Cutting down trees. Getting stressed about grammar and punctuation!

When Granddaughter Number One was small we used to play a kind of game when out on a walk. Whenever we saw the trunk of tree left behind after it had been cut down we would pretend that it was a “log creature”. Endless stories and adventures for these creatures ensued. Occasionally we would come across them behind barbed-wire fences or chicken wire and invent reasons why these particular log creatures were locked up. The crimes they had committed were quite fantastical.

Last week when Granddaughter Number Four was on a half term break rather longer than her teacher mother’s break, she spent a day with me, doing crafty stuff and generally occupying ourselves. We walked along the Donkey Line bridle path and resurrected the old “log creatures” game because someone had been cutting down trees on our bridle path. I am hoping these are specific trees with problems. There were explanatory notices on some trees but usually these were too high up or on the other side of a ditch and so were quite impossible to read. (Maybe the people who put up such notices think it doesn’t matter if they are inaccessible as nobody bothers to read them!) Besides I had an impatient 61\2 year old with me who didn’t really want to hang around while I read an A4 sheet of information.

Cycling along the .Donkey Line this morning I noticed that more trees had been cut down. A shredder of some kind must have been used on the branches, judging by the piles of wood pulp at various places on the embankments. I shall now keep an eye open for saplings being planted to replace the removed trees. I doubt that there were trees, or at least not so many, when it was a working railway line but nowadays it’s a fine shady, tree-lined walk. 

 

Closer to home, down at the crossroads a tree surgeon company was at work removing a tree from someone”s garden. Presumably it was too close to the house and its roots were causing problems. I hope that is the case as I don‘t like to think of trees just being cut down on a whim! Whatever the motivation, I must say I was impressed by the collection of machinery being brought into play.

 

Throughout the sunny weather we have had over the last few weeks I have had to rein in my inner pedant every time I go past the little cafe in the village. The sunshine has prompted them to put up a blackboard informing or reminding people that they sell things you might want on sunny days: cakes, cold drinks, sandwiches, ice creams and, mysteriously and annoyingly, cornetto’s. I have to resist the urge to stop and erase that apostrophe! 

I think I would mind less if they were at least consistent. If you have “cakes, cold drinks, sandwiches, ice creams” then surely you should have “cornettos”. Otherwise you should have “cake’s, cold drink’s, sandwich’ s, ice cream’s”. And then my inner pedant goes a step further and wants to tell them that really the plural of “cornetto” should be “cornetti”, just as places shouldn’t advertise “paninis”, which is already the plural “panino”. That’s the kind of stuff that goes through a grammar and language freak’s head while out running!  

All of this is, of course, unimportant in a world where politicians spend time arguing about outgoing prime ministers’ honours list, where Klimt painting can be sold at auction for far more money than the artist probably ever dreamt of earning (and immoral £65m) and where violent attacks take place in the small hours of the morning in university cities like Nottingham. 

It’s a crazy world!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!