Climate-change affecting timing. Dressing up to be seen … or not!

 A friend of mine who has an allotment has been complaining that everything is late this year. Flowering plants and vegetables alike are behind in development. And she has been unable to transfer to outdoors new plants which have been germinating in the greenhouse because the nights have been consistently cold. 

I don’t have a greenhouse or an allotment but I too have the impression that things are late. My snowdrops seemed as though they never wanted to flower this winter, although they were fine as usual when they did so.  The hyacinths were a different story, a great disappointment, poking up an inch above the soil instead of a good 6 to 8 inches on a strong stem and then trying to open up in that state. Ridiculous! 

And the bluebells seem later than usual to me. I almost always say that it’s a good job the bluebells bloom before the Himalayan balsam really gets going as they would stand no chance against that quite aggressive beauty which demands ALL the space. I even checked back in my photos and it does seem that the bluebells are maybe a week behind last year’s crop. Maybe it’s the balsam that is early, not yet in flower but growing taller every day. And in some places I am seeing bluebells having to fight for space, reaching up for light above the rapidly growing balsam.

 

However, it must be said that the bluebells are finally looking rather spectacular this year. 

 

If plants are late here, probably because of that cold spell we had just as everyone was realising that they couldn’t afford to have the heating switched on, in other parts of the world it appears that wildfire season has started early this year. I saw this headline: 

Canada: dry weather and shifting winds threaten to spread Alberta wildfires.

People have had to leave their homes to get away from the fires. One woman described piling into the car with her husband, her mother and three dogs to escape as the fire got too close for comfort. No time to gather belongings and treasured mementoes. The next morning someone sent her a photo of what was left of her house: the chimney stack. Horrific! Presumably much of the rest of the building was made of wood and burned easily. She and her husband plan to rebuild but there are personal things that cannot be replaced, consumed in that fire. 

Granddaughter Number One has an American friend visiting at the moment. The American has expressed her surprise at the brick-built and stone-built houses in he UK. She says she is used to houses made of wood and aluminium. Maybe that’s the case in Alberta, Canada as well. Different places have different ways of doing things. That’s part of the fun of travelling. In our immediate vicinity the vast majority of the houses are built of stone. 

There’s one apparently wood-built house up the road from here, on the way to Dobcross. Whenever we pass it we speculate on whether it is wholly wood-built or just wood-clad. If it’s the former, how do they keep it warm in the winter, especially as it’s in a rather exposed position and must get the worst of the winds? One day we might go past as someone enters or leaves the property and we’ll be nosy enough to ask. 

I came across an item about “subway T-shirts”. No, these are not T-shirts advertising the food outlet Subway but large, indeed oversized, usually white T-shirts that young women in New York have taken to wearing over their other clothes when they ride on the subway system. This is to prevent unwelcome attention, even just unwelcome stares, from men on the public transport system. You dress your self up in whatever fancy, seductive, flimsy-for-the-warm-weather outfit you choose and then cover it all with a huge overgarment until you reach your destination. Then you can whip off your T-shirt to reveal the finery underneath. 

The habit is widely publicised/promoted on TikTok apparently. And, of course, it’s not obligatory. However, it does smack of the burka or of the red cover-all dresses the handmaids had to wear in The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s all a bit sad. 

Bruce Springsteen, who has been featured a lot recently on social media as he plays concerts all over Europe, might have to stop singing about “girls in their summer clothes”. Somehow “girls in their over-sized T-shirts” lacks that feeling of summer freedom.

And Carly Simon might need to rethink “Two hot girls (on a hot summer night)”:

“It happened last night we were feeling adventurous

We put on our heels and went out for a walk

More for a drink than to have a few eyes on us

Jenny and I slipped to town for some talk.”

They might have been out “more for a drink than to have a few eyes on” them but they had dressed up to attract attention.

Both those songs were written in possible more innocent times but there is something wrong with a world where women need to feel wary of being looked at. Time to educate everyone, maybe especially our menfolk, to be able to admire in an unthreatening way. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!