Well, yesterday disappeared down the rabbit-hole or down a wormhole in time. I was up and about at least an hour earlier than usual, expecting the arrival of not one but two small grandchildren. Our reception-class-age granddaughter had been sick on Tuesday night, which meant under the latest school regulations that she was not allowed back in school for 48 hours. By Wednesday morning she was fine but rules are rules and so she stayed at home with Daddy, who was working from home, while her small brother went off to nursery. On Thursday, knowing that her small brother was coming to spend the morning with me, she opted to come along too. Fine by me. We played games, did some painting, ran about in the garden and so on. My daughter finished off her marking and sorting put before coming to collect her offspring. She stopped off for coffee and a snack and suddenly the afternoon was almost over.
Yesterday was polling day. So, having sent the small people and their mother on their way, we did a quick walk into the village to do our civic duty and vote in the local council elections. Our vote made little difference - the Conservative candidate was elected again - but still, we have the vote - use it or lose it!
We had tea. Phil went off to chess club. I walked into the village again to pick up supplies of milk and bread and fruit juice, which I had decided not to buy earlier in the interests of getting the chess-player on his way in plenty of time. I returned home and tidied up, with a sort of niggle at the back of my head that there was something I had neglected to do. At some point later in the evening it came back to me - I hadn’t posted my blog! By then I was half-asleep listening to music. After all I had been up earlier than usual. Experts might say 7 hours a night is all the sleep we need but my body says that one extra hour makes all,the difference! So it goes.
Today, having had my eight hours of sleep, I got up and ran along the Donkey Line bridle path, as a change from running round the village. I noticed at various points along the path little piles of uprooted Indonesian (or possible Japanese, depending on which flower book you consult) balsam. This bully of the plant world, individually quite beautiful but collectively so dominant that once it starts to grow little else gets a look in, was introduced to this country by Queen Victoria, so the story goes. When the flowers turn to seed, the slightest tap fires the seeds out from the pods to establish new little enclaves. It has become so all-pervasive in recent decades that “keep my town beautiful” societies and primary school classes have organised mass weeding sessions. I recognise the seed leaves of the plant as they start to grow and remove them from my garden and from the edges of paths in the places where I run or walk. It’s easier to do as the plants get just a little bigger and the task gets less back-breaking as you don’t need to bend so far. Obviously someone else has also started the work of restricting the spread of beautiful invader. I pulled up some more to add to the piles along my route. A younger runner went past me - they all run faster than I do - greeted me and commented, “I see you’ve been weeding as you run!” Well, yes! So it goes.
It would be sad to lose displays like this along the Donkey Line.
I wonder how some of the nature conservation societies feel about our uprooting, indeed trying to eradicate, balsam. First there is the insect question. According to a recent survey the numbers of flying insects In Great Britain have plunged by 60% since 2004. They put a sort of screen on car registration plates and count how many insects get splatted during journeys.
“The new survey included almost 5,000 journeys made in 2021 and determined the “splat rate” for each, ie the number of insects recorded per mile. Wet days were excluded as rain might have washed some of the splatted insects off the plates.
In the 2004 survey, which was conducted by the RSPB, only 8% of journeys failed to splat any insects at all. But in 2021, 40% of journeys did not record a single squashed bug. The possibility that newer vehicles were more aerodynamic and therefore hit fewer insects was ruled out by the data.”
Now Buglife, aka The Invertebrate Conservation Trust, the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, (“Actively working to save the UK's rarest little animals; everything from bees to beetles through to worms and woodlice.” Personally I could live without the woodlice but I suppose someone must love them and no doubt birds eat them when they can.) wants us to take some positive action:
“As well as demanding action from the government and councils, Buglife said people could help insects by not using pesticides, letting grass grow longer and sowing wildflowers in gardens. If every garden had a small patch for insects, collectively it would probably be the biggest area of wildlife habitat in the world, the group said.”
A knock-on effect of the decline in insects is, of course, a decline in birds. While I find it hard to get emotional about the decline in species such as the Australian brush turkey, I recognise that we need to preserve the diversity and that human activity is continuing to cause problems all over the world. I’m more concerned about the disappearance we notice her of species such as sparrows and starlings, once very common in our gardens. One expert said people need not feel powerless in helping to reverse the decline but added: “We all have connections [to birds]. If a company is associated with deforestation in Brazil, don’t buy stuff from them,” he said. “And if everyone spares as much land as possible within their gardens for nature, then that adds up to quite a large area. Another lever is voting – we get the politicians we vote for.”
So, as with the insects, so we can also help the birds by not being too ruthless with the tidiness of our gardens. We let the dandelions grow. My wild front garden is beginning to develop nicely, with its crop of poppies and aquilegia. We’re doing our bit, but when I’ve been out and about recently I’ve watched yet another garden disappearing under flagstones. It’s turning into a nicely elegant area where the house owners can sit out at their nicely elegant garden furniture on mild sunny afternoons and long summer evenings. But it’s another patch of land lost to nature. And there is too much of that in modern gardens. So far I have resisted the suggestions from my daughter that our garden could be improved with a nice little paved patio outside the back door. I shall continue to do so!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment