Goodbye 2023...

 ...and don't let the door hit you on the way out! It was not the best year, it started off badly and, as soon as autumn arrived, went downhill. I broke my arm and dislocated my elbow, tearing ligaments, after falling over a BT Openreach cover in London in September, the cat died the previous week and there were work-related dramas involving the union.

On the upside, I went to a lot of good music gigs and festivals (I am a heavy metal fan, specifically the sub-genres of black metal and death metal), including one in southern Finland - where I saw a Siberian Jay - and I have got back into birding, sketching and 'nature journaling'.

Plans for 2024 include a visit to a seabird reserve for puffins and other breeding seabirds and to replace my bashed up old Swaro ATS 65 with a new one, not least as the old one - which was already old when I bought it many years ago - now has fungus in it. I am hoping to plan a 'Big Trip' for 2025.

Seaview, IoW, 15th December 2023

 

A few sketches from Hersey Nature Reserve and Seaview beach in mid-December. Click for larger image.

I'll attempt to keep this updated more frequently. I'd started this to put my trip accounts onto, with photos, but it will now also contain sketches and drawings. I intend to get out and about more during 2024 than I have over the past few years (certainly since the pandemic).

Fungi

Some fungi sketches from the autumn. After a slow start, it turned out to be a superb season for fungi here on the IoW. I am a big fan of fungi and there is so much to discover and see. My favourite site is Osborne House at East Cowes, the Isle of Wight home of Queen Victoria and where she died in 1901.

Apart from former royal residences, the local area round where I live (Newchurch) was full of fungi of all types. 

A surprise was found on the cycle path, just behind industrial units in the county town of Newport, in the form of a Red Cage fungus, a species of stinkhorn.