No-mow May has taken off it seems judging by the dandelions seen on lawns as we walk around town - there have even been areas of parks that so far have remained longer than tradition dictates and at the council meeting earlier this year two councillors extolled the virtues of not mowing [...]
This photo was taken in a forest on the west coast of Scotland about five years ago and was remarkable for the mossy layer covering around and bark - extraordinarily atmospheric. More recently, I happened to be reminded of Terry Pratchet's "Wee Free Men" and for some reason this image bubbled to the surface [...]
One year ago we had planned to spend a weekend away to celebrate our 50th anniversary but covid meant it all had to be cancelled at the last minute - quite a disappointment. A couple of golden oldies Good things come to he/she who waits however and we have just celebrated [...]
500 days ago I set myself the daily challenge of identifying and then sharing at least one different species of bird, insect, plant etc that I could find locally. Yesterday the number reached the 500 mark. My intention is to double that and reach at least 1000 species but no longer will I [...]
I don’t think that we have been to the arboretum much since back in the autumn. Our cold-weather winter wandering is usually around the nearby bird banding station where we do a couple of shifts a week counting birds and filling feeders, and then this spring we have been busy getting our own [...]
I’m just getting into a collection of essays ("Vesper Flights" - Helen Macdonald) by a Historian of Science at Cambridge. I was struck by this paragraph from her introduction. "What science does is what I would like more literature to do too: show us that we are living in an exquisitely complicated [...]
This has been a busy couple of weeks, culminating today with the planting of a new community orchard in our little town of Baie-D'Urfé. This is NOT me ... Those of you who knew our garden in England 21+ years ago will remember that we had lots of fruit trees, bees [...]