Magpies

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Magpies...What is there to say about these colourful, intelligent, playful birds.  I do not like the way they steal other bird's eggs in spring, the great squawks as they fly off in indignation pursued by a motley of defending birds.  But on the whole their presence is welcome.  My last blog covered the 'Boreham Beasts' so  right for this time of the year as Halloween approaches, with its stories of ghosts and the walking dead, in this case headless oxen and weird looking apes.  

But magpies are a favourite bird, and there is this attractive print which I love, drawn by Em, that resides in the corner of a bedroom .  But note the cluster of ancient artefacts around it, this is LS, two totally different worlds on what we see as beautiful.  I love colour, the monochrome of Japanese art (I can almost hear him  begging to differ) which is often brown does not agree with my aesthetics.

Colour, especially at this time of the year is so needed, we went to the Garden centre a couple of days ago to find some house plants, but really  for me to wander round the sparkling baubles in all shades of Xmas, reindeers flash their legs, father christmas's strut their redness and things dangle in bright silver and gold, flashy and tawdry but that is why we have this festival at this drab part of the year.

LS also cooks (we split this) in an apron with magpies on, it is of course from the famous Magpie fish and chip restaurant in Whitby, the Magpie  cooks other dishes, LS almost always has the squid whilst I partake of the delicious fish pie or perhaps sea bass.  Most people though have traditional fish and chips, with mushy peas, bread and butter and a pot of tea, and you can have a friendly conversation with the people next to you most times (the tables are very near each other due to the popularity of the restaurant).  I often wonder how different our southern accents are to these strong Northern accents, but northern people are a great deal more friendly than their southern counterparts, it is almost like another world, or at least you can begin to see the regionalisation of place in Britain.