Out and about at various times of the day. Ongoing effects of the weather. Climate crisis denial. Naturism and its vocabulary.

Yesterday we walked up Lark Hill in the heat of the mid afternoon, armed with a bottle of water, and protected by sun hats and sunblock. It was fine. Not too hot. Today might be a different kettle of fish. It’s hotter! 

The views were, as ever, quite magnificent. 

 

Somehow the world looks bigger when there is a vast expanse of blue sky. 

 

 

There were butterflies on the buddleia bushes but nothing like the numbers that we saw one day at the end of last summer.

The blackberries are ripening nicely but I’m sure they are earlier than usual. No doubt thanks to our odd weather.

In the early evening we went for another stroll, less strenuous this time, around the village. We spotted the heron by the local millpond.

He was there again, in the same spot, this morning. Had he been there all night. I wondered.

 

There are warnings of possible cliff falls on the south coast of England. Cracks are apparently widening as the cliffs as a whole become drier and drier. People are warned not to walk too close to the edge on the cliff tops, nor to walk below the overhanging cliffs as they stroll on the beaches. Wow! And in Oxfordshire there is a village which has run out of water. They are relying on bottled water and tankers.

“We realise how inconvenient this is, especially during such hot weather,” said a Thames Water spokesperson, who said the lower water pressure was due to technical issues at the nearby Stokenchurch reservoir. “Customers may experience lower-than-normal pressure during periods of higher demand. These times are typically in the morning and during the early evening.”

But despite all this and more going on, Lord Frost says we are not facing a climate crisis in this country. Possibly not in the world as a whole. 

While Lord Frost did not deny the existence of any kind of climate change, in an essay for Policy Exchange the veteran Tory said the issue should be “tackled in a pragmatic way” rather than “up-ending the whole way our societies work”.

He wrote: "We are told to stop travelling, live local, eat less, stop eating meat, turn our lights out and generally to stop being a burden."

Lord Frost instead called on the country to “master our environment” and focus on getting “more energy in a more carbon-efficient way”.

Even if he should turn put to be correct, I still think we should be careful.

One group of people who should be careful in the hot and sunny weather are naturists. According to this article there has been a huge rise in naturism (didn’t it used to be nudism?) since the pandemic started. One enthusiast, a longer-term naturist, having been one for three decades, had this to say: “If you sit somewhere remote, fully naked and perfectly still, wildlife starts to get used to you. Birds hop closer, squirrels and badgers emerge: you become, and this is the best way to put it, part of nature. It’s a magical experience, and it really comes into its own in times of stress.”

Okay! It all sounds very idealistic and charming but I don’t think I’ll be trying it out anywhere close to here as the wooded areas are not really dense enough to ensure discretion.

Reading the article I learnt a little specialist vocabulary: to go textile = to wear clothes. “Population ageing is another worry, says Paul Rouse, 63, who also runs Naturist Travel, a travel review website. “There’s this abiding fear that the older naturists will die off and all of the cherished social clubs would ‘go textile’,” he says, employing the naturist lingo for going over to the (fully-clothed) dark side.

There you go. Always something new to learn. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!