Last night I adjusted my alarm from 7.00 (regular Thursday setting because of the early arrival of the small boy) to 8.00 but must have forgotten to actually save it so that it would ring this morning. Consequently as the light started to filter round the edges of the blinds and I thought it might be getting on towards time for my alarm to ring nothing much happened. Eventually I looked at the time: 8.45. Okay, I must have needed the extra sleep!
So I got up and got myself organised. I had had a hairdresser’s appointment for this morning but yesterday Granddaughter Number Two asked if we could arrange a brunch meeting as she is returning to university tomorrow and is feeling sad because she will miss us all. I don’t remember feeling sad to be returning to university when I was her age. I rearranged the hairdresser’s appointment and agreed to go and meet her. I got on fine with my family but life at university was interesting and exciting. I looked forward to the independence that studying at university gave me. I guess it’s a generational thing as much as anything else.
She’s also very sentimental, a state not improved by her small sister bursting into floods of tears at the prospect of her disappearing from her life for another couple of months. My own small sister just insisted I should write her letters when I disappeared to university.
It’s another damp and dismal day, decidedly not conducive to being out and about. The weather forecast maps show swathes of rain sweeping across the country for the next few days. I don’t envy my daughter her drive to York tomorrow with Granddaughter Number Two.
As I walked to the bus stop this morning, not the nearest one but one a little further down the road so that I would feel that I was at least getting some walking done, I spotted some new fencing going up. It’s on the edge of a huge garden where they have been cutting down trees. According to my daughter they have been given planning permission to build another house in the garden. Imagine having a garden large enough to accommodate another house. But why do they feel the need to put a huge fence up? I wonder. There’s a perfectly adequate fence there already but this new one takes it up to well over 6 feet and makes the walk along the road feel rather tunnel-like. It seems to be something of an obsession with those who own land to feel the need to enclose it and prevent others from seeing what is going on.
In similar vein, I came across this report:
“The right to wild camp in England and Wales has been lost, after a wealthy landowner successfully brought a case against Dartmoor national park, the last place it was possible without seeking permission.
The park authorities are understood to be consulting with lawyers and strengthening their case before appealing against the decision, which has dismayed nature lovers and right-to-roam campaigners across the country. In response to the case, the Labour party has vowed that if it wins power, it will expand the right to roam and wild camp across England.
Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager and Dartmoor’s sixth-largest landowner, brought the case against the national park, arguing that the right to wild camp on the moors never existed. Darwall, the owner of the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor, offers pheasant shoots, deerstalking and holiday rentals on his land.”
It’s not that I feel any great desire to go wild camping but it seems rather a shame to prevent people from accessing some of our remaining wild places. When you see the nocturnal aerial views of our islands on weather reports and the like, you realise what a closely built-up set of island the UK is - there are lights everywhere. We need to keep some of our open spaces available to all.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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