Goldfinch

look what landed on our bird bath the other day, a beautiful Goldfinch, what a colourful bird, makes a nice change from the wood pigeons, crows, jackdaws, magpies, robins, & others. i'm now leaving camera running to see what other varieties we can see. we had seen a couple of very colourful birds but couldn't just make out what they were, but now i'm on the case.

note on pictures

please note photos on here prior to 2019 were hosted on tinypic.com, which has ceased trading, so I will repost them asap, thanks in advance, dave.

Radio Caroline

sorry to hear the sad news of the passing of Ronan O'Rahilly the creator of radio caroline. He started a pop radio revolution making millions happy & to my mind pop radio has never been the same since, thanks for the wonderful memories.

I know we had to retune all the time as it kept fading out, but that was part of the experience to me, dab radio didn't exist then, cassette recorders were only just being invented. I'll add a few more memories later.

We'll meet again from a lockdown muso

we've been in lockdown in the uk now for approx 6 weeks, so I have uploaded my 10 penny worth onto youtube. I play saxes so I  did my rendition of Vera Lynn's We'll meet again, so if you would like to view & leave a comment,  like or subscribe it would be great.
you tube link:---we'll meet again
will now update this site on a regular basis so if you've landed on here somehow, hope to see you again or on my youtube channel, thanks in advance.

The dc vlog :-- music,  me on saxes & vocals, r/control cars & trucks, film about a beautiful sheltered accommodation scheme, take a look & enjoy, just click under my skin in the useful links

Just Reminiscing

Heard the song “the lion sleeps tonight” on tv other day & it  took me back to the year of 1961 when the original came out by the Tokens.
I remember it well, I was about 16 living in Burnley with my parents, & usually I was first up & would immediately put the radio on as I was well into music then, as I’d started playing sax at 9years old, & as there were no pirate radio stations then or radio1, I always listened to the German (or Danish) version of radio Luxembourg which played all the latest pop, the English radio lux was of course transmitting in the evenings.
I remember it was winter & whilst I had a portable electric fire on, if I had time I would light the coal fire with a ‘blower’ a piece of metal with a handle.on it over which you placed a large sheet  of newspaper to force the draft up the chimney to get the fire roaring, which sometimes catches on fire sending smoke in the living room. & sparks shooting out of the chimney, ah what memories, no health & safety in those days!!!
That was before portable radios, tape decks & whatever were invented, in fact I don’t think we had a fridge then either, because I recollect going to a girlfriends house where her mum gave me some crumbly cheese out of their fridge, I loved it & consequently told my mum when I got home, begging for us to get one. We did have a square black & white tv though.
Well there you go, all that info from just hearing a song on a tv add.
This particular song seems to have cropped up in my life a few times as in the post below from 2010, regarding radio Luxembourg.

quick update it's now 2020!!!!

At last I'm up & running again, well what a mild winter, or should i say an extended autumn, bulbs are showing through, buds shooting out here & there, cyclemen looking its usual best at this time of year, glad i haven't still got the pond, or the frogs would be going berserk now, & then when or if we do get some cold , probably at easter the frogspawn would be knackered.