Today is Europe Day, so I am reliably informed, although the Council of Europe apparently celebrates Europe day on the 5th of May, because it was on that date in 1949 that the Council of Europe was founded. On the 9th of May 1950 came the Schuman Declaration, which led to the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. So the European Union celebrates Europe Day today. In some countries it’s a national holiday. On both days the European flag is flown.
But we’re no longer part of all that. We just have arguments with them over who can fish where. And we might well end up further split, no longer part of Europe and maybe no longer a United Kingdom. We seem to have come a long way in my lifetime! And maybe to get back to where we started!
But we mustn’t get downhearted. So, Happy Europe Day to all who want to celebrate it.
It’s odd how things can last. I came across this article about how melting glaciers have revealed the wooden barracks dug into a cave at the top of Mount Scorluzzo in the Italian Alps by around 20 soldiers from the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War. This bit of the war was known as the White War but not much was known about it until the ice started to melt. In the 1990s relics started to be revealed: weapons, sledges, letters, diaries and, as the retreat of glaciers hastened, the bodies of soldiers. Experts knew the barracks had existed but nobody was able to get in until global warming opened it up. Now there are plans to make a museum of it all. Fascinating stuff!
From ice to fire. California’s Sequoia national forest suffered huge wildfires last August. In the last week or so scientists in the Sequoia fire ecology and research team spotted a plume of smoke. On investigating, they discovered that it came from one of the giant sequoia trees, still standing despite being charred from the wildfires. The heart of the huge tree has been quietly smouldering away since last summer, all through the cold of the winter. There simply hasn’t been enough rain to put it out completely. Amazing!
The sequoia tree had probably been there for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. It’s hard to imagine something living so long. Here in the UK we have oak trees dating back 100s of years but, as far as I know, nothing that has been growing for 100s of years.
Apparently fire is part of the life cycle of the sequoia trees. Sometime in the 1960s it was discovered that in areas where trees had burned young sequoia saplings were thriving. The giants depend on fire to release their seeds. The native Americans seemingly knew this and would do controlled burning of areas of forests. Now modern scientists do the same. Nothing new under the sun!
Now it seems that old clothes are becoming big business.
Companies are springing up selling vintage clothing. People are selling “preloved” items on the internet. Calling second-hand clothes “preloved” takes away some of the stigma of not having brand new. I can remember my mother’s reluctance, no, absolute disapproving refusal, to buy things from the jumble sales we used to help to organise at the local church. Nowadays when everybody needs far more clothes that we ever had and with people being more ecologically conscious it matters less. Much of the “preloved” clothing on sale is as good as new anyway, partly because of people having so many clothes that they are worn less and worn out less. And still the organisation lothes Aid reports that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothing goes to landfill in the UK each year. Wow!
Getting back to those old jumble sales, even then big business was starting to get involved. We were on the look-out for “sharks” who would select the best items, offer a reasonable sum of money -still not as much as if all the items were sold separately! - and then re-sell these on market stalls elsewhere. Plus ça change.... !
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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