Winchburgh

Y'know, sometimes I miss Winchburgh, where we used to live in West Lothian. It had character. And characters. Rarely would you go out birding without meeting an air-rifle-toting teenager taking pot-shots at the coots, or some seriously badger-baiting individuals with dogs, looking for active setts, and sometime badger-gassing, buzzard shooting, etc . On one memorable occasion I was walking down the Union Canal and met a tousled young gentleman trying unsuccessfully to hide at least three (3!) Pheasants inside his coat. Then there was the landfill site, home of Glaucous Gulls... if you didn't mind the management threatening to throw you off the land. And the beautiful farmland full of Tree Sparrows, now in the process of being trashed by house builders. Problem with Newtonhill is that it's too posh - we don't get any of that. The village does have its bad boys, but they just hang around the bus shelter drinking Diamond White, if I'm around to buy it for them. Face it, the schemiest thing you're likely to bump into here is me. And I'm a pussycat, it's just my coat that smells.