Blown Away

Thursday, 20th January 2005
Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

We've had a lot of wild weather but last night produced the strongest gusts: enough to send our plastic paper-recycling box under the hedge to end up in next door's front garden (a neighbour saw two of these boxes making their way down the road). The wheelie bin, as always, gets toppled. The trellis by the shed has blown over - despite being anchored by ivy stems - and the sturdy metal top of the seed hopper has been blown off.

Barbara is about to go out to put it back on, before the squirrels see it, but the pheasant is already feeding.

We walk past the field. Despite the promises at the public enquiry that 'only three hawthorns will be felled' the clearance operation is on a massive scale. I know you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs and you can't turn a meadow into a building site without felling more than 'three hawthorns'. I just wish they hadn't pretended that they could.

'Trees and people don't mix,' was how the lumberjack who felled the big ivy-covered ash put it.

'That's real life,' says Barbara, as I stomp along gloomily, 'You can't do anything about it, so it's no use worrying.'

Yes, I know all that. I need to get away from this uniquely depressing corner of Yorkshire. We go and book a holiday.

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk