This morning, I had to travel to Exeter for a meeting, and drove past the end of the roads to Branscombe, scene of recent piratical activity following the grounding of the good ship Napoli earlier in the week.

After flapping uselessly for several days while locals and strangers alike pillaged the goods on the beach and chucked rubbish all over the place, I am pleased to see that the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary are now taking charge - and police cars are guarding all the entrances to the village!

This is, of course, one of the most exciting things to have happened in this neck of the woods for several centuries: I may even have a blog about that over on meeja in a day or two: who knows?

My neighbours told me that someone rang up to offer three BMW gearboxes he had stolen; the chap in question was sent off with a flea in his ear. I hope they clutter his hallway and trip visitors up painfully for many years to come.

People seem to lose all sense of morality in the excitement of being part of a National Event. I suppose their lives are so mean that they need a boost to their self esteem. It's hardly like starving peasants salvaging goods in the C18th, is it?

Yesterday I saw a bird that is new to me (here, anyway) - a big flock of fieldfares wheeling round the big trees at the end of our lane. Their bright undersides and strangely harsh churring calls are quite distinctive: there's no other thrush-sized birds like that I know of. They have that breathtaking habit of closing their wings and dropping down every few seconds (to conserve energy I imagine) - a plane would stall, but they recover pretty quickly!

It was a day to remind me that it's good to be alive after all: bright sunshine after days and days of low grey cloud and rain. Seeing the fieldfares, and hearing thrushes and wood-pigeons calling, was another joy.