Rainbow walks and ravens

The first of the excess Christmas pounds has been safely taken off and stored away again for next year. There are a few more to go, but it’s a start.

A few of the necessary calories were expended lifting the telephone and dialling two local gyms to discuss current offers.  A few more were burnt off chopping extra vegetables.

But there’s been no running and no allotmenteering, so the only activity contributing to the lost pound has been walking.  I’ve covered 60 miles in the last three weeks (obsessive stat-counter, moi?).  This means, I have realised, that to lose half a stone I would have to walk nearly 500 miles. So walks are not a very efficient method of losing weight.  I could so something simpler, like eating less.

But what walks they’ve been.

Ditchling Beacon has been resplendent in January sunshine, with ravens croaking and skylarks singing and only the kindest of winter breezes blowing.  To the north, the Sussex weald stretches for miles into the hazy distance, with its towns and villages laid out like Legoland models amid the fields and hedgerows. To the south, the green waves of the South Downs fold downwards to the sea.

The ravens are a new arrival – huge and black, and engaging in impressive aerial combat with gulls and any other bird willing to take them on.  Like buzzards, they’ve established themselves in areas of Englandshire once off-limits.  I have no idea what impact they’re having on the ecological balance, but it’s a bonus to see them without having to yomp up a mountain or pay an outrageous fee to get into the Tower of London.

The skylarks are much older-established residents, trilling away in the clear blue sky about the joys of life and, quite possibly, about the loss of much of their habitat elsewhere.   A couple of years ago I had the possibly unique experience of cross-country skiing on Ditchling Beacon to the sound of skylarks singing – priceless.  On our 11-mile trek this week, there was no snow, just wall-to-wall sunshine and birdsong.

Cows had somehow extracted themselves from their miles of boring grassland and broken into the turnip field.  They were still contentedly munching there hours later when we returned.  The grass is never greener on the other side, but sometimes what you find on the other side isn’t grass.

So turnip-munching cows, a kestrel hovering above them, a flock of fieldfares taking flight as we approached them on Blackcap (sadly no blackcaps on Blackcap), the ravens, a yellowhammer perched on a hawthorn: it all added up to a great day’s walking.

But the week’s other walk was arguably even more memorable, a classic tale of pain and gain.  I could tell you we got caught in a sudden downpour and got absolutely soaked, which was true. I could tell you we saw the most beautiful double rainbow, which was also true.  Was the glass half-empty or half-full?

I’d say half-full – the soaking clothes have now dried off but the photographs and the memories of the rainbow remain.  There’s also a glorious liberation in getting absolutely soaked and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.  And I can now confirm what’s at the end of the rainbow: it’s a horse. A brown one.

So after all this, I’m celebrating my lost pound, but working out how to speed things up a bit.  Running needs to get back on the agenda.  General Sloth and Major Disinclination have prevented its resumption since a month-long virus struck in mid-December.  Sadly it means my last run was my worst one, until I get myself back out there.

Allotmenteering has fallen victim to the same deadly duo of Sloth and Disinclination.  I keep meaning to at least get as far as planning what’s going where, drawing another year’s chart, marking the raised beds, the paths, and the permanent fixtures like the raspberry canes, and then working out how to rotate the crops. It can be done from the sofa. Surely I can manage that? But thus far, it remains stubbornly on the “to do” list.

The next few pounds will, I hope, follow the first one into cold storage, but either way I’ll enjoy the view on the way down. Walking – even in a city – opens up worlds of possibilities, whether it’s the glories of Richmond Park or the fascinating back streets of Shepherds Bush or Clapham.  Not everyone can, I know, but for those who can, it’s fab and it’s free!

Of dormice and men

A road carves through the heart of the village, like a giant river running to the sea.  Sometimes it’s a flood, sometimes a trickle, but like a river it never falls completely silent.  The traffic flows through a deep cutting, like water that’s worn its way through rock over the centuries, and cascades down the hillside in curves and waves.

You can stand on the bridge and watch it flow.  (OK, unusually for a river, it flows both ways, but every analogy has its limitations!)   Those in the north follow the river south.  Those in the south seek the north.  Everyone wants to be somewhere they’re not.

But at the point where the river first tips over the hillside to begin its waterfall journey downwards, there are now apocalyptic scenes.  A muddy brown scar runs along both banks of the river, littered with tree stumps and pitted with bulldozer tracks.   The river’s privacy has been stripped away, and you can see it twisting and turning down the hill, catching the dull winter light as it goes.   Before the apocalypse, its first turn took it to a hidden place, behind banks of trees and undergrowth, before curving and carving its way onwards and downwards through thick woodland.  It disappeared into mystery.  Now the mystery has been laid bare.

The reason is very simple:  those who ply the route are to be given a straight line down the hill.  They will be able to go faster from north to south and from south to north.  Accident after accident has convinced the authorities that man cannot change for the hillside, so the hillside must change for man.

Only the tree stumps are left now, and that is only for the dormice, apparently slumbering through the apocalpyse at the base of the trees.  Come spring, they will awaken to their savage new reality, and trundle off deeper into the remaining woods.

Man will always tame and rule over nature, I know.  But for a few minutes here and a few minutes there, we destroy so much.

The planned HS2 high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham will shatter lives, homes, hopes and countryside.  For what?  So businesspeople can save not much more than half an hour on their journey.  The spectre of a Thames estuary airport, dubbed Boris Island  after the blond bombshell who runs London, is suddenly stalking Kent and Essex again.  Marshlands teeming with bird life will be compromised if not destroyed.  But “Bugger the birds, let’s do it anyway!” seems to be the prevailing view.  “Think of the benefits, the extra runway capacity, the faster journey times to central London!”

I know the desire for exploration and progress lies in the heart of man.  I know if everyone was like me, we’d still be clumping around the cave complex on square wheels and discussing whether there’s more than one way to skin a mammoth.

But I wish there was some sort of happy medium, where nature can be messed with only if there is an overwhelming case for it.   Like the presumption of innocence in a criminal case, I’d love to see a presumption for nature being left alone unless anyone can prove the absolute necessity of its destruction.  It would have to be a better case than: “Well it would shave a few minutes off the journey, wouldn’t it?”  I know it’s optimistic and idealistic, but hey, a blogger can dream.

I don’t think HS2 has an overwhelming case for existing, not even in its improved form with extra tunnels.  Boris Island has even less to commend it.  And I don’t think shaving a few minutes off the A23 London-to-Brighton dash justifies ripping out woodland and messing with the dormice’s heads.

A few days before Boris Island came back to haunt us,  I had driven to the nearby Isle of Sheppey, to a huge expanse of watery paradise that is home to beautiful birds of prey as well as waders and other smaller birds.  A long trek across the marshes on a spookily still, warm January day was rewarded with views of a majestic marsh harrier, and a short-eared owl, cruising across the mudflats in search of prey.

It’s the sort of experience money can’t buy.  Money can buy rail links and airports and faster roads, but it can’t buy back the nature that’s lost in the process. Planes, trains and automobiles all have their place, but to quote another of my favourite poems, “long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

(C3N26HFNKTH8)

Strangers on a train

It’s amazing how a Positive Random Encounter can turn your day around.  I’d had a grim day.  I was ill, I hadn’t slept, and I’d received one of those phone calls at work that starts disastrously and goes rapidly downhill from there.

The phone call was a full-blown Negative Memorable Exchange (NME).  The sort that stays with you for hours or even days afterwards, as you try to work out the basic questions: Where on earth did THAT come from? What’s their problem? What parenting techniques were used at the age of two?

So it was, still bruised and battered from the NME encounter, that I pedalled wearily off to the station on my trusty folding bike to catch the train home.  It’s a two-hour journey, so in my sleep-deprived, virused-up, NME-bashed state, survival was my only thought.

On autopilot, I selected a carriage, folded the bike, fixed it in position and slumped into the only obvious seat.  I was ready to close my eyes, to doze, to continue mulling the NME attack, to focus on the glass of wine that would be my reward at the other end of the journey.

“Oh wonderful! It’s always great to see a fellow-cyclist on the train!”  My bleary eyes focused on the hailer.  Diagonally opposite me sat a vicar.   He was smiling, no, beaming at me, with warmth and interest.

Now I don’t know about you, but I make no assumptions about vicars.  I don’t assume they’re good people, or bad people, or even people who believe in God.  I’ve known some great ones and one or two who’ve been the source themselves of NME encounters.  I know one who deliberately started an argument using the unpromising opening line “How much do you know about Harriet Harman?”

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, so a vicar on a train hails an exhausted, sick, wound-up cyclist.  This could have gone one of two ways. It could have ended very badly.

“Ah yes,” I venture.  “So you’re a cyclist too?”

From that equally unpromising start flowed a conversation so utterly delightful and absorbing that by the time I got off the train my day had been transformed.  We’d talked about our shared love of gardening and allotmenteering and their transformative properties.  We’d discussed our different experiences working with damaged young people, and our shared belief that making them partners not victims is, in itself, a healing act.  We debated whether one should ever wear shorts to meet royalty or wear choir robes to sing in church. We talked about theology and genuflection.    And of course we talked about cycling, its perils and joys, and its challenges when travelling by train or plane.

It was the perfect antidote to the NME encounter.  The journey flew past.  We parted with a handshake and a first-name introduction and a promise to keep each other in our prayers.

NME attacks can turn a day into a nightmare.  Positive Random Encounters can turn them back.  I cycled the last five miles a different person from the battered, shattered individual who’d got on the train.  I opened the front door to find a blazing log fire, a ready-poured glass of red wine sitting beside it, and tea being put on the plate.   There are some good people out there, as well as the NMEs.  I hope you meet some this week.  And to the Rev Richard: thank you.

The mystery of the missing winter

Autumn and spring have collided head-on and the garden’s all a-twitter with the aftermath.   The birds are singing in a way that suggests they’re thinking of starting families.  I want to run at the trees waving  my arms and shouting “No! Wait! You’ll only regret it later!”

Indeed a friend of mine saw a twig-bearing coot in November, and as everyone knows, no good can come of a twig-bearing coot in November.

Twice since Christmas I’ve seen a large butterfly, a red admiral I think, fluttering around the front garden and trying to get in the front window.

A New Year audit of the garden reveals that the plants are equally confused. The flowering quince is, well, flowering.   It just shouldn’t be.  The buddleias are in full leaf, when they should be looking bare and shivering.

Last year’s angelica hasn’t died back yet.  It’s just slumped, confused and dejected, neither dead nor alive, while new growth already spurts from the centre.    The ferns haven’t died back either and the rudbeckias have started growing again.

The white camellia is flowering, way too early, while the bright pink splodges of an autumn-flowering hebe are illuminating another corner, way too late.

The grevillea, something you’d expect to see flowering in the Mediterranean in high summer, is at it too.  And the last few leaves are still clinging to the plum trees as the daffodils come up to meet them.

The huge Sussex garden Wakehurst Place is reporting 50 different plants in flower, including roses, many of them six to eight weeks ahead of themselves.

These weird winters do throw up some beautiful plant combinations which are theoretically impossible.  A couple of years ago I enjoyed the sight of rosemary and crocuses flowering next to each other.

This year we’ve had the odd frost, even a bit of snow on a couple of days, but nothing you could actually classify as winter. That doesn’t mean it’s not still coming.  As my wise old mum points out, Easter is often colder than Christmas.  There’s plenty of time for a cold snap yet.

Last year, of course, there was no mistaking winter.  It stood as a great Berlin Wall between the seasons.  The same garden that’s in growth now was under 18 inches of snow this time last year.   The year then went straight from winter into summer, bypassing spring.

Maybe nature has decided to randomly drop one season per year, in some kind of austerity drive.  No winter this year, no spring last year, no autumn the previous year.   And no summers most years, now I come to think of it.

But plants are amazing at coping.  They want to live, they want to grow and they’ll do their darnedest, even if they’ve been planted in the wrong place to start with.  Some, of course, ultimately can’t take the confusion and will succumb.  Even leylandii has been suffering and dying over the past year – so that’s at least one good result.

It’s hard to know how to garden with missing and extended seasons.  A few years ago we were all supposed to be planting olive groves and vineyards for the Mediterranean climate that was allegedly coming our way. Since then we’ve had extremes of cold, spring drought and winter mildness that make it impossible to say any one form of planting is the smart way to go.  As climate change bites, the British weather may or may not be warmer in any given year, but it seems certain to be prone to more extremes.

Climate change is a fact, whatever the cause (and I’m assuming we are).  Global warming sceptics have created their own industry, and good luck to them, but whoever’s right it seems to me that we should treat the old planet with a bit more respect.

In the meantime, scatter-gun planting in the garden and on the allotment is probably the best way to outwit an ever-changing climate.  I’ll plant a few things that love drought, a few that like a nice drink, and gamble on the odd tender plant among the frost-hardy ones.  That way at least some things should always be happy, whatever the weather throws at them.

Gunning for the licensers

A colleague of mine once came up with a genius idea for dealing with gun licence requests.

You simply ask the person if they want a gun.  If the answer is no, they don’t get one.   If the answer is yes, they still don’t get one, because no-one in their right mind wants a gun, and anyone who is isn’t in their right mind should not have a gun.

Simples, as the meerkat would say.

There can’t possibly  be a sensible answer to the question: “Why does a taxi driver need six guns?”  Except: “He doesn’t.”  Michael Atherton in County Durham has now followed in the murderous footsteps of fellow taxi driver Derrick Bird, whose rampage through the Lake District killed 12 people in 2010 .

It continues a long and  tragic history.  The worst single episode for me was Thomas Hamilton’s 1996 massacre of schoolchildren in Dunblane – with legally held guns. Michael Ryan had also been given licences for six weapons, including the two semi-automatic rifles that he used to murder 16 people in Hungerford  nine years earlier.

Even London barrister Mark Saunders would probably be alive if he hadn’t owned a gun which allowed him to start firing out of the window which allowed the police to justify shooting him.

All these gun owners no doubt believed themselves to be stable people who were safe and maybe even skilled users.  The licensing authorities certainly did.

But the reason their licences should all have been denied goes back to the “unknown unknowns” that I blogged about at the New Year.   These men didn’t know what they were capable of given circumstances that they didn’t know existed at the time.  In other words they probably had no idea they were capable of turning the guns on their families, on complete strangers or on themselves, given circumstances which they had not imagined could happen.

None of us knows how we’d respond to infidelity, financial loss, parentage lies, utter despair, rage at the unfairness of life, mental breakdown, or sheer cruelty from a partner until after it has happened.  The anger, rage, red mist moment comes, and if a gun is anywhere in the mix the scene has been set for tragedy.

Of course most gun owners do live out their lives without harming anyone or anything.  And anyone wanting to kill their family after a domestic nightmare will find another way of doing so, usually with knives, as we’ve seen in some recent horrific instances.  But the point with guns is that many more people can be targeted in a very short space of time if the unthinkable happens.

In the freedom-lovin’ arms-bearin’ US-of-A it’s an almost weekly occurrence for someone to take out all the people who’ve annoyed them, followed by themselves.   The term “going postal” was invented in the US and has become one of its deadlier exports.

Gun rampages are – to my memory – an exclusively male affair.  I don’t think men are more capable of rage than women, but I suspect far fewer women are drawn to guns in the first place, and if you don’t own one, you can’t turn it on others in a red mist moment.

If I took out all the people who’d ever annoyed me, the population of south-east England would be severely depleted.  I should definitely never be given a gun.

If you really do want to be great at shooting at targets, gun clubs should have to store all the weapons used.

If you want to shoot wildlife, don’t.  Please learn to love nature without feeling the need to kill it.

If you want to shoot burglars, don’t.  Please spend the gun money on a better alarm system.

So apart from farmers and deerstalkers and soldiers, I struggle to understand why anyone needs a gun.  But I can definitely understand why you might WANT one. They’re not the same, and should never be confused.

Do you want a gun? Yes.  Can you have one? No. Simples.