A Fruitful Summer

September 8, 2025 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

Summer this year has been consistently sunny and warm. We have been able to plan on the assumption of good weather. Day after day, with only the briefest of interruptions, we have appreciated our gorgeous local landscape in clear air and sunlight. Although keeping the vegetables anywhere near watered enough has been a challenge, the fruit harvest – both cultivated and wild – has been huge.

*^{On A Local Walk To The Shops In The Sun}*

Of course, we now know that it has been the hottest summer in the United Kingdom on record. It has also been one of the driest and, for the first time in local living memory, the stream running through our hamlet has run dry for weeks on end. That is a huge concern since we also know that climate chaos is here and only going to get worse. Increasing wildfires, floods, oppressive heat and difficulties in growing food are all inevitable. But even while knowing of this impending crisis, we have loved the summer weather and, almost as much, the recent rain showers that have started to indicate the onset of Autumn and started to refill the stream.

I picked and used or froze all the gooseberries and blackcurrants. We also managed to consume, or give to friends, a rich harvest of gorgeous plums and damsons. However, the wild bullaces (like small damsons) will stay on the trees this year and we have only picked a small fraction of our apples so far.

Walking the local paths and roads, I have seen lots of buckets of apples offered up to passers-by by those with apple trees heaving with fruit. And all those walks have tended to take a little longer than usual as I stop to pick and eat the blackberries along the way. The familiarity with the local hedgerows I have gained since retirement, means I know where the best blackberries are as the summer progresses. It’s wonderful how many varieties of wild blackberries there are, each bearing different tasting fruit at different times.

The only downside from all this fruit is that I’m gaining a few pounds of weight as I turn the fruit I pick into delicious but calorie filled crumbles. Still, it’s only for a few months that I have this fresh fruit glut and then I will retreat to more parsimonious use of the harvest we have frozen. I have time to get my weight back to target by year end.

There have been many other aspects of the summer that I have enjoyed. In recent weeks we attended a lovely wedding of one of Jane’s nephews and his wife. Of course, like so many days, this was bathed in warm sun. That helped to make the event memorable and lovely. During and around it, we got to see our sons, their partners and our grandchildren – all chatting and playing together. That was an enormous treat.

*^{Looking For Grasshoppers With First Grandchild}*

Another recent event that was enhanced by the great weather was an 11-mile charity pub crawl around 11 nearby pubs. This started at our village pub (The Hog) mid-morning and, for the hardiest (not including me), ended late at night in a curry house or back at The Hog. I managed half the stops (and pints) but had the excuse of wanting to divert up to Forest Green Rovers to see my team’s game mid-afternoon (we won!) before rejoining the increasingly noisy crawl crowd. There was much merriment, new relationship making and well over £1,000 in fundraising for the MND Association during the day. I look forward already to next year’s occurrence.

Jane and I have been out and about a few times too. We went to Frome to wander the pretty streets before heading on to Bruton and the Hauser & Wirth gallery there. Frome is comparable to our local town of Stroud but is a little wealthier, has a few more independent shops and is a little more upmarket. Stroud is moving gradually to that benchmark I believe.

At the Hauser & Wirth gallery we saw an exhibition of works by Jean Tinguely and his partner Niki de Saint Phalle. We had come across Tinguely for the first time earlier this year when we visited Basel. It was good to make the connection with that short trip and the mechanical sculptures we had seen in one of the parks there. A neat touch at Hauser & Wirth was that, as in Basel, the sculptures were powered to show their intended movements.

*^{Jean Tinguely And Niki De Saint Phalle at Hauser & Wirth}*

The Hauser & Wirth gardens, by Piet Oudolf, are always worth visiting. The planting is dense and constantly changing with the seasons. Whilst many of the plants were still in full flower, others remained interesting because of their seed heads and textures. The only strangeness is the building at the far end which looks like an elevated spot from which to view the flat garden space, but just isn’t.

*^{Piet Oudolf Designed Garden At Hauser & Wirth}*

Even more recently we visited Edward Jenner’s house in Berkeley just a few miles away from us. Jenner created the smallpox vaccine which has since saved millions of lives and eradicated the disease worldwide. His house and garden are not particularly remarkable but his life was and it is well told through the exhibits on show.

For me, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the displays was how they showed the vehemence of opposition to compulsory smallpox vaccination in the 19^th century. Scepticism about, and opposition, to vaccination was, it seems, as strong then as it has become again now despite all the health gains in the meantime.

Edward Jenner's House And Garden, Berkeley, Gloucestershire — *^{Edward Jenner’s House And Garden, Berkeley, Gloucestershire}*

It’s been a very good summer. We haven’t done any a big holidays but the weather at home has helped my retirement feel like a big, comfortable holiday at home. Waking up to clear sunshine, wandering into town for the newspaper and daily shopping, pottering around the thirsty vegetables in the garden, indulging in the burgeoning fruit harvest and relaxing in the evening sun has all been very pleasant. Now, as Autumn approaches, maybe we will think about getting away for a bit…..

Sleepy Sheep In The Summer Sun — *^{Sleepy Sheep In The Summer Heat}*

A Bath Trip and Interesting Fungi

February 16, 2024 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

As part of our joint New Year Resolution to get out and about more when the sun is shining, Jane and I went to Bath earlier this month. We always enjoy visiting Bath, in part because the architecture reminds us of Edinburgh which we have also come to love, but also in its own right.

*^{One Of The Georgian Crescents Below Sion Hill, Bath}*

Jane always seems to find a treasured, discreet parking spot on Sion Hill. The walk from there to the centre of town takes us past takes us past Georgian terraces and crescents and through big open grassy slopes with broad vistas. It is an early treat on our visits, especially on a sunny day. Then in the city centre, there are the impressive squares and circuses of intact Georgian houses, the river and its bridges, and the Roman Baths and Cathedral, all clad in wonderful local stone.

A highlight of most of our Bath visits is the opportunity to pick up sourdough bread from Landrace bakery in Walcot Street. It is simply our favourite bread. This time we also visited The Fine Cheese Company a few doors along. The service from the French chap behind the counter was a little snooty (perhaps because we enquired about English cheese) but he was very efficient in giving us a taster of the smooth and luscious Old Winchester cheese which we went away with.

Jane had spotted that there was an exhibition of Gwen John’s work on at the The Holburne Museum and, for all the attractions of picking up top quality bread and cheese, seeing that was the prime purpose of our Bath trip. I was only vaguely familiar with Gwen John following a recent conversation with friends in our village who had seen an exhibition of her work in Chichester. They had recommended it and, anyway, I trust Jane on choosing worthwhile exhibitions like this one.

The exhibition proved to be small but interesting. Gwen John was clearly a formidable and influential woman. It seems that her popularity has grown since her death but in life she mixed with, modelled for and inspired a wide range of other artists and produced attractive and innovative paintings. I particularly liked the set of paintings on show called the ‘Convalescent Series’. These are portraits with muted colours with an unusual surface texture apparently produced by the oil paint soaking into a chalky glue mix which caused bubbles and then small perforations in the finish.

*^{‘Woman Seated’; Part Of ‘The Convalescent Series’ by Gwen John}*

When Jane and I met up outside the exhibition room afterwards we both said how much we had enjoyed John’s paintings but, amusingly, we both through that the best painting on show was one that was hung to illustrate her influence on other artists. This was an interior with a single female figure by a Dane, Vilhelm Hammershøi. We both thought it lovely.

^{‘Interior With Writing Table And A Young Woman’ by Vilhelm Hammershøi}

I recall seeing a Hammershøi painting in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris last year when I began to appreciate his work for the first time. I love his understated views of rooms, his grey palette and the ambiguity that stems from not being able to see the faces of the figures in his pictures – or the lack of a figure at all in the case of the painting I saw in Paris.

Alongside the Gwen John exhibition was a small exhibition of rather strange works by Gillian Lowndes. The point of these seemed to be to mix as many different materials as possible so they looked like weird debris dug up from a brownfield industrial site somewhere. The results weren’t uninteresting but I wasn’t moved by them.

*^{Two Of The Works By Gillian Lowndes On Show At The Holburne Museum}*

The Holburne Museum also had a display by Lubaina Himid called Lost Threads. This involved piles and streams of beautiful, brightly coloured Dutch textiles strewn across the floors of the museum rooms and woven between the pillars at the front of the building. Jane and I had been to see a substantial exhibition of her work at Tate Modern a couple of years ago. Like then, while we enjoyed the vibrant colours, we weren’t bowled over by works.

*^{The Holburne Museum Clad With Textiles By Lubiana Himid}*

Having got a dose of culture, we went for lunch at Oak. We had a very tasty lunch of vegetarian small plates. These arrived at a relaxed and, for us, ideal pace – always a pleasant surprise in small plates-oriented restaurants where, too often, things seem to arrive with a timing to suit the chef not the customers.

My life back at home has been largely routine. The weather hasn’t been very conducive to gardening and, while I have recommenced work in the field, there is still a lot to do to ready the vegetable patches for the new season and to plant some pot-bound trees I acquired a couple of years ago.

The weather hasn’t stopped some good local walks. Indeed, between the bouts of rain, we have had some lovely sunny days.

I’ve enjoyed the displays of snowdrops and the growing enthusiasm for the coming Spring being demonstrated by small birds singing their hearts out.

I have also spotted some interesting fungi which seem to be thriving in the mild damp. Just yesterday I saw a great pile of some sort of puff ball mushroom.

*^{Crazy Mound Of Puff Balls Looking Like A Pile of Discarded New Potatoes}*

A little earlier this week I saw, for my first time, a myriad of small bright red fungi growing on felled tree trunks and branches and dotted through a few square yards of undergrowth. These are Scarlet Elf Cap fungi. A friend tells me that it is from these little red cups that the wood elves drink the dew to refresh themselves each morning; nice story and a lovely sight.

While I have taken myself off for leisurely walks or lounged around rather too much, Jane has been very busy organising an exhibition of local artists work as part of the village’s cultural festival (called Horsley Unwrapped). Trying to tie down artists to various deadlines for facts about the work they want to display and any sale prices has been like ‘herding sheep’ at times, but the display boards have arrived and hanging of the work has started. After the exhibition this coming weekend, Jane is suddenly going to have a lot of discretionary time available!

*^{On My Way To Get The Newspaper: Winter Sunrise}*

My only contribution to the festival so far has been supporting Jane with some of the collateral materials for her exhibition. However, next week I am organising a Fun All-Comers Darts evening as part of the Festival. Goodness knows how that will go – I haven’t played darts for a few decades! I’ve bought some darts and am ready to go. More on this next time perhaps….

Football Footnote: Forest Green Rovers, who I support through thick and thin, have just had their first league win since October 2023 following a run of 15 winless league games. Incredibly there is a team worse than us in our Division (English Football League 2) and the win took us off the bottom. This one win has turned hopelessness into absurd levels of hope that we can avoid a consecutive relegation this season. But as someone on the FGR Fans Forum often says, ‘it’s the hope that kills you’. Hope will either burgeon or turn to dust again this coming weekend as we play again the team we beat last October. My fingers are crossed….

Going to the Food Bank

May 24, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

I started working at the Stroud Food Bank about 9 months ago. I only work for about 2 hours a week and, usually, only to put away stock and to fulfil (i.e. pack up) orders for the Food Bank’s ‘clients’. Some weeks I get a bit of extra arm stretching exercise by helping to deliver the (heavy and full) food bags to clients’ homes.

The location is in central Stroud and it operates as one of the outposts for the much larger warehouse, run by the The Trussell Trust, in Brimscombe, a couple of miles away. In the year to March 2023, The Trussell Trust has delivered almost 3m emergency food parcels in the UK. In Stroud district we delivered 8,663 of those – a huge 77% increase on the previous year.

Working at the Food Bank has been eye opening and educational around the everyday problems faced by people less fortunate than me. Often, even with very little income, people learn to manage somehow but what brings them to the Food Bank is something unexpected – sometimes a seemingly small thing – that tips their well-being and ability to cope over the edge. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the cost of living surge and the lack of a proper benefits safety net have all made that tipping over the edge more frequent.

To say I enjoy working at the Food Bank would be to undermine or trivialise these very real hardships but the couple of hours a week I spend there does feel worthwhile. What is even better for me is that I am able to walk to the Food Bank (and get the bus back afterwards). That walk has been especially lovely recently due to the advent of a lush Spring and the fortuitousness of good weather when I have to go to the Food Bank.

The first 25 minutes of the walk is my normal route to our local town, Nailsworth. I usually take the direct route along the road but even so, the views over Ruskin Mill’s valley are good and the birdsong at that time in the morning is loud and continuous. Once in town, I pick up my newspaper and then set out to Stroud along two old railway routes now converted to cycling and walking paths.

I love the variety along this route.

*^{Egypt Mill – Now A Popular Bar, Restaurant And Hotel (Deserted At This Time In The Morning)}*

The first part follows Nailsworth Stream and is dominated by mills and their associated mill ponds. This is perhaps where bird life and nature along the route are most evident.

The path then squeezes between vineyards, woodlands and fields on one side and a string of light industrial buildings on the other. These buildings include a micro-brewery, a pizza factory and numerous engineering works alongside which I sometimes pause to watch the drama of welding sparks. Then the birdsong is drowned out by the canine users of a large Playschool for Dogs. I’ve never seen so many dogs in one place!

*^{Under-Bridge Street Art On My Route}*

I walk under bridges covered in frequently changing street art. Then I go past a factory making wind turbines and another associated with Forest Green Rovers Football Club’s Chairman called The Devil’s Kitchen which makes vegan meals for the football club and for schools nationally.

The path runs alongside the main road for a while but from here there are great views up towards Rodborough Common. Past the old and now converted Woodchester Railway Station, there is a new large residential development and its associated children’s playground before the walk returns to another leafy section.

*^{One Of Several Very Large Oaks Along The Way (The Birdsong Is Usually Intense Around Here)}*

The woods continue on one side but on the other are acres of factories, some of which now appear disused and ripe for some sort of development. Most are ugly mass-constructed buildings but some are attractive, Victorian buildings that have new lives as auction houses and bases for hi-tech businesses.

*^{One Of The More Impressive Factory Blocks}*

One of the largest and newest of these industrial buildings is the factory which produces Damien Hirst’s art works. Some of his old works from his Human Anatomy series stand behind the factory and are visible from the path.

Damien Hurst’s Works Partly Obscured By Trees

The route I take then passes briefly through a housing estate and joins another old railway route on the final leg into Stroud. This is in a deep, old railway cutting which shields walkers from the surrounding houses and roads and then passes over the River Frome and Stroudwater Canal.

*^{Tree Lined Walks With (If You Look Carefully) Deer And Old Railway Line Infrastructure}*

By this time my breakfast coffee intake needs attention so I dive into the recently re-modelled shopping centre before heading up through the town to the Food Bank. The shopping centre itself is a mixed bag of street food outlets, depressingly empty up-market clothes and accessories shops, and discount goods outlets. It’s a strange mix of businesses. Even the large and prominent jewelers in the centre is a strange mix of expensive watches, jewelry and garish ornaments.

*^{Not For Me But People Must Like These Ornaments Given Their Surprisingly High Prices}*

In a way, the diversity of the shopping centre, and that of the stock of the jeweler’s shop within it, reflects the unusualness of Stroud and the surrounding district. It has a left wing, ‘woke’, hippy vibe with one of the best Farmers Markets and (arguably) the country’s first fully organic cafe (Woodruffs). But it is also very much a grounded, working town surrounded by historical and current wealth. It is a blend that is also reflected, perhaps, among the mix of ‘clients’ and volunteers at the Food Bank.

Life and Death

April 12, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Spring is definitely with us after a very wet March. We have April showers – it even snowed for a minute or two earlier today – and spring flowers. The cherry blossom is out and there are lambs in the fields.

^{One Of Many Cherry Trees In Full Bloom In The Local Area}

The birds are marking out their territory and gathering material for their nests. During just 15 minutes of my walk to my Food Bank duties in Stroud yesterday I switched on the Merlin bird identification app on my phone and detected (and sometimes saw) 20 different bird varieties (plus a seagull and a buzzard that didn’t squawk at the right time). Spring is such a busy time for these little home builders and it was relieving and lovely to hear that our rural pathways are still home to such avian diversity.

*^{Birds Heard In 15 Minutes During A Local Walk}*

The outside temperatures are gradually rising with the prospect of heatwaves to come. At Easter, when Youngest Son and Middle Son came to stay for a couple of days and the weather was sunny, we managed our first outdoor lunch of the year.

*^{Random Roadside Bulbs On The Way To Food Bank}*

Spring really is a season of new life and promise.

Except that, this spring, we are mourning the passing of Jane’s mother who died peacefully last week in the care home we had all come to love and respect. Her death came as no surprise after a steady decline hastened by a fall but of course there is mood of sadness around the family. Easter and its Bank Holiday’s was a convenient pause for Jane to enable reflection on her relationship with her Mum before getting stuck into the administration of funeral arrangements. Death brings sadness but also a need for clear thinking about the fall out. Death balances out life.

Before the funeral we are off to Edinburgh to see Eldest Son, his partner and First Grandchild. That will be a great distraction and an antidote for Jane to the last couple of weeks of focus on looking after her Mum and then the mourning of her passing. Of course, discussions about Jane’s Mum and the making of funeral arrangements will continue, but it will be in the company of a little grandchild who will demonstrate as vividly as possible that life goes on.

A few days of tiny, effervescent youth and spring; what could be better!

Isle Of Skye Christmas

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

I described our journey to Edinburgh and then the Isle of Skye in my last post. Here I’ll relate some of the high points of what was probably the best UK holiday I have had since I was child. We all (Middle Son, Youngest Son, their partners, Long-Suffering Wife and myself) had a fabulous Christmas period on the westernmost edge of the island.

Our adventure started the first full day after our arrival. As Youngest Son (YS) and his partner took up primary breakfast-making duty (a role they thankfully assumed pretty much throughout the week since they were very good at it), so the murky dawn dissipated. Gradually, the full glory of our view across Loch Pooltiel to the cliff and waterfall beyond, became clear. Then, after breakfast, we all opened the little gate separating the house area from the open moorland and set out for a walk. Our hearts leapt almost immediately as we spotted a seal near the nearby salmon farm.

*^{Little Gate From Our House To Peat And Cliffs}*

We wandered over ancient strip fields, boggy peat and wonderfully named craggy ridges: Biod Ban, An Ceannaich and Druim nan-Sgarbh. The colours of the moss, lichen and grass underfoot were gorgeous and then, as we breached one more ridge, we were able to look south across unexpectedly dramatic cliffs. It was a breath-taking moment.

*^{South Facing Cliffs Behind Our Holiday Home In Lower Milovaig}*

Over the following few, rather grey days, I continued to walk around the local area. The nearest village and shop was a pleasant but sometimes damp, 45 minute walk. This was either along the loch or over the hills behind the house and between a mix of old crofts and new, designer holiday-let houses.

*^{The Surprisingly Well-Stocked Village Shop In Glendale}*

The infrequent copses of trees along the way dripped with lichen. The landscape colours were a little mournful but somehow peaceful, comforting and easy on the eye. They reminded me of some of the colours I recall from children’s paint boxes: burnt umber, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, crimson, teal green.

Between walks and other outings, we settled into chat, films and football on the telly, meals and games. Monopoly Deal inevitably appeared but new games called Heckmeck (translates to ‘Nonsense’ in German) and Obama Llama were favourites. I was ok at Heckmeck but hopeless at games like Obama Llama and Heads Up! which involved acting out – like souped-up Charades. Simulating a penguin without speaking by waddling then diving onto the sofa (i.e. the icy sea!) was probably the low point for me.

As the weather improved, we all headed out to see the most westerly point of Skye and the lighthouse at Neist Point (Rubha na h-Eist). The lighthouse is, as expected, beautifully positioned among high cliffs. The rocks, and plant life hanging onto them, were interesting and we spent a happy hour amongst these chatting and watching the waves.

*^{Rocks (Basalt) And Lichen At Neist Point}*

By Christmas Eve afternoon, sun was beginning to peek between the layers of clouds more regularly. To celebrate that and the impending Christmas, we scooted back out to Neist Point with a bottle of prosecco to celebrate the sunset over the Inner Hebrides. We were taken aback by the strength of the wind – it made the prosecco hard to pour! It was another very memorable time for our group.

Christmas Day morning started with Secret Santa present opening. Long-Suffering Wife was my not-so-Secret Santa and she took the opportunity to give me a smart wash bag which replaced a perfectly effective, but admittedly unattractive, plastic shopping bag which I have used since a trip to South Africa almost four years ago. LSW was overjoyed as that faithful plastic bag was discarded at last to hold kitchen waste and then be deposited in the rubbish bins.

We then postponed Christmas lunch until after dusk and, instead, used the hours of light to explore the Coral Beach (Traigh a Chorail) north of our nearest town (Dunvegan) and its coastal castle. On the walk to the beaches, we saw a sea otter – the first I have ever seen.

*^{The Walk To Coral Beach (The White In The Distance)}*

The beaches themselves are made up of bleached fragments of a coral called Maerl that grows in Loch Dunvegan and which, when alive, is deep red. The rising sun, bright blue sky, deep blue sea, rocky promontories and white beaches led to another batch of photos and happy memories.

LSW conjured up a lovely Christmas dinner from local vegetables and two very free-range chickens. As per recent Christmas traditions, I provided a Christmas picture quiz and Christmas hats laced with sparklers, rather too many chocolate Brussel sprouts, jokes and (cardboard) party poppers. As had been the case every day, the drinks flowed alongside extremely tasty and filling plates food including, of course given that it was Christmas Day, Christmas pudding with brandy butter.

*^{Christmas Gingerbread House, Tree And Droopy-Eyed Snowman Made, Enterprisingly, By The ‘Younger Ones’}*

The sky was so clear that night that when we turned off the house lights, went outside and looked up for while, we could see the Milky Way. It was as clear as I have seen it since I was in remote Madagascar over 15 years ago. We even saw a couple of shooting stars (but not the Northern Lights). A very jolly time, enlivened by some sparkler waving, was had by all.

Our holiday crescendo was on Boxing Day – our last full day on Skye. YS was very keen to take us to a mountainous area on the other north side of Skye called The Quiraing that he had visited on a previous trip to the isle. The weather was cold and icy but there was barely a cloud in the sky, so off we set.

The route to The Quiraing was beautiful. It skirted island-strewn lochs and passed through small villages and fishing towns before we headed inland to the northern mountains of Skye. As we emerged from our cars at the tourist car park, The Quiraing stretched out wonderfully before us. It was one of the most jaw dropping landscapes I have seen in the UK.

The subsequent walk along The Quiraing to The Needle was just tricky enough in the patches of ice to be a challenging adventure but straightforward enough to feel safe. The sound of collapsing ice sheets and icicles on the cliffs above added to the sense of drama.

Everywhere one looked, the vistas were huge and we capped these views with a sighting of a golden eagle (another first in the wild for me). In the distance, the snow-capped tops of mountains on the Hebrides were beautiful reminders that this was a rare sunny day and we were so lucky to have one on our last day.

Even the journey back to Edinburgh the following day was a final hurrah for sun-lit, mist-draped, snow-covered mountains.

We had been so fortunate with the weather. We had been fortunate with Covid and avoiding it. We had been fortunate that all the holiday logistics had worked out well. We had been fortunate in so many ways to have a Scottish holiday we will remember forever.

*^{Sunset Over The Hebrides From The Cliffs Behind Our Holiday Rental}*

A Jab In The Map Of Perfect Tiny Things

March 14, 2021March 14, 2021 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

A couple of weekends ago, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I streamed and watched a film called The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. It was a slight but charming fantasy about a couple of teenagers in an ordinary American town experiencing exactly the same day over and over again. The repetition of events allowed the teenage boy to map out a series of funny or spectacular moments that occurred during the day and then schedule to view them, or interact with them in different ways, during each daily repetition. It was Groundhog Day with teenagers rather than Bill Murray.

*A Little Film With A Good Message For Me*

The ‘Map of Tiny Perfect Things’ was entertaining enough, but what made it memorable was that it resonated with our current situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We are in what sometimes seem like an endless lock down; every day feels, rather weirdly, very much like the last.

The film reminded me that we need to appreciate all the good things – even if they can often only be little things at the moment. I need to do more of that despite, or perhaps because of, the back drop of the pandemic (and even while railing against all of the inequality, strife, climate emergency concerns and political shenanigans of the world). What we can all do is take comfort from the tiny pleasurable moments in each locked-down day.

*A Perfect Walk Among Tall, Straight Beeches In Conygre Woods, Kingscote*

Those moments might be the sighting of a kestrel or a group of buzzards during an airy walk across the Cotswold Tops, or seeing a flock of chattering long tailed tits in the ivy opposite our house. Recently, while on a walk with Middle Son and his girlfriend – in itself, a set of (slightly illicit) lovely moments – I saw a dipper and then, later, the iridescence of a kingfisher. Another perfect thing might be coming across a particularly attractive moss-covered tree, or suddenly spotting the semi-wild but inquisitive pigs snuffling around in the local woods. Another perfect moment was seeing the result of my recent and hugely overdue haircut (courtesy of LSW).

Then, today, I had a welcome tiny moment when I had the first of my anti-coronavirus vaccinations. The moment of the jab itself was painless but it still felt like an important instant that signals the start of a new phase. Lock down may still have some weeks to run. For a few weeks yet, meetings with friends and Middle Son and his girlfriend may continue to be chilly snacks in the garden, or bracing walks, rather than gatherings around cosy wood-burners or indoor dinners. However, change and more frequent, and more obviously perfect, tiny moments are coming.

*View Over Stroud While Waiting The Advised 15 Minutes Post-Jab*

In any case, the progression of the seasons has helped provide a structure for time spent – we aren’t really living at a standstill. Spring is here and every warm and sunny day now provides a hint of the summer to come. The buds in the hedgerows are swelling and bursting, the birds have long been active and noisy, and the fading snowdrops are now outshone by anenomes, crocuses and daffodils.

For me, the football season has also provided a structure to the chronology and a sense of progression over time. My local and favourite team, Forest Green Rovers, are doing very well. Watching every one of their games through an internet streaming service (now physical attendance at games is prohibited again) has been a real boon. Indeed, on the coldest football evenings, I’ve been very glad to be able to watch my team from the comfort of our living room rather than the frozen stand in our stadium. I am finding that the football season is providing a way – albeit a tense one – through the repetition and drift of time in pandemic lock down.

This has been my first post to this blog for a few weeks. In part, that has been due to distractions due to a busy period with our local climate action group and, more recently, involvement with a local Community Land Trust project. Also, though, those weeks have been dominated by a routine of relative inactivity so as to avoid the coronavirus risk. There hasn’t seemed much to say.

I think I need to pay more attention to those transient, tiny, perfect moments in my routine and make the most of them. But, also, I am hoping that my vaccination jab, and the end of lock down over the next several weeks, paves the way to a new context for those moments. That context will include, once again, proper socialising, travel and substantial events; a map of large perfect moments.

*Our Village Pub Door – More Sociable Times Are Coming…..*

A Surprise Test Event

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

The undoubted highlight in what has been a further two weeks of Covid-19 quietude was a surprise test event held at Forest Green Rovers Football Club (FGR) – my team! Test events to ‘test’ the efficacy of running sporting events that are open to the public during the pandemic have been scheduled across several sports for some weeks. Because of the latest surge in infections many have been cancelled but apparently FGR were asked, at short notice, whether they wanted to hold one. They obliged by inviting all their season ticket holders to take part.

Once I knew that my allocated, socially-distanced seat in the stand wouldn’t be in any potential driving rain, I jumped at the chance. In the event, it was a sunny day. The attractive, hilly walk to the ground felt like old times, and the whole occasion was a very exciting break from Covid-19 routines.

There were socially distanced queues for temperature checks and then to get into the stadium. The imposition of face masks muffled my cheers of team loyalty and those of the other 500 supporters. But, not only did was event an emotional highlight, it felt safe.

The game itself was one FGR should have won. However, following two players being sent off (the opposition), a missed penalty (us) and a scorching last-minute-of-injury-time equaliser (us), we had to be content with an eventful and dramatic draw.

*FGR vs Bradford City; The Only Professional Game I Will See Kick Off Live This Season?*

Unfortunately, the increasing progress of the Covid-19 infection rate means that this event is likely to have been a one-off. Further attendance of live FGR games feels a long way away again. But I feel lucky that I had a brief reminder of the visceral pleasure of live football in a stadium. (And we didn’t lose!)

As another highlight, Long Suffering Wife’s (LSW’s) mother took us out for a very pleasant lunch (only our second restaurant lunch in 6 months) at The Potting Shed. We also walked to the relatively new Wild Carrot Cafe on the very rural edge of the Parish and have made a few visits to our local and increasingly pandemic restriction-bound local pub.

Otherwise, waking life has been a merry-go-round of walks, day-to-day shopping, meals and catch up television. Outlander (just Series 1 so far) has been our latest TV box set plough-through. That was very watchable except for the rape and torture scenes during which I tended to go off to make my warming evening drink!

There have been a few little frissons of excitement courtesy of nature. I saw my first lizard (other than slow worms) in the garden. We also had a huge dragonfly perch briefly on our garden table. The friendly pheasant is back.

Indeed, the garden continues to be a bountiful pleasure with masses of chard, huge but tasty beetroot, courgettes (of course) and masses of wonderful dahlias from two plants that have survived the cold of the last two winters.

*They Just Keep On Coming: ‘Cafe Au Lait’ Dahlias*

The walled garden we had built three years ago is still laced with lots of white, purple and pink flowers among the tall grasses and shrubs.

Meanwhile, achingly slow progress is being made on a new garden behind and above the house. LSW loves a project and, when the builders have finally completed the terracing and walling, there will be loads of work for us to do to clear unwanted plants (bind weed and hypericum is rife, is hard to eradicate and both LSW and I hate it) and renew the area with new ones.

We are so lucky to have the space to be able to enjoy a garden and enough cash to be able to remodel it. The garden has been such a boon during these weird, pandemic times. It’s such a shame though, that this weirdness will continue, as most of us feared, into autumn, winter and beyond. I look forward to my next sporting test event – whenever that may be – as a sign that these weird times may be ending. Stay safe, all.

*Colourful Hedgerows This Year (Black Bryony, Hawthorn and Rose Hips)*

Rewilding

September 9, 2020September 9, 2020 / fgrtommo / 3 Comments

I have just finished reading ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree; I don’t read much non-fiction but I loved it.

It is a well-told story of how she and her husband conceded defeat on making their 3,500 acre farm profitable on marginal agricultural land in Sussex and, instead, allowed nature to take over. They followed some examples of similar projects in Holland by allowing natural scrub and vegetation to take over the ploughed fields and by introducing some wild herbivore animals – longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, Tamworth pigs and deer. Then, over a period of 20 years, they observed how the disruption these animals introduced created drove the development of an amazingly biodiverse landscape.

The book is full of interesting facts. For example, the average earthworm has around 50 different sorts of bacteria in its gut that process toxins, waste and organic matter to improve the soil as they digest it; jays can plant over 100 acorns (an oak forest!) a day. I enjoy facts but more memorable was the account of Isabella’s emotions as previously held conventional wisdoms were upset as the project continued and the bureaucratic barriers and early local opposition was overcome. There is humour too through the ups and downs in the project; I loved the chapter on the profusion of ragwort and the passages about how the newly introduced pigs tore up previously pristine grass verges.

*One Of Knepp Farm’s Tamworth Pigs (A Picture From The Book)*

Several years ago, we turned our little, bland grassy paddock just beyond our garden into a building site (as the rubble from the excavation to accommodate a house extension was layered under removed, and then replaced, topsoil) and then into a meadow-cum-orchard. Since then, and particularly since retirement, I have been interested in how nature reclaims this cultivated land when cultivation and intensive grazing stops.

*A Small Herd Of Shorthorn Cattle On A Local Farm*

In the upper part of our field away from where we are blending it with our garden, we see the rapid encroachment of bramble, bullace and blackthorn around the field edges. We know that, if we leave it be without grazing animals to constrain these thorny and woody shrubs, they will expand and protect larger tree saplings. That will generate a different sort of natural biodiversity than we are moving towards.

*Bullaces Picked From The Boundary Of Our Field For Jelly (If I can Ever get It To Set) And Syrup (If I Can’t!)*

In any case, already, the regime of scything the meadow and taking away the cut waste is delivering greater diversity of insect and plant life in the field. Even just the number of different kinds of grass has multiplied several-fold.

All that is having a positive effect on insect life in the adjacent garden and that is attracting a wider variety of birds. The voles in the field may enjoy nibbling my vegetables but the kestrel I have seen twice in the huge ash tree that overlooks the field may be suppressing their numbers.

*A Bit Of Our Local Wildlife – An Elephant Hawkmoth Caterpillar*

I wish now that I had kept more formal count of wildlife varieties spotted in our field and garden over time to back up the feeling of greater diversity and the anecdotal evidence. Certainly Isabella Tree (how well named she is!) did and those statistics are wonderful. For example: male turtle dove sightings (a now desperately rare occurrence in the UK) on her Knepp estate rose steadily from zero to 20 by 2018 and by July of that year the estate was home to the largest colony (388 were counted) of rare purple emperor butterflies.

*A Purple Emperor (Picture From The Book). The Chapter On This Butterfly Describes An Amazing Habit and Lifecycle*

As the story of Knepp Farm unfolded so I was constantly taken aback by how fast nature recovers and a complex web of interdependence across so many species can be developed. The story brought to life how, at pace, river pollution can be reversed, flooding can be obviated, soil can be improved and species can find new homes. Towards the end of the book there was a good summary of a lot of the rewilding thinking and how this might be ported to other marginal agricultural land for our long term benefit:

‘So far in the post Brexit debate, farming and conservation have been pitted against each other as if the two must battle it out for resources. But as experience at Knepp and elsewhere has demonstrated, farming and conservation – should not – be at loggerheads. Giving over areas that are not on prime agricultural land to nature is farming’s greatest ally.

By halting and reversing land degradation, securing water resources and providing insects for crop pollination, rewilding provides services vital to the long-term sustainability of agriculture and food production. The complex mosaic of habitats stimulated by free-roaming grazing animals as we have seen on post-agricultural land at Knepp is not only remarkably easy to achieve. Compared with conventional conservation, it is manifestly inexpensive. It also provides much of what we need and what our landscape is currently lacking: biodiversity, resilience against climate change and extreme weather, and natural resources. And it can still produce high-quality food like pasture-fed meat.’

‘Wilding’ reinforced much of what I already believed to be true but added some surprising detail and emphasised how resilient nature is if we allow it to be. It’s such a positive book and I feel more hopeful having read it. I recommend it.

Postscript: Just yesterday I read an article in the Guardian about similar but more ‘guerrilla’ rewilding efforts by a farmer called Derek Gow in Devon involving voles, wild cats, beavers and storks (the last two of which are covered in Isabella’s book). I might pick up Derek Gow’s book ‘Bringing Back The Beaver’ next!

*Phoebe Weston’s Article In The Guardian On Derek Gow*

Resplendent Nature At Every Turn

July 22, 2020 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Retirement has brought me closer to Nature and I seem to have had even more than my usual exposure to Nature in the last two weeks. The local walks have been particularly good. The rain in June and early July has made the pastures, hedgerows and trees a lush green and the recent sun has brought out the garden and wild flowers so they are now showing off their peak displays.

My Favourite Field – Filling With Maize This Year

One walk was especially spicy in underlining our closeness to Nature. We were crossing a field with a neighbour during a walk that we hadn’t undertaken for a while, when we saw another figure crossing the field at right angles to us. Thirty yards out, we could only see the man’s bare and bronze torso above the wheat. As we crossed paths though, it became clear that we had met – and then briefly engaged in conversation with – the infamous ‘Naked Rambler’. Our neighbour remarked that his naked rambling exploits are frequent since ‘he was brown all over with no tan lines’. I could only mutter that I hoped he looked out for stinging nettles. The encounter made our day.

The Naked Rambler (Picture Courtesy The Evening Standard – I Didn’t Have The B*lls To Take My Own Picture Of Him)

We also completed a series of walks when my Best Man (BM) visited us last weekend. He has been working from home and in isolation throughout lockdown and needed a break. Fortunately the weather was excellent and we were able to visit our now re-opened pub for our first sit down (outside) meal since lockdown started.

On A Local Walk: Strip Of Green Manure In Full Flower

A highlight during his stay was a long walk during which we saw a field sown with green manure coming extravagantly into flower. Another marvellous natural phenomenon was the sighting of a crazily large number of small white butterflies fluttering together in the sun and drinking from wet mud on our path. Both were uplifting sights.

Flowers In The Strip of Green Manure - Antirhinums, Phacelia, Sainfoin And Many More

Flowers In The Strip of Green Manure – Antirrhinums, Phacelia, Sainfoin, Bladder Campion And Many More

BM works for a large oil company which is trying to shift away from fuelling (literally) carbon emissions. His job is changing and intense. Even while he was with us, he had to prepare a short presentation that he was due to give on the following Monday. Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) and I were sufficiently intrigued by this that we signed up for the public event he was a panel member for and run by the ‘World Business Council for Sustainable Development’ entitled ‘Nature Action for a Healthy and Resilient Future’; what a couple of mouthfuls!

As I listened in to the webinar, I was reminded of my own corporate work life by the business jargon being used by the numerous presenters including BM, and how it flows off the tongues of business professionals. I was also left with a greater feeling of hope for Nature and the planet.

I suspect that the event was populated largely by the ‘green mouthpieces’ of the corporations that were represented. However, several sounded convincing about their company ambitions and commitments and the scale of the opportunity to turn our destruction of the planet around while creating millions of worthwhile jobs in new green industries was clear.

Optimistic-Looking Daisies

I have just started reading Wilding by Isabella Tree. She is so aptly named given that the book is the story of how a failing arable farm has been turned into a successful experiment for re-wilding a large tract of land in Sussex. The timeline at the start of the book shows how allowing nature to reclaim intensively farmed land can bring back flora and fauna diversity very quickly. Given the chance, Nature can recover surprisingly quickly and I’m enjoying Isabella’s account of her experience.

Butterflies Everywhere: Comma, Peacock, Small White, Ringlet And Skipper

I have continued to busy myself with some local climate action activities – my small push towards alleviating the pressure on Nature. There is also much to do in the garden and on the allotment given that we are in peak growth season for vegetables and weeds. We are thinking up creative ways to use the inevitable courgette mountain, we are eating chard with almost every meal and the runner bean avalanche is about to hit us. In the next week too, I will need to brush up on my blackcurrant jam making skills since I have a bumper blackcurrant crop this year.

Flowers Among The Vegetables On The Allotments

Nature is amazing. Just last week, we saw a recurrence of another incredible phenomenon we have been lucky enough to spot a few times before: the inundation of our home valley by seagulls predating on flying ants. It is almost unbelievable that the gulls will fly over 25 miles from the nearest coast on just the right day to catch the flying yellow meadow ants that rise from their nests in our neighbouring fields on just a couple of days a year; but there they were again.

Garden Views: Panorama From Our New Gate, Hollyhocks and First Use Of The New Fire Pit

Nature can also do us damage. Badgers rip up crops, deer eat the roses and strawberries, earwigs are eating the dahlias, blackfly are tormenting my beans and hay fever can be really annoying. The climate emergency and the creation of new human diseases when we encroach too much on the wild are macro problems far greater than my local problems with wildlife. The solutions to these are going to be challenging to find but my immersion in Nature this week underlines the importance of doing so, and gave me some more hope.

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Nature