In the early spring we put a barn owl nesting box and a camera in the barn so that we could watch a resident barn owl that we used to see regularly flying in and out - Needless to say we never saw sight nor sound of it again until last night when we saw him/her flying out and decided to plug in the camera again - At last after eight months we were rewarded by the beautiful sight of a hunting owl. It was definitely worth the wait and now that it is used to the nesting box and camera we can only hope that it will find a mate and nest in there next season.
I have just heard from Jay, who is on a massive cycling trip. She set off in the autumn and has cycled all the way through France, over the Pyrenees, reaching heights of almost 7000 feet. She has got a tent and although she has been trying to make it to a camp site each night doesn't always find one so sometimes has to make a camp by the side of the road. She absolutely loved France, ("great food!") however, for the last week she has been cycling through Spain which she hasn't enjoyed so much ("rubbish food"!) as the roads are either little mountain tracks or big motorways. She has made it down to Seville where she had previously arranged to meet a university friend and cycled 1800 miles so far. She wanted to cross at Gibraltar and head to Morocco but we are really not happy about her doing that and although she normally doesn't take any notice of what we think(!) we have managed to persuade her to go and do a ski season in Italy, doing bar work or cooking, which will replenish her diminishing funds, and then when it thaws to explore in that direction which should hopefully be a lot more civilised than Morocco. What a fantastic thing for her to do and I would love to join her in the spring to do a leg of the journey.

The Pyrenees