Oh dear! I often find the blogs of people I want to read (eg Valentino Rossi) start off well then dry up – er… just like me! Last blog was January – shameful..

Well, The biggest thing by far this year was the arrival of Pip on 26th Feb. She is a rescue dog and there hours of fun trying to work out what breeds of dog have gone into making her. Some collie, some Doberman / Alsatian?, a bit of terrier, she looks like a lurcher at speed – I cant imagine how such a parentage might come about? I would be telling an untruth if I was to say house training went smoothly – what a poo splattered nightmare! But we are almost there now I think. She is not the cleverest dog in the world, in fact the part of her head where the brain ought to go is actually filled up with the mechanism for extending and retracting her enormous tongue. I tried but I don’t think anyone can fully realize what a change having a dog brings to your life. I am incredibly lucky that a local dog trainer and dog lover/expert Jenny agreed to look after pip on filming days so Pip goes to stay with Jenny and her own 6 dogs every now and then – which is probably very good for her.  

To celebrate I went to buy a bottle of wine, paid and slipped it onto one of these new biodegradable bags (a thoroughly good idea). Unfortunately the bag had started to biodegrade in quite a big way and the bottle of wine went straight through the bottom to smash all over the checkout floor – sooo embarrassing.

We went up to Mallory Park (my favourite race track) to watch a VMCC (vintage motorcycle club race day – they may be old bikes but they are not slow, fantastic racing. I got so inspired I went ahead and did something Ive been meaning to do for ages, set in motion the process of getting myself back to the track – its been – ooh around 20 years ? so there’s a chance I might be a touch rusty! I had to go up to London and beg the genius that is Richard Peckett (P and M motorcycles) to agree to prepare my racer for the track again. He’s just not interested in spending his precious time building bikes to race unless you are going to win… but after sharing a Chinese take away at his house he eventually agreed – so now I have to pull my finger out and actually do it. Scared, but excited.

Chris Packham and I went filming together for a series of “Boys days out” for Springwatch. The idea was we would do some of the things we did in our youth – badger watching, fossil hunting, pond dipping etc. It was brilliant, I had forgotten how much enjoyment can be had with a net a jam jar and a “boater”(boot full of freezing water). Chris had me in stitches as ever. It rained pretty much throughout the filming but when the team came up to my neck of the woods and we set out to film reptiles the sun agreed to come out for a short while. It was a remarkable day, driving our ancient Morris 1000 

(our chosen “period” transport, my gran had one – I expect yours did too) across the Mendips I saw a slow worm sunning itself on the road – stopped and carefully put it in my pocket, we saw lots of adders at “velvet bottom” (where we used to go for the school picnic) Chris picked up a large grass snake (which pooed all over him to his delight) and I caught a verdant green common lizard – all in a few hours – wonderful

We went back to Ynys Hir for springwatch and very nearly got washed off air. It rained so hard over the week end (I had ridden home on the Harley to see the pip) the entire site was flooded, the main offices under a couple of feet of water and the current powerful enough to lift up trucks full of delicate electronics and move them bodily until they crashed into other trucks. A local building operation very kindly allowed us to move into their porta-cabins and the brilliant mini camera team got to work trying to connect up the nest cams to see if anyone had survived, which , remarkably, they had - and to our amazement, by Monday evening, we were back on air. 

Well, I survived my operation, how odd is a general anesthetic? The kind Irish nurse leant over and said, “here comes the good stuff” a slight cold feeling in my hand then…. Bang, I suddenly wake up hours later in a different place. I felt fine to start with but going to my friend “Old fashioned Tom’s” party right away was a mistake. Had to take to bed for a while. Keyhole surgery sounds like its going to be something you hardly notice… wrong.

Still feeling a bit crook went to see Warhorse (the play) it is AMAZING! The puppeteering is a once in a lifetime theatrical experience. Phenomenal, and we were lucky enough to go to the pub with some of the stars of the show afterwards. War horse, awesome.

It was great to be back in Wales to record the Christmas special and lovely to all be together (Chris P, Kate, Michaela and I) for perhaps just this one time. The roads were deadly getting there, passed an upside down car and others embedded in the hedge, I had toyed with the idea of riding there on a bike…. That would have been a very bad idea.

My two sons Josh and Alexander came over for Christmas eve. We fired up my old Mamod steam engine. It hadn’t run for perhaps, 15 years? I gave it a quick service, lit the old fire-lighters and, to our delight, it a began to hurtle around the house, literally under its own steam. Its not at all “Health and Safety” (hurrah!) belching out superheated steam, flames and boiling water as it goes. We aimed it at each other and sent it careering around the house, excellent.

lethal!

After Christmas went to stay with Chris Packham and his delightful girlfriend Charlotte. We had a fantastic time, Chris “cooked” for us – now Chris is a genius of course, but, he does not cook… at all!  – we were bundled out of the kitchen to allow the chef space and after much pinging a succession of delicious foods appeared, suspiciously hot inside, clearly from the microwave, but actually very good. Chris’s poodles were much in evidence and Itchy took a violent dislike to me,  (but why Itch?!) barking furiously whenever he saw me. This was a bit embarrassing but far more dangerous was Charlotte’s monster rabbit “Coco” who I was invited to come and play with in the bathroom where he lives. The rabbit took against me and all I can say is I was glad to escape with mere flesh wounds.

I adore India but haven’t been there for many years. On the second of January the plane left Grey Heathrow for exotic Delhi. Soon we were sitting in a south Indian restaurant eating Massala Dosa, possibly my favorite food on planet earth.  We get a very limited and anglicized version of Indian food here in the UK, and for me, the rich variety and extreme deliciousness of Indian vegetarian food is one of life’s great treats. After the Dosa - a bicycle rickshaw ride through the narrow streets of Old Delhi – what an experience. Shocked to see Rhesus Macaques strolling casually across the spaghetti like tangle of (live) electricity wires.

Look carefully above the street..

Rajasthan - and out to a place called Manvar which I first visited 16 years ago. A night at the tented camp was genuinely magical, sharing camp fires with camel herders, their camels, the full moon, and a kingfisher beer.

In 1933, in the tiny village of Khichan (Rajasthan) a man started to feed the 150 or so migratory demoiselle cranes that wintered there - its snowballed a bit -  around 30 thousand cranes now arrive each year.

Passed a dead body on the road on the way to khichan, shocking. Ghastly train ride, 14 hours stuck in a carriage with a man with terrible wind – but then, later that morning after leaving the smelly train, almost unbelievably, we are face to face with a wild tiger in fabulous Bandhavgarh National park.

He came within 5 feet of us..

For two weeks it was the life enhancing sensory overload that is India.

It was my dear friend Toby –ji’s birthday..

Last night in Delhi paid a bit extra and went super posh in the Imperial hotel – breakfast with Yoko Ono (no… really!). In the bar I found a picture of a lovely smiling young man, Lieut. Karamjeet Singh Judge, and on the wall beside him the VC he was awarded (posthumously) for extreme valour on 18th March in 1945. I looked up the citation for what he actually did. Unbelievable courage. So sad. He was just 21.

My lovely old 1976 Triumph tiger, battered and grubby sailed through its MOT. This will be the last bike to go if I fall on hard times – just love it.

Down to Salcombe to Film with the delightful Maya Plass for “Winterwatch” – she really knows her stuff and has a great story associated with every critter we discover. Did you know Dog whelk opercula (the hard cover they can draw over their shell entrance hole) used to be dipped in gold and used as ear rings? No? nor did I! Winter is a great time to go beachcombing. Scottie, our excellent cameraman notices a genuinely strange phenomenon, jets of water squirting up from the beach, over 50cm into the air – what IS going on? Maya and I investigate (see the answer on “Winterwatch”)

Go to see Warhorse, the film this time. I was expecting it to be a poor second best to the play but actually it was different and excellent. The scenes of trench warfare made me think, “yes, that exactly what it mush have been like”, horrific.

First outdoor Climb of the year in cheddar gorge, so cold I cant feel the ends of my fingers so don’t know how much pressure Im applying before I make a move – un nerving!

I’m getting up early every morning to try to see woodcock which are returning from a nights feeding to sleep in the woods around my house. Despite the shooting and the beaters I am massively relieved to see them slip silently out of the half light. Still haven’t got a decent photo, its so dark its extremely hard. The mornings are definitely getting lighter and the sunsets later – were heading towards spring – Brilliant!

I have let the blog slide! Shame! But I have been nudged into action by a lady who tweeted, (thank you!) to remind me to pull my finger out and also to find out if I actually used my fab sleeping platform – YES! I have, it rained and my sleeping mat has a puncture but it was still magical.

OK… October and November – Breaking news…on the 2nd of October I used my new stainless steel Kelly kettle for the first time, Have you got a Kelly kettle? No?… extraordinary! They are a brilliant, if esoteric way of boiling water for a cuppa using a few twigs, some dried seaweed or a fir cone or two – you have to try it!

Kelly kettle in action with Sue and Mimi

October 7th was the start of the Autumnwatch 8 week marathon, with the delightful Michaela Strachan (my heroine from way back and a true star). We all rolled up to Westonbirt for the first show – poor Michaela was horrified that Chris and I only wrote our cards (the things we hold in our hands to remind us where we are if we get lost) and worked out roughly what we were going to say a few hours before the show, there’s no “autocue” or anything, we just sort of chat away around the subject – by the end of the run she was writing her cards the day before, dozens of them! - being teased mercilessly by chris and I

8th October
After interminable vacillation and many long telephone conversations my excellent friend Angus takes the plunge into old “classic” motorcycling, investing heavily (partially on my advice – I so hope this works out!) in a pretty, but non standard Triumph tiger 750.

It has an obvious oil leak where the primary chain adjuster bolt has been over tightened  - a very common fault and a totally mutton headed bit of design by Meriden triumph, first because its too easy for ham fisted owners to overtighen this bolt and strip the thread, but second (and more worrying) if you do strip the thread the bolt goes into the engine crankcase - sometimes necessitating complete removal of the engine to fix it…. Oh dear! We collected the bike and I followed angus home with him riding, it sounds fantastic!

13 Oct Go climbing in Bristol climbing centre with my excellent climbing partner Kirstine, it says in my diary “climb, best ever? 6 x 6B – is this day my peak?” 6B is a climbing grade and the highest I have ever managed – was this day, perhaps the highest I will ever get? Sad thought and makes me very pensive.. anno domini and all that

15th October. AT LAST! I have found a place, in Bristol, that serves proper fluffy American pancakes, with butter and good maple syrup – delicious! Its called Rocatillos, near the main university building and Bristol museum…

Son Josh and I about to tuck in..

20th Oct Early morning hot air balloon flight to try to get a spectacular aerial view of the colours of autumn over Westonbirt – brilliant pilot, exciting flight, only trouble was – no autumn colours!!! I banged on about how awesome it was going to be before we took off, but in the event we were really too early, it was just green! Fantastic views over the Cotswolds, groups of roe deer and nervous hares, we skim trees and travel just inches above the ground. No champagne after landing (this is work after all) but what an experience – feel very fortunate.

Film crew and pilot – tight squeeze.

Even though there is always the danger of a fox I cant keep the fowls in their run all the time - as autumn draws on, there is hardly any greenery for them so – I undo the electric fence and open the gate – they take ages to realize they can come out –

Lovely to see them kicking seven bells out of the vegetable patch, lawn, flower beds etc etc looking for exciting things to eat.

19 nov saturday. Fly up to Scotland for the last show, its an extremely tight schedule, plan is to drive to Gatwick (groan) fly, then drive to the magnificent Kinveachy estate – scheduled to arrive at around 10pm to start filming next morning at 6am (the blackgrouse lek). Flight empty but nevertheless the blithering airline manage to lose my bag, so I have no clothes to wear for filming out on the moors first thing in the morning – and we only have one chance at this. Also no way of shaving, brushing teeth etc. Driving from airport after protracted negotiations trying to find the lost bag, (its getting on for 11pm now) -  I say, hopelessly to Director Jo Avery,  “wouldn’t it be amazing to find a huge Tesco superstore  - open all night - right now?” incredibly Jo says, “what’s that?!” up ahead there is a glowing red and blue sign … it cant be?! It is! An all night Tescos superstore in the middle of nowhere… we rush in, get toothbrush, disposable razors - a ten quid Tesco jumper and a pair of gloves, both lifesavers. The black grouse lek was fantastic, I hope it came across, even a bit in the film.

The ten quid tesco jumper in action

25 Nov. last Autumnwatch transmission - its been a bit of a roller coaster, and the entire team are shattered. The 8 week run is exhausting. Glad we can stop and draw breath but sad to say goodbye to the team and Chris and Michaela – who had a really tough job and rose to the occasion, despite the inevitable (and horribly personal) criticism she got to start with – what a wonderful professional she is.

Complete mayhem with Chris’s poodles in the last Unsprung – once again they utterly fail to perform the promised “howling” song, instead, to Chris’s horror they decide to try to fight – on live TV!!

1 dec last horse riding lesson (with my dear friend Helen Moncrief, who has come to visit England from her home in wild Shetland), why last? Because tomorrow Im going in for a hernia operation and will be out of commission for a good few weeks – here I am waiting to go under the knife (photo) – it’s a general anesthetic (never had one before). I have a lot of fear about waking up during the op and not being able to move, or something going wrong with the anesthetic and me losing my marbles, or the surgeon cutting through something important whilst he’s down there. The surgeon (Hungarian? Serbian?) laughingly said - whilst going through the possible side effects etc - “occasionally it eese alwiss possible one testicle may become severed, yah?… but don’t worry” he grinned, “you always got anudder!” er… thanks…

how will this turn out? How horrible are the paper pants they have given me?.. how frightened do I look?! Watch this space..

Well Natures Miracle Babies seemed to go down well, Im really glad viewers particularly picked up on the exceptional dedication of the keepers and animal helpers we featured- truly inspirational people.

Chris P and I got together with Our new co-presenter this month – Some woman called Michaela Strachen? she looked a bit familiar. Michaela was absolutely charming and even produced goodie bags for Chris and I - what a lovely lady. I have to rush this blog as Im off, literally this morning to the wye valley for our first day filming together.

The month started with a “life tick” for me – I went to the Scilly Isles for a few days with the girlfriends family, and looking out of a bird watching hide on Tresco we all saw a handsome wader. I was expected to identify it immediately, but of course dident have a clue. Here’s a slightly fuzzy picture, (thank you Ros) can you identify it? Answer at the bottom of the blog.

Went sea kayaking in Babacombe bay (Devon) with my youngest son, it was quite rough so exciting. There were a bunch of lads on the shore and I thought they might come and give us some grief as we inflated the kayaks – they looked like they were up for a bit of bother, but needent have worried because as they sauntered towards us a police car screeched into the car park and (after pulling on blue surgical gloves?!) started arresting them…?

I decided to try to MOT my 1937 MSS Velocette motorbike - rather than have it sitting forlornly in the garage.

an old velocette nervously awaits Bob, the MOT man

To my joy it passed. However it wasent all plain sailing. Coming back from the MOT feeling very chirpy the bike stalled. I had to bump start it and in so doing must have jarred the clutch out of adjustment because when I tried to pull it in to stop the bike I found the clutch was dragging so much I could not get it out of gear, the bike just kept on driving forward. There is no ignition switch to turn it off and the engine easily overcame the old brakes. What to do? Nothing for it but to head for the nearest hedge and sail gracefully into a thick hawthorn which , eventually brought bike and rider to a halt. Ruddy Marvellous.

The first Autumnwatch transmits in 3 days, nervous but quite excited too!

The mystery bird is… a black tailed godwit.

Just back from the Isle of Man watching the Motorcycle Races (Manx grand prix). I had my new “Trangia” cooking kit, id never used one before and was a bit dubious about the ability of a small amount of methalated spirits to make tea, cook veg stew etc, needn’t have worried it was Brilliant! What I love about camping is the slowness of everything, the pace of life has to wind down, even making a cup of tea needs planning and takes time.

We revisited the “chasams” sky full of chough

During the racing the awesome Maria Costello, one of a handful of women bike racers came third in the 250 race, all the more amazing as her bike conked out at the end of around 150 miles of racing and she had to push it in (a long way) to get over the line, but she was so far ahead of the next competitor she still managed it and took her place on the podium. I’m reading her biography, shes one tough woman.

1926 BMW parked next to my tent – cor!

I’m loving my horse riding lessons. I had my last session with the very fierce “eve”. I told eve I wanted to canter and pretty soon my horse “spirit” and I were thundering around the training ring, “not too fast” yelled eve, she’s helped me start to understand the immensely subtle connection there has to be between rider and horse if Im ever going to get any good.

Something Even more exciting than the canter happened just after the lesson, in fact something I never thought I would ever see in my life. I was in the office paying when I saw something on the floor, a heart stopping moment! it was a “lesser earwig” much, much rarer than the common earwig – in fact I cant recall ever seeing a lesser earwig (we only have 4 earwig species in the UK). I carefully picked it up and then….. it happened! The little wig, curved its small pincers over and used them to flick open its wing cases, unfurled its wonderfully delicate wings, and took off! No one has ever seen a common earwig fly and seeing a lesser wig fly is a very rare event. I was totally thrilled, although my riding school colleagues seemed less ecstatic!

At the start of the month I went off on one of the long distance cycle rides I adore - train down to Bodmin with the bicycle in the bike rack (scary as its always over booked) then follow the beautiful “sustrans” route 3 back to Bristol. To spend all day gently cycling through the British countryside soaking up the sights, sounds and particularly the smells is a close to heaven as I’m likely to get ! I smelt wood smoke (bliss) cows and silage (mumm) and the honeyed aroma of medow sweet in the hedgerows – fabulous. Im actually a ranger for “Sustrans” but have been extremely lax about helping out clearing paths etc on their fantastic cycling routes, theres a work day next month and I am definitely going to attend!

Typical “sustrans” route – happy cyclist!

The first “Natures Miracle babies” goes out tonight – I’m nervous. For one thing my future as a presenter rides on the percieved success or failure of the series, but more importantly this is a way of trying to raise interest and awareness of the plight of so many of our fellow species on this tiny planet, so I hope the audiences are good and interested… we will see…

A Lovely start to the month. I rode the growling old Harley- Davidson over to a field in Wales where Kate Humble and her husband Ludo (“the lewd”!) were celebrating his, rather significant, birthday. Ludo was playing and singing with his band, Kate was dancing and looking radiant, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so lovely and so happy. The place was packed and heaving, a fantastic night. Rode back across the old Severn bridge very late - the bike rumbling away beneath me – fabulous. Thank you Kate and the Lewd.

Spent much of this month actually in the BBC Bristol helping to develop the new “Autumnwatch live!” with my producer hat on. It’s scary - but then I suppose change is often scary – we are going on a road trip – should be coming to a location near you so watch out! We are trying to cover the whole country and the hunt is on for 8 iconic wild locations. Trying to work out how to do all we would like to do within the ever shrinking budget is vexing. I really hoped we could try to catch up and feature some of the animal and human characters we met in Springwatch in Autumnwatch this year – it looks like that’s going to happen – standby to get very involved with the lives of those 3 little osprey chicks we met on Springwatch, my how they have grown! and they are about to set off on the biggest adventure of their lives, which, with a bit of luck, we are going to share. In the same vein I was lucky enough to meet up with the amazing “adder lady” this week (Sylvia Sheldon). Whilst we’ve been off air Sylvia has been hard at work with her small team following her radio tagged adders and she has made a remarkable discovery. We went up to film her and meet some of her (beleaguered) adders.

me - trying to locate the very pregnant adder “double diamond” using the radio tags.

Scottie (“tiger”) filming Sylvia’s grandson Alonzo with “heather” a gorgeous adder.

“heather” the adder, feisty and really lovely.

I’m so lucky to be able to meet people like Sylvia - utterly dedicated and profoundly knowledgeable. We had a fascinating day and took my personal tally of adders “met” in 2011 to 6 - A record. I also got to hold (kind of) a pregnant adder Sylvia has called “double diamond” all will be revealed in Autumnwatch.

I had lunch with Kate to try to pick her brains about re-formatting autumnwatch, she’s got the most amazing television brain. We met up but poor Kate had to spend most of the time on the phone trying to sort something out – but its always a joy to see her – shes been off all around the world making her new series.

Stressed out Humble! Not as you normally see her X

On a personal note – as I write there is the sound of saws and nailing from outside in the garden. My youngest son Alexander and his friend Robbie are putting the deck on my “sleeping platform in the woods” – it’s actually in the garden but it will feel like you are in the woods when you are on it. Its been my dream to create the sleeping platform ever since I moved in over a year ago – extremely exciting!

Alexander (back to cam) with Robbie – “the brains”

Its up! Now we just need to put the decking on and I can sleep out…

…and three humans had to squeeze in too

Robbie is the brains behind the operation (he’s studying architecture) and I must say he’s doing a brilliant job. We had a little trouble bringing the 3 m long uprights (basically lengths of chestnut) back from the yard.. my poor battered Yarris!

Finally, I had a test drive on another bike the other day, O..M…G hum… anyone want to buy a lovely Harley Streetbob (‘08) I may need some cash!
 

Catch up in next months blog and then on Autumnwatch. There’s a rumor my BBC1 series “Natures miracle Babies” may transmit in august or September – I really hope so.