There's a black and white Jack Russell in this picture. I took it because she was blissfully happy skipping over the rocks chasing stones.

When I downloaded it I spent 10 minutes trying to find the dog!

From Brighton take the seafront road to the marina and follow the undercliff path behind the marina.

Where it ends and the beach opens out again, at low tide it is like this. Rockpools, hermit crabs, cockles and mussels (and Russells).

The undercliff is a pedestrian only path used as a sort of M25 for cyclists only faster. Don't get me wrong - I fully agree with shared usage including on this one. I just feel sad that once clad in lycra and a snazzy helmet some cyclists become invincible and totally oblivious to any other path users.

Don't ruin it for walkers, dogs, kids and even cyclists who welcome the flat route to saunter along the seafront. Your 'official' route is at the top of the cliffs but the undercliff is flatter, faster and nicer. Just remember it's flatter, faster and nicer for everybody...

Cheating is a must

I just happened upon Delia Smith's book 'How to Cheat'. This book should really be called 'Cooking - A Reality Check...'

Now running a guesthouse can provide time in the afternoon for the preparation of our evening food. We get time to buy, prepare and generally process different ingredients for our evening. But if you work in an office and pick up your dinner on the way home, well! A chicken carcass, giblets and vegetables plus seasonings simmered gently for some hours to make the perfect stock? Which counts as a minor ingredient in the whole dish? Get real. That is restaurant food and belongs firmly there.

So Delia has come up with a book that recognises at last that in addition to kitchens we have lives.

I remember so well how sniffily it was greeted by foodies, reviewers and some chefs. If all they do apart from write is pop into the kitchen to spend a day crafting something that is demolished in 30 minutes (15 if they're really good) then good luck to them.

I'll stick for the life too. I tried the very first recipe tonight (the cheesy roast potatoes - there was no ready grated Gruyere so I admit to doing this but it took less than 1 minute so doesn't count) and the whole dish plus gammon steaks took less than 30 minutes and did not leave a whole fridge full of stuff I hope to use but throw after 4 or 5 days.

Well done Delia for turning your attention to us on planet earth and giving us hope. I have some of your other books too and when I have the sort of time usually set aside for jigsaw puzzles or reading novels I'll be back in those creating the longer versions (this sentence seems to presume Delia has time to read obscure blogs but maybe nowadays she has the time with all these cheats!).

Elms

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's I was vaguely aware of Dutch Elm Disease until I met two lovely people - Gladys and Oliver Colbert, now sadly no longer with us but who took me under their wing like a surrogate son - who were keen horticulturists and pointed out the ranks of dead elms littering the countryside of Surrey.

I noticed that elm saplings lived for a few years but the moment they reached a substantial size the disease took hold and killed the trees.

In art classes at school in the mid-1970's I used to look at landscape drawings and paintings with these fabulous trees.

As time passed our interests change - I no longer wanted to be an astronaut (actually I never wanted to be an astronaut I wanted to be in the RAF as a Fighter Controller so running a guesthouse was the next best thing) - and I washed up in Brighton in 2001.

The following year I suddenly realised that most of the trees as you come into Brighton, all around Preston Park, the Level, Royal Pavilion Gardens, Old Steine and Victoria Gardens are all mature elms.

It seems the beetle that carries the fungus which is Dutch Elm Disease is unable to cross the South Downs. This doesn't mean they are safe - signs appear frequently and drastic lopping or even removal is required. But there are hundreds of them and very grand they are too.

I hope one day, with GM technology or microbiological technology at our disposal as never before, we can conquer this disease and replant them in our countryside so that future generations can enjoy it in all its diversity.

All gone

We are experiencing a silence quite unlike anything heard for some weeks. Last night in the small hours I had to put the radio on fearing I had gone deaf.

The lady who lives behind shifted the young seagulls to an unknown place. She's not an unkind person but having them in her yard for a couple more weeks would have been too much. She couldn't use the yard, her cats refused to go out there (they are terrified of the birds) and she couldn't even open her French windows as they would have been straight in and onto her sofa.

Both parents squawked and wailed for a while but have now left. There are still a couple of sets of late developers on neighbouring roofs. Watching them fly for the first time is a heart-stopping spectacle. When they get high enough they spot the sea and are drawn there by instinct. They gather on the beach like a coachload of unruly schoolchildren. They wheel and dart in the air showing off their new-found skills (in contrast to the majestic adults who glide past in a stately manner). It's a sad fact that until they are older they do not know the danger of traffic and many fly straight into cars and buses.

However although they are an endangered species that is not the case down here. The place is over-run with them. And long may it remain so.

Gone - sort of

Another series of frantic squawks and then - silence (for a while). I rushed up to the landing which has the window leading onto the flat roof and there were no birds.

This was the first chance to actually sweep down the roof to try and return it to something acceptable. It was a mass of slimy bitws, bones and moss. As soon as I clambered out and started it was immediately apparent that the parents were still around and being very protective.

This is because both birds are now in the yard behind - where one of them originated anyway. Other chicks have been successfully reared here in the past so hopefully there'll be a happy ending.

... and then there was one ...

It was a hot and sultry night. There was a lot of noise overhead. 3am - whaaaar! whaaaar! whaaaar! Squeak. Thump. Clank.

Then something strange happened. The whaaar was much quieter. More - distant? Then quieter still.

I fell back to sleep and woke slightly later than intended but to virtual silence (obviously there is no such thing as real silence in Brighton). Tom went up to check during breakfast and confirmed only one bird remained. Strangely the one that fell into our yard last night.

We could hear the other one several roofs or yards away wondering what he'd done. As one neighbour commented (it's an incredibly neighbourly place) it must take a lot of courage to launch into the air with full intent for the first time.

This afternoon, in bright sunshine, remaining bird has settled into the bowl of water I put out for him to drink. It must be a nature thing - he's knows that he should be on the water but as yet has not spotted the sea so a ceramic bowl of filtered tap water must suffice. How long will remaining bird stay?

Seagull Update 7 August 2009

Much of what I am telling you was already posted on the website http://www.avalonbrighton.co.uk/ under 'News' but because it was getting a bit long I've decided this is a better place to ramble on about things in general (and feisty seagulls in particular on this occasion).

Nobody visiting the coast can ignore the huge white turkey-sized herring gulls, and lesser black-backed gulls we have flying, roosting, dive bombing, bin raiding, top ridge of church roof sitting or generally noise making in our city.

Anybody visiting the Avalon will be aware we follow the affairs of the seagull kingdom with some interest. After all, they disappear for months on end over the winter and return faithfully each April to roost on their favourite roof.

This year we have been honoured (ha!) with two chicks on our flat roof although how they got there is a bit of a mystery. Actually I think one was catapulted there and the other I put with it when it (also mysteriously) appeared on the flat roof next door and promptly fell with a plop ontp our shed roof from which I undertook a rescue mission so hazardous it nerves me still.

It was my suspicion from day one these two seagulls were not siblings although they instantly bonded on our flat roof and the parents of the first one seemed happy to rear them both (to the intense displeasure of the parent of the second one). The lady who lives behind the Avalon found one of the chicks dead in her yard and I think the other was conveniently popped onto our roof by somebody.

However they are now quite big and almost ready to fly away leaving us with some well needed noiseless nights and a guano encrusted flat roof.

My next door neighbour recently asked when 'your seagulls will be big enough to leave' like I had bought them at a pet shop or hatched them myself under a heat lamp. The answer however is soon as they now shriek with a mixture of delight and fear as their wings strengthen. I try to imagine what it is like as a bird watching your parents come and go and other seagulls gliding effortlessly in the skies above while you have puny little fluff coated wings that get you nowhere. A bit like chickens. Did chickens ever fly?

However back to our fellows - their wingspans are now quite impressive. I just went up to leave them a bowl of water which they drink, splash over themselves then stand in. One 'flew' the length of the roof and I reckon only has days to go. He is the dominant one - bold at the window and only backing away slightly when I open it. The other is a bit more reticent. I think the bold one is the herring gull as he was slightly bigger from day one. The other is the lesser black backed gull, offspring of Fred and Rose.

The parent of the herring gull has kept a vigil on the flat roof next door and makes a terrible fuss whenever I go into the yard or open the window to give them water or croissants. I've included a picture of her.

As I write this one of the seagulls has just come crashing down into the backyard in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings. Both parents went nuts and a melee ensued across the neighbourhood. I grabbed a towel and threw it across the bird (which must know me by now), wrapped him up and quickly legged it upstairs and popped him back on the roof. Were the parents thankful? Hardly, the black-winged parent came for me but just held back. All is quiet again now though. The whole episode over in about 4 minutes. It's lucky I was here though. A few years ago we went out and left the back french doors open and came back to find a seagull sitting on our sofa watching Sky News.