It’s been more than a week now since I went to a great place but I am only just sitting my butt down and writing about it.
You may or may not have heard of a place called the Hawk Conservancy Trust, which is very local to me and Will here in Andover (you do need a car to get there though because there are no damn pavements in this town).
The other weekend I went there with Will’s mum and sister and it was lovely. I had already developed a bit of a thing for Kestrels because they are down at Anton Lakes, but birds of prey in general are much more interesting than I imagined.
Some of these pictures were taken on my camera (which ran out of battery halfway into the first display), some are from my phone, and some are from Will’s mum’s phone.
Some birds EAT REPTILES or LARGE MAMMALS.
“Gymnogene” is quite nice to say.
Vultures are actually very appealing.
This cutout doesn’t even make sense, because the mouse head has an additional mouth and nose underneath your own mouth and nose?!
These donkeys smelled like poo.
This is the Secretary Bird and I have fallen in love with it.
It can get a good stomp going like a movie Velociraptor.
I am not surprised they eat reptiles I’d half expect it to eat me.
This owl had a bit of the Ananas Factor.
Me touching a bird.
I’d actually lost 15lbs when this photo was taken and it’s kind of a bummer that I didn’t look any different. I’ve lost 18lbs now but I’m still a round ball.
Bird may also have wanted to poo on me.
Big eagle.
Secretary Bird stamping on toy snakes (I dunno if they are called Secretary Birds because secretaries stamp documents or for some other reason).
Most of the displays were ruined for me by people and their children who are either illiterate or just plain horrible. There’s a big sign on the wall where there’s a gap in the seating, saying “WHEELCHAIR VIEWING AREA” but people still went and stood there in it, walked around in it, fucking kids chose the spot directly in front of me. I didn’t want to park right up against the wall like a conspicuous bellend, but I also didn’t want people’s vapid spawn blocking the birds of prey for me on my fucking day out. Even the announcer man was like “Can people stay seated while the birds are flying” and of course every mother there thought they were the precious exception. One kid even fiddled with my bag and I very narrowly did not lose my fucking shit at everyone around me.
Why even take children out with you if you are not going to make them stay sat next to you? If I was a worse person I could have just stabbed/ abducted your horrible child.
A lovely baby.
Seeing my full first name makes me uncomfortable even when it’s about a bird and not me.
A pretty.
Apparently people in England still persecute Kites because they actually believe they can carry people’s cats and dogs away ?
More Secretary Bird ❤
There were a few birds just doing ground stuff.
Thankfully at this display no-one could ruin it for me because staff were very explicit about people not going near the rope.
A Kestrellllll ❤❤❤❤
Me next to bird.
Owl flying through hoop.
A fabulous hat!
I can’t believe I actually don’t have a prior baseball cap considering they keep so much glare off your face. I will still get a proper sunhat in the summer because I definitely learned my lesson after a day on the Common last year.
In other news, here is a small phone purse I got recently, for carrying my phone around the house now that I actually have one.
It’s amazingly decent for something that cost like £1 from China.
Also I thought it would be funny to whack Will in the bum with a sealed bag of Courgetelli while we were cooking. But instead the bag burst and it ended up all over my feet like this:
I am not having a good mental health time and it seems to be a combination of things. The fact that most of my food has been replaced with fruit and veg is bound to have done something, and losing weight but not looking any bloody different is also a source of frustration. The other day I actually started menstruating for the first time in years, and I don’t doubt that this is a source of extreme bad mood. Migraines have stayed at a low level during period stuff (although I had a bitching one last night) but I forgot how much periods themselves are just needless pain and malaise.
I am literally losing my mind to the point of not knowing what is going on around me, not being sure whether something was in a dream or in real life, I honestly feel like my brain is broken, but maybe not even in a mental illness way, but in a there is a mechanical obstruction somewhere because I don’t know what the fuck is going on, way.
I’m not having Psychosis hallucinations at the moment (and I hope this doesn’t jinx it) but I am seeing a lot of stuff that is either migraine aura, or just such weird visual feedback that it seems like something is broken. I had a blood test recently that is the first step to figuring it out, but yeah, I am not doing so good right now.
