FLOWN THE NEST

Almost three weeks ago a Robin family's youngsters fledged the nest early, and for the past few weeks I've been giving them a helping hand with live meal worms in a wall feeder. Then about this middle of this week he disappeared and I haven't seen him since or heard his song. Fingers crossed he's OK.

That song was replaced however, by an ever louder screeching of young chicks from a Starling nest, not far from the Robin's, in the eaves of my house. These guys normally take around three weeks to fledge, and unlike the Robins, they seemed late. That was until this morning, when the nest fell silent, and it is safe to say they too have now fledged.

A new visitor now comes to the feeder for what's left of the meal worms, in the shape of a Sparrow, no doubt feeding young of its own.

The familiar sound that summer has arrived has returned to the sky above the house once again; the shrill screech of the acrobatic, and aptly named, Swifts.

Nearby, one of my favourite walks is through a local park called the Figgate, where a large pond dominates the centre, and birds of a wide variety breed there at this time of year. Keen to see what other families were new beyond my small garden, I took a wander at the end of the week.

And I wasn't disappointed.

A family of swans with their six fluffy signets were happily swimming around, pecking at the surface of the water, following closely to their majestic-looking parents. At one point they left the pond to walk across the path to the nearby burn, and I could see that the male was limping badly from an injured left leg. In the water he seemed fine, so hopefully all will be well.

Two families of Mallard ducks were noisily making their way around, with one set slightly older than the other judging by size. Sitting upon the remains of last years swans nest, was a family of Moor Hens, their scrawny, ugly little heads poking out of mum's wing when dad returned with a tasty morsel.

Some trees were still sporting their blossom, but most were now in full leaf, and the last of the bluebells adorned wild corners.

It has all been a bit later than usual this year, but in the past week everything has suddenly exploded in growth.

One of my favourite scenes was of a field covered in dandelion seed heads, the sun just catching a small area as they waited on the breeze to dislodged them.

I miss the Robin, sitting on his usual branch in the Birch, staring through the kitchen window, waiting for me to put more food out, and the racket of the Starlings in their nest, greedily calling out for more and more bugs from mum and dad.

Everything has now fledged from my garden, all away to start their new lives, and it seems just that little bit dull and silent without them. I'll never forget this Spring, when a Robin chose to make its nest right at my back door.

LIFE IN THE MAKING

Ahhh, the joys of Spring.

For a welcome change the sun is shining in Edinburgh, albeit with a chill breeze from the East, which has become the norm in recent years. In fact, in general it is cooler, and this has had an effect on nature in a big way.

The Birch tree in my garden for example, all fantastic 30 feet of it, has only just come into leaf, as has the Hawthorn. Although this is very late, whilst in the Highlands on Tuesday I noticed that many of the trees just 100 miles north are still completely bare.

This hasn't put off the birds from nesting however, but of course, it could be creating problems for them in terms of food. There are definitely less bugs flying about, and the cold ground will no doubt have delayed the reproduction of all the tasty creepy crawlies that they rely on for food.

As you will have read in a previous blog, I have been entertained by the sheer joy of observing a pair of Robins use the walls of my house to raise a family this year. However, though the Birch came into leaf late, the Robin fledglings left the next a few days early last weekend. One flew down to Pauline's garden and hid among the myriad of pots she has, whilst the other two dropped down into my garden.

Eager to keep an eye on them, I positioned cameras to watch over the garden. Within a couple of hours the dreaded murderous cat from next door appeared, clearly after the fledglings. Thank goodness I was watching the monitor, as I was able to intercept it and save the fledglings, now in a bit of a panic.

It was clear this was going to be a tough time for the Robin, the male now on his own, and so, pardon the pun, I hatched a plan to help it by installing a Starling-proof feeder for live meal worms. Yum!

The Starlings are also raising young in my garden, and the noise they have been making in the last day or two, makes me think they are also about to fledge. But they seem to have both parents working hard, and there is a near constant flow of worms and bugs coming back to the nest, so they're doing fine. So the Starling-proof feeder is not because I don't want to help them, but more because the Robin has a much harder time, and the Starlings can devour everything in a few seconds.

Now the Robin seems to know when I'm going to be around. Each day, as I'm making my breakfast, I look out of the window, and there he is, staring in from his perch on the Birch. He clearly associates me with food now, as he rarely flies away when I go out to put the meal worms in the feeder.

Life has been hectic for me too, and not necessarily in a good way, but the visits by the Robin, and the seemingly friendly nature toward me, albeit for food, definitely makes for a less stressful day.

I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU!

This week I took the plunge and shelled out four figures to have hearing devices bespoke made and programmed for me. As I said in my blog four weeks ago, my ability to hear some of the younger kids in my film classes has begun to be nearly impossible.

The devices were delivered, programmed and fitted last Tuesday, and so far, well, I'm less than impressed. On the plus side they are tiny, and push almost all the way in. It's an odd feeling at first, like your ears are full of something that you just want to claw out. I accept it takes a while to get used to them, but I'm convinced the right hand device is not working properly, and is actually too big, despite molds being taken and then 3D scanned.

If you have normal hearing, try closing off one ear and listening to someone talk facing you, then from the side you've closed off. In the same way that closing one eye removes your ability to calculate depth, listening in mono reduces your ability to process sounds effectively.

From the word go the right device is difficult to insert, in fact, painful to do so, and triggers a back of throat reflex every time. The left slips in effortlessly. They are both programmed to pick up the high frequency range of sounds, which I have not been hearing for some time. With these devices that should be rectified. A simple test of this is a crinkly sweetie wrapper. I held it near to my left ear and very gently moved it. I could hear every crack and crinkle of the cellophane. However, I held it in the same position at my right ear and heard nothing.

I tried gently rubbing the tips of two fingers together in the same position. Again, the left was perfect, the right, nothing.

On the Friday morning I met a friend for coffee and we walked along the promenade. About 50m away the low tide was gently lapping onto the beach, and I could hear it perfectly. My friend was on my right side though and I had difficulty hearing him, asking him to repeat at various points. After a distance we turned back. Now he was on my left and I heard him with no trouble at all.

I think the right hand device is switched on. However, when I pull out the left device it gives out a whistling feedback noise, but the right does not. I changed the battery, just in case that was the issue, but nothing changed.

I persevered, and the ultimate test came yesterday with my students. I found if the room was noisy, with all the kids chatting at once, it was difficult to pick up one person speaking right in front of me. I managed, just, but the effort to focus was hard. With the youngest kids there was definitely an improvement, but not as much as I'd hoped for.

In the large hall at assembly I was stood roughly 30m from the Principal giving her opening address. She's loudly spoken and normally I have no trouble hearing her. Yesterday however, close by to me, two students were talking at the same time. The Principal's voice then started to cut in and out, as if she was using a faulty microphone. This was very strange.

Around 4pm two beeps went off in my left ear to tell me the battery was about to run out. The second beeps went off about 5 minutes later and the device shut off. Everything I then heard was muffled, until I pulled both devices out. This added weight to my theory that the right hand device is not working.

Hopefully things will be fixed soon. I'm fairly confident these are just teething troubles, and the benefits will surpass any misgivings I have at present.

If all else fails there are alternatives:

 

A NEW FILM ACADEMY

Well, it had to happen; some shameless self promotion!

For years now I have been teaching young people how to make movies, with large amounts of success, if I do say so myself. It has been a constant learning journey, and one that quickly made me realise, this was my calling.

This is not to say I have not enjoyed the teaching for others to date, and for sure the experience has been enormously beneficial, not just in terms of a regular income, but in honing my skills on a continual basis, and I hope it has been equally enjoyable for those in my classes.

Just now I am one of three performing arts tutors with an organisation in Edinburgh, that young students age 6 to 18 experience three disciplines with; Comedy and Drama, Musical Theatre, and of course, Film & TV, and it is enormous fun.

But I have known for the past two years that this is something I should do for myself. I have a big vision for the future, of what a dedicated film academy for young people should be like, how it should grow, and what future opportunities it should give them.

Enter The Film Academy Edinburgh.

We're about to launch with three summer schools in July and August, and all being well will follow on the success of this with a dedicated, weekly term-time after-school academy, all for ages 9 to 18. I decided from experience to have the minimum age set at 9 years old, as I find the younger age group doesn't quite work for filmmaking.

In the future we will launch a brand new international film festival, which will be unique in that the students will run the entire venture. There will also be an opportunity for parents to take part when we launch adult classes, and even big companies can benefit, with our new team building days in development. If that were not enough, by the end of the year we're going to hold free film screenings, once a month, for all our students and parents.

There is a frightening amount of work still to be done, with the past month taken up by building a website, which launched this past week, and something which a friend of mine has been absolutely key to its success, and to use her words, awesomeness! Other friends too have pitched in, spreading the word and helping with feedback on all manner of things.

Then there's my academy team; a BAFTA award winning screenwriter; an actress that was in Star Wars, and an award winning editor. Oh, and me of course!

And if you want to know more, by all means, make contact.

Naturally we're on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

During the process of creating the website and designing a poster, it became clear that we needed photographs and a video. But of course we haven't started the academy yet, so we didn't have anything to use. That led to organising a bespoke shoot for photos and a promo film, which was in itself an exciting event, and made everything seem so much more real.

It feels exciting, but daunting at the same time. Self doubt creeps in at every turn, especially when things go wrong, and the stress levels rise, which all takes place in the background. I'm hoping it looks calm on the surface while the storm is raging below.

My film work for other organisations will continue for now. I very much hope though that within a year I will be full time with The Film Academy Edinburgh.

Time will tell if it's going to be a box office smash.