Autumn Gales

Wow, autumn arrived with a bang - of bits of trees landing with a crash. The village is covered in ripped off leaves and broken pieces of branch.  In the centre of the village the road is covered in what looks like little pieces of confetti or the individual blossoms from an elder or hawthorn but which on closer inspection turn out to be thousands of scale insects ripped off the big oak tree, where the tips of branches have come down complete with leaves some still have the scales attached.  It's been a bumper year for acorns and they're littering the road and car park too, however the conkers don't stay for very long before they're collected up for many and varied uses. 
We have quite a heap which pleases the resident arachnophobe no end  - the conkers are being distributed around in an attempt to dissuade spiders from taking up residence, I'm not convinced it has any effect but if it means I don't have to evict half a dozen little 'sids' every day that's fine by me.
Over the past week as I've been walking around the village with the pups (four walks a day for me!) I've noticed a large number of squashed toads, not frogs definitely toads, I'm seeing a new one most days and on our regular 15 minute circuit there are six flat amphibians.  Maybe we should have toad crossings in the autumn as well as the spring?

Our reader surveys are still ongoing, the free CJS Weekly editions have all been claimed in the web survey but there are some still available to Weekly Subscribers and also to CJS Professional readers.

Next Friday is going to be a little different, we have a scheduled power out in the morning to allow the supplier to carry out repairs on the network.  We're moving as much off site as possible but we will be limited in what we can achieve so no news but your CJS Online and Weekly will not be significantly affected although digital editions may be a little later than usual.  Please email us rather than phone.

This week though has gone pretty much as usual but with added typing as TB has been in sunny (?) Minorca, so apologies for any typos (we did proof as usual and get the giggles over a couple of finger slips).  This week's edition has gone to press, digital version will be online soon, there are 34 ads for paid posts plus 7 for volunteers.