Wiltshire Warrior Dragon

Mine too, Harry. There is a slightly depressing conservatism to the choices that Sky seem to make for matches directly available on Main Event or wherever.

What a brilliant, lovely post, SFG. Many thanks for it!

I think Mourgue's progress has stalled a little in the last twelve months. I cannot think of a better move for him than the SL team coached by Willie Peters. Mourgue will also bring his highly reliable kicking ability. Inevitably, the big question might be how do he and his partner cope with living in a land with a foreign language and culture. We will see!

Half time just now in Avignon where the hosts and Pia are tied at 18 all. It's live on YouTube.

If I was in charge of an English SL club then I would be keen for the next Vegas SL clash to be my team nominally away to Catalans. That way, I could insist that the French club pay all my team's travel and accommodation expenses. Well, that's only fair...

Don't underestimate the speed with which this species is moving north through the UK. The first recorded breeding in this country was in 1996 in Dorset. The RSPB reckons that the UK now has between 660 and 740 breeding pairs. That's a massive increase in under 30 years. On a French holiday in about 1993, I saw one for the first time and was really excited. I still enjoy seeing them, as they are such strikingly beautiful birds, but there isn't the excitement of novelty or rarity any more. I see them all around this bit of South Wiltshire, even in Salisbury, including by canalised becks in the city centre. On the outskirts of Salisbury, at Britford Woods, they have joined herons, who have nested there for generations, possibly centuries, so that some of the treetops now boast egret nests too. They really are part of the UK bird landscape now. I suppose new ones need to find their own space in which to breed, so, logically enough, will head a bit further north to do so. Alternatively, I imagine some that have moved north - and to or towards the coast - for winter, will just decide not to bother heading south when spring comes. That's what I predict is happening where you are, ivans82.

Do Lancaster Brewery use the premises of either former brewer from that city, Yates & Jackson and Mitchells? Coincidentally, as I type this, within reach on my desk are four unopened bottles of beer - one of which is of Mitchell's Centenary Ale (1880-1980) and another is of Y & J's Nut Brown. For the record the other two are of Traquair House ale (c 45 years old) and of Hall & Woodhouse (Badger Beers) Bicentenary Ale 1777-1977.

I think you may find, ivans82, that West Cumbria is now home.

Ici ! Division Nationale 1 - Fédération Française de Rugby à XIII

A real dilemma for the armchair viewer! Do I watch the first half of this SL clash, or the second of the Pia -v- Lezignan clash across the Channel? Clearly the standard of play in SL will be superior, but any team that has Eloi Pelissier and Hakim Miloudi in its ranks, as does Pia, should always be worth watching, if only because you are always expecting the unexpected!

If you want a close match to watch, try TO v Widnes, currently 8-6 to TO and live on YouTube.

Thanks for starting a new 2025 thread on this, Phil. One of the great things about RL fans is their collective diversity. As if to prove that point, my next performance outing will be completely different from yours, Phil. I will be in the resident chamber choir singing choral evensong in Salisbury Cathedral on Tuesday, 18th February, at 5.30pm. The responses will be sung to a setting by Bernard Rose, the evening canticles are Sumsion in G and the anthem is by Maurice Bevan.

Plymouth Argyle - the Queen's Park of English soccer!

Stade Paul Barriere would be a good name for Les Dracs' ground in Perpignan. Always good to recognise a visionary for the international game; there are so few of them about!

Three summers ago we had a family holiday back on our old stamping ground of the Craven part of the Dales (Mrs WWD is Skipton born and raised and I worked there for many years) One evening, we met up with old friends from the 'other' Ingleton, where we used to live after leaving Craven; it's in lower Teesdale. We met at a pub on Leyburn market square and had an enjoyable meal and conversation. As Mrs WWD and I headed south, at dusk, to our holiday cottage near Skipton, we were amazed and delighted by the number of barn owls we saw in Upper Wharfedale; I think it was six in total. More recently, in fact two weeks ago, I was reminded that bird-watching can occur at any time. One evening, I was travelling to play in an away table tennis match in the Chalke Valley near Salisbury and a barn owl flew along the road in front of me. Two days later, I had the same experience when fetching my daughter home from Winchester to spend the weekend with us. Black grouse males meet in the spring for mating displays; the activity is called 'lekking'; maybe your black grouse will be taking part in one of those near where you saw it, Jon M. I was once lucky enough to be taken to one of those, soon after dawn, as I recall in Littondale. It was a great sight, with the females (greyhens) hanging around at the periphery of the 'lek' site, presumably to show, in due course, their appreciation of the 'winners' in the time honoured way of the animal kingdom!