and sand martins flying in and out of the arrow slits.






Coastal explorations
Seabirds and shorebirds are migrating and our county has something for all kinds.  We have long seen the last of the common sea birds but the gannets are still abundant--yay, I love gannets.  Also, a first for me--Manx shearwaters.  Just the babies since the parents have flown south already.  But small rafts of babies floating out in the water, flapping and diving to get strong enough for their own southward voyage.

Curlews, turnstones, oystercatchers fed at the tideline on sandy shores and then, of course, a peregrine came in for lunch.  We did not see anyone becoming lunch but the falcon created clouds of flying birds.

Cliffs abound and Chough were gathering preparing to move south.  This rare bird is usually seen in ones or twos on rocky cliffs if at all but we watched 8 birds on a cliff for more than an hour.  Heaven, to me.



Small birds of the fields, forest and rivers--they re so hard to find and figure out.  John to the rescue.  He knows where the dippers nest, we found all the tits, even a tiny Goldcrest Britain's smallest bird.



Red Kite Feeding Center
Red Kites (pictured on top of blog) almost reached extinction in Britain and has declined seriously in its range in Western Europe.  For the last century and a half, they have been deliberately persecuted by farmers, gamekeepers and sometimes governments.  But Ceredigion County Wales is a bright Spot where their population is recovering.

At the Bylch Nant yr Arian Forest Visitor Centre, we watched during their feeding session.  Kites are typicaly scavengers and the warden of the center has meat scraps for them.  We saw about 200 kites there for the feeding.

Wild Wales Tourism
Wales became a tourist destination for Victorian society because of its wild beauty and opportunities for "hill walking."  George Borrow wrote one of the earliest books promoting the area after he had traveled through so many nooks and crannies.  In 1862 he published Wild Wales, which has remained popular and in print to this day. He has become something of a cult figure now with the George Borrow society and annual meetings to walk his routes.  I have to admit that I knew nothing of George Borrow but I do think that my interest in wandering around and poking into odd spots may owe something to his Victorian spirit. I had the pleasure of staying at the George Borrow Inn along the old coaching route between the Welsh coast and England.  He stayed here in 1854 during his exploration and the current hotel is still based on the old coaching inn.  Its location on the crest of a deep valley is stunning.

They pride themselves on "honest fare, well prepared."  Everything comes with potatos and peas,  Several choices are beef pie, chicken and leek pie.  I can attest that they are well prepared and delicious.  George probably ate the same food.

More Scenery.  This is a beautiful place.  George Borrow is right.

Bird photos from Royal Society for Protection of Birds.

Yorkminister and Vikings: A busy tourist day in York

A beautiful city on a beautiful day.  York would be a great place to poke around for much more than the day I allocated for it.  Beautiful medieval city, great restaurants, interesting museums. I targeted Yorkminister, the Jorvik Viking Museum and the Center on Contemporary Ceramics at the Art Museum. I just could not make it to the Richard III exhibit even though I find the recent discovery of his body totally interesting. 

York had been the second city of Britain at least since the Romans established Ebraicum here in the 300's.  It had much to recomment it as a city--a navigable river, many fish, fertile land.  It is inside Hadrian's Wall, thus fairly safe from warring tribes.  It thrived.

Not much is left of the original infrastructure but the medieval and modern city are built right on top of the Roman foundations, which peek through here and there.  The medieval city wall is built  on and faithfully follows the Roman wall. When the Roman Army withdrew from Britain in 410, York lost population but remained as a fairly urban area, center of the northeast part of Britain. Christianity re-entered north England when monks from Lindisfarne brought monasteries, farming, stability to the area during the 8th C.. King Edward, the Saxon kind adopted Christianity here based on their teaching and was baptized on the site which is now Yorkminister.  

What a beautiful church.  The current church is a cathedral of the Church of England based in the building built by the Normans after their conquest in 1066.  It is a rare structure which survived intact through the Cromwell years with the stained glass protected from his destruction.

When the War of the Roses was finally over, a Lancaster king (red rose) married a York princess (white rose) and this window was created.  Even now, Yorkminister wants the body of Richard III to be returned there for burial but appears to be losing that battle.

Yorkminister is built fully in the Gothic style although it was begun in the 12th C and has round arches in the crypt.  The consistent style and great size give this church grandeur befitting a cathedral of a great empire. It remains an active church today taking principled stands on social issues.




Vikings
Vikings first struck Britain at Lindisfarne monastery on an island off the northeast coast near the border between England and Scotland.  They were fierce raiders, striking at will.  They reached and conquered York in 866 and stayed to settle and govern.  An area that had not been used since Roman days became the Viking city,  It is across the Ouse river from York centers on the Foss River.  The area eventually housed several thousand people bring the whole of your to 15000 people in about 1000.  King Magnus of Norway conquered York and installed his son Cnut as ruler.  The Viking kings ruled the area alongside the Archbishops of York for several hundred years until defeated just before the Norman invasion.  York was the capitol of the Danelaw, the north part of Britain.

The Jorvik Viking Museum is a fascinating display based on excellent recent archeology.  The Viking Houses were discovered in 1976.  Excavation and other analysis has gone on for many years. DNA analysis of human remains gives considerable information about diet, disease, trade, economy.  I think it is hard to make a museum adequately interesting to the general public and yet not too "dumbed down" that it says nothing.  This museum treads this line well.  I very much enjoyed riding a little train through dioramas of Viking life but also enjoyed exhibits with complicated analysis of injuries and disease on some skeletons.



Two house foundations are displayed in place under glass floors.  This one is from the early period after Viking settlement, thus shortly after 866.  It shows re-used Roman tiles for the hearth.

Below, a glass wall with time periods imprinted, showing the various archeological layers uncovered at the site.




The Vikings were farmers but engaged in manufacturing and trading on a fairly big extent.  These metal jewelry pieces were a trade item.  They were particularly well known for making and selling wooden cups and tableware.

Washington family original home--my National Trust adventure of the day

Give me my handy National Trust Membership card and you never know what I will find.  This particular day, I found the home of George Washington's ancestors in the village of Washington.  It was the family home for several centuries; the family took their name from the location as was the custom at the time. I got a kick out of walking in and seeing the D.C. flag.

William of Washington moved to the property in 1184, in the aftermath of the Norman conquest although this wild northern land was not fully controlled by the Normans. (The area is quite north of York, almost to Newcastle.) Fourteen generations later, Colonel John Washington emigrated to Virginia.  The family property passed into other hands with the marriage of daughters where there was no male heir in England.  It seems as though the family was royalist as the country was under the sway of Cromwell so migration seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, John is the great-grandfather of the Father of our Country.

Even as a loyal Washington, District of Columbia resident, I was unaware that our flag was taken from the Washington coat of arms.  But here it is. The photo on top is the hallway of the family home displaying our D.C. flag.

Photos below show the home as it has been restored.  Although it was begun in the 1080's before the introduction of Gothic arches, the visible parts of the building are supported with Gothic arches. It has had many uses, including as a tenement house for Irish laborers who worked in the mine across the street (since closed).  One room is restored to that period. The house had fallen into decay when the rector of the nearby church worked with local folk to interest the American ambassador to assist with funding the restoration.  The National Trust manages it now and with my membership, I can get in free.

National Trust
Since I am spending 3 months in the United Kingdom, I decided to join the National Trust which manages historical properties as well as many natural areas.  I have enjoyed free entry to parts of Hadrian's wall, beauty spots along the Northern Ireland Coast and this Washington family home.  Scotland has their own National Trust but the memberships are reciprocal so I stopped in a few spots there too.  I am not that big on stately homes and castles but there are many other places.  It is fun wandering, seeing the National Trust logo and dropping in. I even have a parking sticker though I have not needed it yet.

Yorkshire East Riding: NOT your ordinary vacation destination

I keep saying I want to see ordinary life wherever I go.  I am really seeing it here.  Tourists do not come here but there is something of interest around every corner. I am the exotic foreigner here and this leads to some pleasant social interchanges.  All good.  Doesn't Yorkshire East Riding sound like something out of a medieval history book?  But it is really called that.

I am here because there is some great birdwatching on the Northeast coast of England and the Spurn Peninsula juts down into the Humber River Estuary just here.  It is famous for migrating birds, especially in the fall.  I also am targeting the City of York, for centuries the second city of England, ruled by Viking Kings when the country was divided between the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. York is a tourist destination and I will write about it separately.

My clue that my area is not a vacation destination was many many nuclear power plants on the skyline as I was lost and wandering toward my village.  Many and big.  Also, wind farms. Many and big.  The area is a mix of agriculture and energy production.  I think there is manufacturing of some kind too but what hits your eye are big tractors all over the place and big power generating structures. I drove past the North Sea Gas terminal on the coast where the North Sea gas is piped into Britain. Oil in Aberdeen, gas here.  Major strings of wires are traipsing across the landscape too taking power wherever it goes.  I am smack in the center of it. Shipping through the ports, especially at Hull looks major.  I am not sure what is going where but there are many docks for loading whatever it is.

First impressions do not necessarily do the area justice.  It did not help that I got lost on country roads after incredibly heavy traffic on the motorway.  I was lost in Sherwood Forest, near the Robin Hood airport.  Can you believe it?  Me neither.  Eventually I found my way to my destination--Pollington.

Guesthouse haven
I had chosen the B&B because it was between my two destinations and had the best rating.  No other idea in my mind.  I thought--village, I will like that.  Turns out I do but village means a collection of houses.  No implication of groceries, other services.  Forget the idea that I can find someone to cut my hair. When you are looking for services, you look for a market town.  That would be Snaith, about 5 miles away.  Learned that now.

The B&B is a house with nine rooms for rent.  It is great and deserves its good reputation on Booking.com.  My room is waiting, the place offers privacy and company.  I got to know the other guests while stumbling around getting the internet to work.  The place is crammed full.  Why? Who would come here?

My near neighbors are a couple from somewhere south here for several days at the Doncaster races.  I think I have fallen into a Dick Francis mystery.  Two fellows in the kitchen are living here more or less except weekends because they work for British Gas--really big on energy, this area.  The place is full of local people working on the newly remodeled dining room.  Every one is really nice and excited to have a foreigner visiting.  They love my accent and try to get me to talk so they can listen to my accent.  But they are interested in the birdwatching thing too.  Some actually go out birdwatching. One of the staff lives across the street and points me to where the owls are.  Another gives advice on nearby places for green woodpeckers.

Who comes here is mainly folks from England, coming for work, races or weddings at a nearby stately mansion.  Sylvia, the manager, says that they used to advertise via pamphlets but not that many folks found them.  Since she has started using Booking.com, she is always full.  They were waiting for a quiet time to do the remodeling but never had a quiet time so had to go ahead.  Yay Internet. They do get guests more exotic than me though.  Several staff had stories about a group of Chinese visitors doing Tai Chi in the garden and trying to teach them how to do it.

Wandering
Since my first day dawned sunny, I decided to get out to Spurn Point and miss predicted rain later.  I will tell you the delights of birding in a few minutes.  But the area is so interesting and unexpected, I want to explain that first.

There are major motorways here but my routes to wildlife refuges takes me on back roads and through small towns and villages.  Everything looks like a BBC village show with nuclear plants in the background.  I passed Conway Church as it was having its Heritage Festival and preparing for Harvest Festival.  Another group of really nice people who are delighted to see me and enjoy my accent.  Turns out that my coffee server, Olga, is related through grandchildren to Sylvia, my B&B host.  Someone else has a son in Houston.  The rector is a young woman who takes care of 5 churches where Snaith is the mother church.  Our little church was originally endowed by Lord someone and built about 150 years ago.  My road home takes me very near Snaith--I will have to take a look at the town. The church bulletin tells of so many activities with a big emphasis on walking the many historic footpaths in the area. I begin to see that there is a rich life to be had hereabouts.


The Ouse and Trent rivers join to form the Humber River which is really brackish--an estuary.  I am staying near the Ouse, which is navigable up river to York, making the whole area a population and industrial center from early days.  Romans used the area with a major town at York.  Population declined after the Roman army pulled out in 410 but the area was rich in fish and fertile for farming so remained an important population center, just smaller.  King Edward accepted Christianity and was baptized in York, several early Christian monastic communities were in the area.  Life was better than most places for the time.  Industry, fishing, farming and trading continued. They do now too although the fishing seems to have declined.  What I am seeing as ordinary modern life reflects much of what has gone on here for centuries.

Birds and butterflies
What else has gone on for centuries is the rich bird life which I am enjoying here this week. Spurn Point and Blacktoff Sands are the two Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserves I am targeting but there are about 10 others in the immediate area.  As birds are flying south, this is a big stopover for rest and refreshment.  Godwits nest in the most north of Norway but are here in large numbers right now.

Little Egrets are here now--I saw 12 total--but were virtually unknown here 3 years ago. They will leave for the winter but it is thought that they are moving their range northward because of climate warming.  Local birders are still really excited to see them.

We have had an easterly wind which has brought in flights of Red Admiral butterflies, pictured at top of post.  I find them perching on every surface.  Red admirals summer as far as mid-Scotland and northern Europe. Now butterflies from Denmark and Holland are migrating along the east coast of England, will cross the channel to France and eventually winter in Africa.  Later generations will return.Many ducks, many other shorebirds.  Perching birds are blown in too but my eye is not trained for them and I miss a lot.  But--a pied flycatcher is using a twig above my car for his hunting perch.  Two days of great birding.

I am delighted with the interest in birding all around.  It is mainly locals at the reserves--again, enjoying my accent, glad to show me things in their big scopes.  A bus load of folks from Newcastle came in today. Imagine a busload of people that interested in marsh harriers and spotted redshanks. We were in the hides together and I benefited from their spotting and knowledge.  What fun.

I tried to stop at the church in Snaith, mother church for many of the active village churches around including for Conway where I was so welcomed earlier and for my home village of Pollington. I could see it on the horizon, saw signs to the historic abbey. Ha! Could not figure it out. Oh well--home to my cozy village. Then I had the pleasure of telling my fellows at the B&B about my birds.

Despite being surrounded by nuclear power plants, this has turned out to be a great little stay. However, I still need a haircut.

My trusty steed for migrating around England.

Anthony Glynn walking tour of Southport, England

A sunny afternoon in the Victorian resort town of Southport, near Manchester--what could be bad. But it gets better because I have the pleasure of the company of Tony Glynn, long time newspaper reporter, author and currently artist and cartoonist.  That part of the story starts when Tony and "Bob" became pen pals and started a lifelong friendship.  I met Rob, as everyone else knows him, some years ago through Nancy. After hearing about Tony and reading his delightful email commentaries--lucky me, to meet him in the flesh.

Tony lives just off the main streets of Southport where Lord Street was one of the most fashionable promenades of Victorian England. Southport was a fishing village and took on a new life as a vacation destination for the industrialists of Liverpool and Manchester during the industrial revolution. Louis Napoleon lived here in exile and used the concept of Lord Street to remodel Paris when he became Napoleon III.


Nowadays, the town attracts local tourists and families for summer sun and weekend fun. Tony decries the groups of motorcyclists who use the town center to gather and start on their weekend rides but it looks to me like they are having fun away from ordinary jobs.  But Tony thinks the "motor-car phenomenon" will never catch on.

Flags
Notice the flags on the top of Funland above.  The Union Jack is known to us all.  I did not know the other flag--white with a red cross.  Turns out it is the flag of St. George and the symbol of England.  I have been well aware of the flag of Scotland and the flag of Shetland as I have been moving around as those areas have fairly strong nationalist urges. Commonly you see the Scot or Shetland flag and rarely a Union Jack.  In Northern Ireland, Union Jacks overwhelm paired with various flags representing the Orange Order. England, too, seems as though it must assert its pride as the flags are fairly widespread-either the flag of St. George alone or paired with the Union Jack. I am in Wales as I write which has a dragon flag, not paired with the Union Jack.

Promenade

This series of buildings are the height of Victorian sensibility, the library and art gallery.  At the end of the street--Church of England.

American Connection

This street is best known for ice cream and cotton candy; it is a passageway between the two major avenues which parallel the coast.  But, lucky me for having such a knowledgeable tour guide.  I learn that two famous American writers lived here and met often. Nathaniel Hawthorne was US Ambassador, stationed in Liverpool, but lived with his family here as the atmosphere in Liverpool was too dire.  Herman Melville, visited and vacationed here and the two met and shared writing and sea-type experiences.

Lifeboat memorial
One of Southport's much appreciated efforts is a long history of saving lives from shipwrecks.  It is a trecherous coast and just north of Liverpool, one of the busiest ports of its day.  A prominent incident in this history is the death of most crew in a lifeboat rescue, Lifeboat Eliza Fernley. A large ship was wrecked off the coast and local crew took out the lifeboats to rescue them.  It was dangerous, stormy weather,  but they did not hesitate to do what they could to save the lives of the sailors but they were swamped by a freak wave and most rescuers drowned.  Their heroic effort inspired many and has been commemorated here.  Southport has been a center of rescue from the time when fishermen took their lives in their hands to assist sailors to the establishment of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

The top of these photos shows the Lifeboat Memorial with the ubiquitous poppy wreath which is on every memorial in the UK as far as I can see.  The reddish photo shows the Coat of Arms of Southport which includes the lifeboat on the bottom as one of its key symbols.

Coast
The west coast of England is gaining land as a fairly rapid rate.  So the promenade which was the coast in the Victorian era, is now quite a distance from the actual sea. The bridge above is the route to the actual coast.  There is a lake in-between along the town and a salt-marsh RSPB reserve further north along the coast.

Sunday lunch
Tradition dictates a carved joint for Sunday lunch and Tony took me to the best in town at the Bold Hotel. The chef piles ham, beef or turkey on your plate.  You fill it up with Yorkshire pudding, potatoes of several kinds, veg,  Then, I learned, brown gravy over the whole thing.  Delicious. A pint of ale for Tony but I was driving later so had coffee.

Back home
Tony has his cartooning desk set in the front window. He has had health problems recently but seems to keep up with his work.

Political Insight

The greatest part of the day was the conversation.  Tony has been a reporter as well as a fiction and history writer for decades.  Among other contributions, he was the Manchester correspondent for the Irish Independent.

I have been waiting to find a knowledgeable commentator on the Northern Ireland situation.  I am also intrigued by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn as the head of the Labour party in the UK as it seems to me to signal some significant shifts in politics here.

I got my man--Tony has much to say.

Northern Ireland
On Northern Ireland, one of my questions has to do with whether the terrible violence accomplished anything.  If so, was such violence necessary to reach those goals.

Short answer--"Yes" to both.  The violence was terrible and devastating and cannot be condoned. However, the power of the Orange establishment in NI was so strong, it could hardly have been mitigated without major social disruption.  Orange anti-Catholic marching, discrimination and other harassment existed elsewhere, including Liverpool and Manchester.  I have also become aware that the Orangemen still march in Glasgow.  But in the other areas, the society is large enough for the tension to become diffuse over time.  The political systems in other parts of UK were not firmly held by the Orange Order as in NI.  In NI, after the independence of the Republic, the situation was a distillate of the issue with all power going to the Ulstermen.  The Catholic civil rights movement of 1968 began as a MLK-style peaceful protest which had little chance to gain fair voting and other rights against the combined forces of the Orange Order and the government it controlled.  The IRA entered the effort and death and destruction reigned for decades with much abuse by both sides as well as severe repressive measures by the government. Since 2006 there has been a stand-down and a combined government formed.

The current power-sharing agreement is successful in that all parties participate.  Although the tension is palpable, as I have said elsewhere, for the most part, they are not killing each other.  And all segments of the population are represented in the government. The recent pull-out of the Democratic Unionist Party from the participation does not bode well but may not be final. Talks are ongoing.

Shifts in Labour Party
Scotland has been a big supporter of Labour over the years but the Scottish National Party won big basically losing Labour 53 seats.  They have much thinking to do about their future as they have lost to the Tories significantly recently even before the SNP rise.  Jeremy Corbyn is more to the left than most Labour political figures but has won position as the head of Labour and will be the voice which provides the debate to the current Prime Minister. He takes positions in favor of workers and the dispossessed much stronger than many others in his party.

Everything I have read seems to say this is the death of the Labour Party.  Today's NYT has an article saying Corbyn will be the biggest factor in electing the next Tory PM.  Well?

Tony thinks that Corbyn is tapping into a reservoir of thought in England which has essentially been voiceless and who are coming into the party in numbers.  He is interested to see how this works out but thinks the received wisdom is missing something important.

In one of my recent birding ventures, I was in a bird-hide with quite many others from Newcastle. Several of them were quietly chatting to each other, saying, "well, I have re-joined Labour," and other words to that effect.

Lots of food for thought and one great day in Southport.  Thanks, Tony.