About Me

My dad made me a nesting box, using instructions in a Blue Peter annual when I was 7. Blue tits occupied it straight away and I’ve been fascinated by wildlife ever since. My interests stood me in good stead when I spent 10 years chairbound through illness. My Wilmslow garden became my very local, local patch – the garden and it’s wildlife got me through that time.

Something good came out of it as well. I made my first web site – ‘Birds in a Cheshire Garden’. I was lucky enough to win the 1999 Yell site of the year award – the UKs ‘Web Oscar’ at the time.  It gave me my one brush with fame – the award came complete with a ‘glittering’ ceremony in London and the inevitable Jonathan Ross. I did a few news interviews where I was asked questions such as “how do you feel about Mick Jagger being a fan of your site.” BBC write up

I moved to Roby Mill three years ago. I have been delighted to be living in a place where I can walk out of the front door and be in countryside – I’ve never had that before.

When I’m not blogging around the patch – I like cooking, painting and making electronic so-called ‘music’ under the name Squinancywort. I’ve had several radio plays, including Radio 1 and a number of times on BBC 6 Music.

Before my illness I traveled quit a lot and I taught in both Greece and Portugal. Before that I studied Biology at University. I used to enjoy fell  and road running as well - I would have liked to have run a faster marathon but my 10km PB is ok.

The Yell Award launched me on  my current line of work – web design / development.

The great thing about having a patch is that it concentrates the mind. You get to really  know your own little corner of the world. At first I concentrated on the birdlife of the patch. Now I’m branching out – I’m 'doing'  all the wildlife (as it were)…this blog documents my encounters with nature on the patch.

As well as the website I produced a bird report




Comments

  1. What a lovely page! Very well done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love this ! So reminds me of myself haha apart from the obvious computer skills which I lack.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A truly inspiring site in these dark times!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Really enjoying delving back into your posts and the discussion on consciousness. I have followed you on FB for a while, must now kepe coming back here.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment