Suddenly the hawthorn is in flower. Almost overnight hawthorn bushes and trees have not only grown leaves - I swear that a week ago they were still bare - but blossom as well. Travelling home from Oldham on the bus yesterday I went past a hawthorn tree in full pink blossom, one of nature’s rarities (around here anyway) which I always look out for. The horse chestnuts have also got their candle-like blossom, developing again from one day to the next.
Looking at this article, which I had bookmarked and forgotten about, I read that horse chestnuts are not native to this country. I went and looked it up as horse chestnut trees have always seemed quintessentially English to me. But it seems they arrived from Turkey in the late 16th century - quite a long time ago then! . We call them “horse” chestnuts because when the leaves fall off the trees the stalk leaves a horse-shoe shaped scar. And secondly, conkers used to be ground and fed to horses to relieve them of coughs. Crushing the conkers releases certain medicinal chemicals which are beneficial for horses but, for other smaller animals, are actually poisonous. There you go.
Other aliens include grey squirrels, ring-necked parakeets, rhododendrons (rhododendra?), the dreaded Japanese knotweed and the ubiquitous Himalayan balsam. I know grey squirrels are held at least partly responsible for the decline in the red squirrel population, but I quite like the grey squirrels we see around here. The rhododendron bushes are a pleasant addition to our local landscape, with their rather exotic-looking flowers in a range of colours, just blooming nicely right now. We don’t have ring-necked parakeets around here to my knowledge, nor do I know of any cases of the dreaded knotweed close to home but we have rather too much Himalayan balsam.
At the moment we also have lots of wild garlic. According to Wikipedia, the “starry white flowers of wild garlic are a pleasing sight in spring, and this little woodland plant is also valued for its edible leaves and wildlife benefits. However, its spreading habit can make it unwelcome in some areas of a garden.” Rather like the balsam in that respect then.
(There would be a photo but I am still receiving this message: Sorry! We could not copy your photos to your blog. Most annoying!)
Anyway, the above-mentioned article suggests we are moving too fast around the world, inadvertently moving plants and animals all over the place. On the one hand, as I mentioned recently, we build walls and barriers, preventing the natural migration of some animals, while on the other we accidentally spread plants and insects, and even birds and animals! Strange!
Equally strange, in my opinion, are the folk who walk around talking on their mobile phones non-stop, sometimes using earbuds and no evident device, almost convincing me that they are raving mad and talking to themselves, or consulting Google-maps on he go, or reading something on the tiny screen. Often they don’t see you until the last moment and I have often only narrowly avoided collisions. Here’s Michael Rosen on that subject:
“There are two health hazards I cope with: people walking very fast towards me while looking at their phones. And people walking very fast behind me with wheelie suit cases.
The phone people I can mostly deal with. I do a little sideways shimmy and they whoosh past, and all I get is that express train breeze washing over me. Sometimes the breeze is full of armpit, but hey, that's better than being butted in the guts by a phone moving at speed.
The wheelie suitcase people are much harder to avoid. Now that I'm blind and deaf on my left side, if they're coming at me from that side, I don't get any kind of peripheral warning, no sense that there is someone about to overtake me. All that happens is that, out of nowhere, I feel that someone is hurling a big brick at my lower leg. Then a second later, someone is by my side, giving me a foul look, and tutting because my leg has been in the way of their wheelie suitcase.
But there is now a third street health hazard. The person with both the wheelie suitcase AND the phone. If they're coming at me head on, they're taking up more space than the usual phone people so I'm not fast enough or agile enough to do my shimmy in time. I do the shimmy but the big brick that's hurtling towards me, hits me full on from the front.
There are now two reasons for the person to be pissed off with me: one, I'm in the way of their big brick. two, I've interrupted their phone call. Of course I apologise over and over again. Sorry, sorry, sorry I was in the way. So sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
Maybe he needs to move away from London. Around here we have the phone hazard but not the wheelie suitcase hazard.
Finally, more seriously, here is another bit of modern madness, a more pernicious one in my opinion. When a report of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes appear in newspapers there is almost always a paragraphp like this:
“The war was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October 2023. Militants killed more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.”
It’s as if they feel the need to remind us of the common mistaken belief that this all started in 2023. Without saying as much they want to imply that Gaza brought this upon themselves!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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