Highs and Lows

This week you find me at the Chess Megafinals being held at Worcester University. Sam and two of his friends from school have qualified for this event and now face six matches over the day hoping to gain enough points to make it to the Gigafinals! Looking around I can see several competitive dads, chess games underway, discussing tactics and openings. It's hard not to notice that the subcontinent is well represented at this event. Sam and his friends appear to be limbering up on their Nintendo DS's. It is going to be a long day but perfect for me to catch up with the Blog.
 Let me start with an evening at the neighbour's. A chinese take-away was being devoured and as I remember it I was enthralling everyone with my sparkling wit and poetry when the world began to tilt at a strange angle! Everyone just watched as I slowly disappeared from view as the back legs of my chair did the splits. Soon only the soles of my feet were on display.....naturally Andrea and our neighbour Chris were hugely concerned over my well being....which they managed to disguise by shrieking like witches with laughter for the next three or four days! I hope they wee'd themselves! Andrea hasn't laughed that much since I hit my shin with a hammer or that time I slipped down the stairs.............I'm beginning to spot a pattern here.......Me + pain = Wife + happiness.
Sam has won his first match!....and is now running about outside. Others are practising chess.....obviously the overall winner is going to be one of these kids. Should I be trying to turn Sam into a new Karpov or Rooney?
The low light of the week was the loss of our chickens Roxy, Pootle and Amber to a fox. I've heard of foxes going into a killing frenzy before with chickens but it was still a shock to find them all dead. We had one very sad daughter for a long while. Now she has seen pictures of a ridiculous looking bantam called a Poland...so many head feathers it can hardly see where it is going!........so the hunt is on.

Whilst I'm on the subject of birds, the peregrine chicks are all doing well and flexing their wings already. I managed to get some good pictures of the tawny owl the other evening and could see a chick, well a big ball of fluff with two black eyes, in the entrance to the nest box.
This Greater Spotted Woodpecker was feeding chicks nearby, they make so much noise it's easy to spot them this time of year.
Another win!...that's two points.
Now some sculpting news. I'm often asked where my ideas come from and it's actually a difficult question to answer......no..not because I trawl the internet and steal them but because they can come from almost anywhere. For example the other morning I was woken by the dawn chorus and looked at my clock to see it was barely 5am......thanks birds. I then wondered how birds felt about having to get up so early just to have a bit of a sing song. Imagine being a bird if you were not a "morning person"  I suppose it is this anthropomorphic attitude to animals that is the germination of so many ideas. The thought of some hung-over or bad tempered birds reluctant to join in with the singing made me smile....even at that ridiculously early hour. Luckily I still remembered the idea in the real morning (after 8.30 am) and hopefully it will become the subject of my next model.
Yet another win..three points...and lunchtime.