I sing a bit, folk music I'm afraid, and play my drum for Border Morris dancing, I service and repair knitting machines, and make things on them too, I sew all sorts of stuff, and do patchwork, I like to paint, but never seem to have the time these days.

I used to keep birds, mostly psittacines, but the neighbours did not like the noise of them chirping.

I'm a sucker for chicks though - I am feeding up a 'fell out of the nest' common swift - Apus apus - that is, hopefully a little under two weeks too young to fly. It is costing a lot to buy the crickets and it doesn't like them much, but they are keeping it growing. It is just too sweet. It looks as though it has a tiny little beak, but it opens up into this (comparatively) great maw for swallowing down flies.

Way back, when I lived in the Midlands, in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, I was a camp follower with John Lilburne's Regiment of Musket and Pike - an English Civil War reenactor group, in the Roundhead association. That is probably when I started making costumes rather than fashion clothing.

My trouble has always been that I am interested in far too many things, and have never managed to tidy a pile of books, ever.


Baroness Anne the mirthful of Fritterton on the Heath