Page 76 - br-nov-2021

November 2021 November 2021

OVER THE HILL

What a wonderful autumn we are having? With high temperatures, clear skies
between some rain showers, just enough to keep all the trees green with a
wonderful show of leaves for the time of year and the pasture land with more
grass than would normally be expected at this time of year and of course more
lawn grass needing to be mown than would normally be anticipated. Flowers are
still blooming in the garden and in the wild, Roses in particular are showing a
wonderful garden display and on the 7 . October I found wild violets in bloom in
th
the gap between the concrete steps up to our front door.
Time is flying by, as are birds of all sorts and insects
of various species, that I have no idea of their
names, are in a huge abundance. Oh what a
wonderful autumn we are having? I hope and
pray that everyone will benefit after such a
beautiful season. I am currently reading, “Otter
Country” by Miriam Darlington and I would like to
quote from her book.
“We don’t pay enough attention to this tribe that
lives along beside us. They yield to us because
they have to, and endure the relentless fall-out
from our lives. The chemicals that magnified
through the food chain and wiped out apex
predators like otters and falcons are no longer
used, but I suddenly think of how many times I
have eliminated my slug and snail population with
pellets that are probably toxic to the whole
ecosystem. What horrors are in my concentrated washing–up liquid and my
cleaning products, and where are they ending up?”
So you see it is not all plain sailing. What we see immediately around us is not all
that there is to see, For example buying up good farm land to plant trees on, is
not necessarily a good idea where the environment is concerned. It may be a
way of improving our carbon dioxide in the air but it is increasing the food which
we have to import, which in its turn brings in more carbon dioxide using all sorts of
transportation systems. Our population is far greater than we have land to provide
food for and if we keep accepting more and more immigrants, legal or illegal we
will be increasing our carbon footprint even more. So you see it is not all as
beautiful world we would like to live in, is it?
Before I leave Miriam Darlington’s subject, I would like to quote from her book
again but light heartedly this time. On th rear cover it provides this information:-
Miriam Darlington was born and brought up in Lewes, Sussex “ Her poetry
collection Windfall was published in 2008. She lives in Devon with two children,

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