Fighting with nettles. Feeding pandas. Melting glaciers. And speaking Welsh.

Towards the end of yesterday afternoon we decided the time had come to stretch our legs. As the previous day’s walk had been stymied by sudden rainfall, Phil suggested a walk up the hill “to give ourselves a bit of gradient. Fine! Having been up the hill and down the other side, he then proposed returning home via the “forest path”, something of an exaggeration as names go as that bit of woodland does not really constitute a forest. We also call it the “secret path” as that was the name our son gave it when he was about nine and we first discovered this path off the main road, linking two villages together.

There was an ulterior motive to this walk. On Wednesday, as I have undoubtedly mentioned, I purchased a handy-sized pair of secateurs. This was a chance to try them out. Already, going up the hill we had come across blackberry brambles and rambling roses trying to take over the pavement and block the way. A quick snip here and there and the way was much easier. And so the proposed return via the forest path gave the perfect opportunity for “a bit of snipping”.

At the point where we got onto the path, it looked like this. Brambles there were but it was the nettles that really encroached, reducing the width of the path to diminutive proportions. We have walked this lath with our almost 4-year-old granddaughter and the idea of someone her size pushing the nettles was simply not good.

So Phil got to work. I held his jacket and worked as his consultant/advisor/chief “nasties” spotter. Now, Phil is a very determined person and when he gets a bee in his bonnet he will not give in easily. Consequently, something like an hour later we had progressed about 100 yards.

The path, however, was now much clearer.
I hope it is appreciated by all who tread it.





By the way, we also saw some splendid toadstools, worthy of any fairy tale.

It’s a good job I had put our evening meal in the oven on a slow cook. Otherwise there is no knowing when we would have got around to eating.

On the subject of eating, one of the odd, sad co sequences of the pandemic is that pandas in a Canadian zoo are in danger of starving as the supply chain for bamboo has broken down. Calgary Zoo said in May that it planned to return Er Shun and Da Mao to China, after coronavirus disrupted bamboo supply lines, but on Tuesday the zoo announced that due to the pandemic, it was still unable to secure travel permits. And so the pandas stay in Canada for the time being but the keepers are unsure about how they will manage to feed them.

Here’s another story, not Coronavirus this time but the environment and global warning. The glacier on Mont Blanc is melting and people are having to be evacuated. Some 65 people, including 50 tourists, have left homes in Val Ferret, the hamlet beneath the glacier. Roads have been closed to traffic and pedestrians. “We will find [alternative] solutions for residents,” siad Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of Courmayeur. “The tourists will have to find other solutions.”

It’s not the first time this has happened. Experts are keeping an eye on it. Glaciologists monitoring Planpincieux say a new section of ice is at risk of collapse. Homes were also evacuated in September last year following a warning that 250,000 cubic meters of ice could fall. The movement of the glacial mass was due to “anomalous temperature trends”, the experts said. The glacier has been closely monitored since 2013 to detect the speed at which the ice is melting.

But still there are climate change deniers out there!

And among the problems besetting schools at the moment and the big question of whether or not they will be able to open for the new school year, in Wales they have another problem: not enough Welsh-speaking teachers. Like many places in countries all over Europe where minority languages exist, Wales wants to promote the use of its language through bilingual teaching in schools. But too few young teachers, coming newly qualified into the profession are able to work in the languages. In some cases they have grown up in Wales, even been educated themselves in Welsh, but because their families mostly communicate in English, they do not feel confident about delivering lessons in Welsh. I can sympathise; you aren’t completely confident about keeping control of your class and less so if you are asked to teach in what is for you your second language! This minority language business is very tricky. However, I can’t help feeling schools have more serious problems to deal with at the moment.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!