Power Cut

Due to the climate crisis, we’ve been told to expect the break down of systems so I’ve given a lot of thought to what this might mean and how to prepare.

When the St Albans area suffered a power cut the other evening we looked out our window and wondered what was going on.

But I was ready with camping cookers, candles, hot water bottles and even water purification tablets, in case the pumping stations were affected and we needed to resort to our water butts.

The other essential thing you need in order to survive in a crisis is a sense of community, so I grabbed a torch and knocked on the doors of older neighbours.  Having lived through harder times, they already had emergency stocks of candles.

Before I had even knocked on the last door, the lights stuttered back on, however, and the emergency was over.  I snatched back my camping cooker and went home.

We are still not sure what caused the power outage.  But I think it was just a little reminder that things will not always run smoothly as the world changes around us.  So maybe we should keep our camping supplies at the ready and be prepared to share them.

 photo - nicola-fioravanti-UrAKbpKnak8-unsplash

Peaky Blinders Walk

Every weekday morning since March 2020 and First Lockdown, I have strode out of my house for a brisk two mile walk round the neighbourhood.  I don’t wear earphones and I don’t do errands, I  say hello to dogwalkers and joggers.   It’s good for my health, both physical and mental.

I am amazed how much wildlife I see in the ‘burbs, but even so, after two years, the ritual is a little weary.

I’m a big fan of Peaky Blinders and the new series inspired me to enliven my tired routine by using the Tommy Shelby walk - head down as if marching vigorously into a strong wind. 

Okay, I was wearing a cagoule so it wasn’t quite as visually striking as Shelby’s billowing great-coat…  And I had a bobble hat instead of a flat cap.

Unexpectedly, however, I spotted some things I wouldn’t normally – with my head lowered to face the coming storm, I saw the places where people had guerilla-gardened verges near their home.  I appreciated the optimistic tete-a-tete daffodils and the purple crocuses.

In reacting to the daffodils, I felt I should stay in character as Tommy Shelby but was unsure whether he would fully have appreciated the blooms.  

After long consideration, I adopted his gravelly voice and muttered ‘Look Arthur – effing flowers.’

 

Birdsong - and how we killed poetry

Around a dozen of us who have been friends since our youth, and sometimes camp together, share a Whatsapp group.

It doesn’t have a name, but I call it the Annabel channel as she is the founder.

Sometimes it’s very serious – articles about the history of the Ukraine: sometimes we are taking our mind off life with trivia.  Or, in this case, the beauty of the world around us:-

Annabel:

I stand on the station platform and search for the birds overhead belting out their messages every morning. Yesterday I stood right underneath the loudest Great Tit I'd ever heard, hopping about in the tree above me. So active while making so much noise!

Me:

I reckon there are 2 to 3 haiku there. Get cracking.

 

Mike took up the challenge:

Dazzled by birdsong:

I wait for the morning train.

Nearby, some Great Tits.

 

Me:

I really liked the first two lines, but the third sounded weird.

 

Annabel has a go:

'Trainwaiting, workbound,

Soulsoothed by birdsong.

Treehigh, some Great Tits'

 

Annabel tests positive with covid but gamely has another go at a haiku (priorities!)

'Train-waiting, work-bound,

Soulsoothed by birdsong, I seek

Tree-high, a Great Tit'

 

Mike has meanwhile returned to the drawing board and comes up with his master work:

Waiting for the train:

stupid birds, what a racket.

Trod in a dog-turd.

 

Having succeeded in killing the poetry I retire smugly.

If there is any moral to be drawn from this ill-starred literary venture, I think it is this:

Don’t try to include great tits in a haiku.

 

 

 

 

Gone Hog

 

In November, we took in a young hedgehog (blogged previously).  When we found her in our garden, she was not weighty enough to survive hibernation, so the objective was to help her put some weight on and release her again.

We had done this successfully once before a number of years ago.

It was more complicated than we remembered.

For a start, should we have taken her in at all? – with warmer winters, there was a chance she would have survived without our help.

Plus, when you put a hedgehog in a pet cage, it stresses them and their parasites grow in number.

I had brilliant hedgehog mentors in Esther who runs LondonColney Hedgehog Rescue and Jill who helps hedgehogs in St Albans.

We handled the hog as little as possible and did not make a pet of her.

But when Esther gave her some anti-parasite injections, a name was required for the records – Hermione.

That was the tipping point – we began to regard her as ‘our’ hedgehog.

We acclimatised her to winter temperatures in the garage, then released her early last month.   We put her out in a snug straw-lined house with a tunnel entrance to block cats and foxes.

We left food in a similarly protected hedgehog feeding station.

We had been warned that although some hedgehogs come back every night, others are never seen again.

Hermione turned out to be of the latter type. 

It is quite possible she fell foul of one of the local foxes.  I guess we’ll never know.

However, in our imagination, she is trundling along the hedges of the nearby school field, snaffling beetles and generally leading the life of a hog in clover.

 

Please support the amazing work of London Colney Hedgehog Rescue:- 

http://londoncolneyhedgehogrescue.weebly.com/