HS2 – can local wildlife benefit from a Slow Speed corridor?

Bird watching’s for middle-aged biddies with moustaches. Or so I always thought. Or possibly I am moving into that very category. Whatever, that’s how I spent a sunny Sunday in early October; walking around College Lake, binocs at a jaunty angle, enjoying the bright, autumnal light, picking succulent blackberries, and interrogating (from a distance) the birds on the lake to see what was out there.

BBOWT, our local wildlife conservation charity, runs College Lake; just outside Tring, just inside Buckinghamshire, BBOWT has developed it into one of the foremost locations in Bucks for bird watching. It’s a fantastic facility for humans and nature.

BBOWT runs nature reserves across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and it’s not always easy: dependent on grants and public generosity, long-term survival is never assured. Now, of course, there is a new threat to our wildlife habitats in this area: HS2.

BBOWT is extremely exercised, for good reason, about this proposed development. Whilst it won’t directly affect College Lake, its impact on some other BBOWT reserves, and habitats outside the reserves, will be immeasurable, and permanent.

The stated intent of HS2 is that there should be ‘no net loss to biodiversity’, but many people fear that should it go ahead, it will massively impact local wildlife, and there is concern that the existing environmental analyses significantly underplay this issue. Local losses would include Bechstein’s bats and certain rare butterflies; wildflower meadows, wetlands and ancient woodlands would be damaged and even lost forever.

Whilst BBOWT opposes HS2, it also proposes a way that, should it be built, might mitigate this immense damage.

Its alternative vision of HS2 argues (based on thorough, academic research) that around 15,000 hectares of interlinked wild places could be established along the length of the route, for no net expense, where people could walk, cycle and enjoy nature, ultimately providing a ‘net gain’ for wildlife.

Their report ‘HS2: A vision for large-scale nature restoration along the Proposed Route’ makes the environmental, social and economic case for the Government properly to address the impact of HS2 on wildlife and ecosystems.

Personally, I find it hard to envisage how the impact of HS2 on our wildlife might be reduced to anything like an acceptable level, but at least BBOWT is trying. So you don’t have to set off in pursuit of the hirsute to support BBOWT, you could just become a member. Beards particularly welcome.

http://www.bbowt.org.uk/

11+ appeals under the new sytem (post 2013)

To those whose children have just done the 11+, well survived. It feels great when it’s over yet still too early to think about the outcome.

However, with apologies, this article is about appealing, which you may have to tangle with if you are faced with a near miss and feel that your child should go to grammar school.

Not only has the 11+ exam changed recently, the appeal system has too. I have been involved in appeals under both systems, and had to work hard to get a grip on the new one. This article is an attempt to explain it, as I understand it. If you appeal, please gather your own research and information since this article merely flags up some points to think about.

Pre-2012, appeals were made by submitting written evidence of academic ability and any extenuating circumstances, then presenting before an appeals panel.

This has been replaced by a two-tier system. The first application is to a ‘selection review’; a paper-only submission to a panel of three head teachers. If you are unsuccessful at this stage, you may then go on to the second tier, namely a full appeal before a panel.

Schools tend to recommend going through the selection review. However, be aware that:

1. The selection review tier is optional, so you can bypass it and go just for a full appeal. One disadvantage (this past year) was that full appeals were heard very late in the academic year and after allocation of school places.

2. If you are unsuccessful at selection review, and proceed to a full appeal, you have an additional hurdle: the Admissions Authority will assert that your child’s review was fair, consistent and objective, so your appeal should not be heard. To get your hearing, you must first successfully argue that the selection review was not carried out in a fair, consistent and objective manner. Tricky, and you won’t face this if you bypass the selection review.

I was curious to discover what proportion of people understand the new appeal system so I carried out a small survey amongst friends dealing with the 11+ in 2013. Out of everyone who answered my enquiry, just one family realised that the selection review was optional and that there is also an appeal; they had gleaned that from 11+ forums, not from the BCC website; have a look at http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/

Cyclamen: my autumn roses

I love the Spring: that particular vivid green show of new leaf, the promise of a twig, bare but for some shyly swelling copper buds bursting suddenly into a profusion of blossom, and most of all, the sudden proliferation of yellow narcissi after the dull grey or even white of a long, dark winter.

So when it’s autumn, what to do? Trees carry elderly, tired-looking foliage which will slowly give up and fall off, the veg has vegged, the few flowers that remain in my garden look leggy, seedy (in both senses) and frankly like it’s time to put on their slippers and have some hot cocoa. Everything seems to be saying – enough now – we’ve done our bit for the year - except for a small bright bunch of wild cyclamen shouting ‘We’re here! Look at us!’ under a bush in my front garden.

We’re not talking about any of the voluptuous pink-knickered cultivated varieties, which adorn your windowsill so brightly until they get bored and slump into a vulgar heap, but the small, dainty, wild types which grow in woodland, between mountain rocks and along gritty roadsides throughout the Mediterranean, where summers are arid and winters more temperate. Many cyclamen bloom, as a result of that climate, in the Autumn and are hardy enough to cope with our winters.

Essentially a woodland plant, as the trees above them shed their leaves and early autumn rains reach the earth below, the plants spring into life, flowers first, pink and white heads nodding on fragile stems. Then as they fade, the delicately patterned, highly decorative leaves give verdancy to the increasingly barren soil. In fact, it is the foliage which give a common autumnal variety its name - Cyclamen hederifolium – ‘ivy leaved’.

For years I have planted Spring bulbs everywhere I can so that they will give me the first hint of the wakening up of the soil and warmth in the air, announcing the coming of longer days and more sunshine, and I have completely overlooked softening the edges of the colder, shorter days by planting something which will cheerfully and robustly bloom in September.

From now on, though, I will build up my beds of wild cyclamen and will look forward to them as much as I do to daffodils.

To everything there is a season.

"Should Scotland be an independent country?”

This is the question for Scotland on 18 September 2014.

So if you holiday in Scotland next year, will you cross an international border? Is the UK about to lose North Sea oil and gas? Will Scotland be ejected from the EU? What will happen to our nuclear capability? Are we so politically disparate now that Scotland is right to go? Do we care?

Whilst in Scotland and Westminster, such questions are being endlessly discussed, I have heard little debate locally. Is this because of the company I keep, because we don’t see it as relevant to us, or is our old friend, disempowerment - for nobody in England, including Scottish people living outside their homeland, may vote – stifling debate?

Anyone living in Scotland who is 16 or older will be entitled to vote on 18 September. Curiously enough, in addition to British citizens, this will include citizens of all 27 EU countries and 52 other Commonwealth countries.

So returning to the question, do we care? – I see little evidence demonstrating that we do. It is not a subject, as far as I am aware, for playground or dinner party debate, yet it will be an enormous historical, geographical and political change should Scotland leave the UK.

I have huge sympathy for everyone outside the South East wishing to reject an endlessly London-centric UK, with no obvious Westminster will to change and HS2 only the latest manifestation of this trend. Scotland leaving the Union might be the shakeup needed to change the way things are done once and for all.

Nonetheless, I would have liked the rest of the union to have demonstrated a deep desire for Scotland, by having the Scottish flag fluttering from every shop in every village, debates in schools, letters to every newspaper editor, Twitter constantly trending, news stories generated across the country sending the message that we all want Scotland to stay.

Why do I care so much? Well, history and geography mean a great deal, the political wranglings less. But when I really consider it, a southerner through and through, without a Scottish cell in my body, it is because Scotland, with its magical, wild beauty, windswept mountains, huge skies and empty spaces, is part of my home, its people, my co-citizens, and we will all be the poorer should the blue fade from the Union Jack.

Fair trade and school uniform (Bucks Advertiser August 2014)

I’ve been thinking about fair trade and school uniforms. This is the time of year when some of us are starting to kit our kids out for the academic year ahead, and if we made the scuffed shoes and grey-cuffed shirts that didn’t quite reach the wrist any more last till the end of the summer term, now we are preparing to put our kids’ best (smart) foot forward.

So let’s shop around for bargains. Can we get three for two at the local supermarket? Which store is winning this race to the bargain basement? It’s a lucrative corner of the market – you can tell from the amount of advertising.

This is what worries me; we have all seen the conditions faced by textile workers in developing countries – long hours, poor wages, industrial injuries, death-trap buildings. Charities such as Oxfam highlight the plight of children foregoing education to go out to work. So are we, when we buy cheap clothes for our kids to wear to school, depriving children far away, beyond our ken, of their chance to learn, therefore hard-wiring poverty into their lives? Are low costs in our shops the result of child labour?

Never raise a problem without suggesting a solution, so here goes. First, before you buy, ask what the store’s policy is on child labour. (Although once when I did this, I got the reply, “28 days, Madam”). You can also look on stores’ websites for their ethical and labour policies and base your choices on that; it feels good, even if it costs a little more. See if your child’s school runs a second hand uniform shop, and if not, set one up with profits going to the PTA. Ask if a store stocks fair trade school shirts – if enough of us do this, then maybe next year, it will. Second hand stuff – always good, too. Consider donating to charities such as Labour behind the Label. (Have a look at their excellent website if you want to know more).

In a world in which the UN International Labour Organisation estimates that 168 million children worldwide – one in ten – are involved in child labour, it is easy to feel powerless and disengaged, but we mustn’t. There is always something we can do; not least we can use the power in our purses and decide that we will no longer be part of the problem.

My father the gardener

I come from a family of gardeners. My siblings tend their gardens, making them beautiful or fruitful, sharing with me crops of the biggest redcurrants you ever saw and generally humbling me when I consider the contrast with my pathetic efforts.

My father was a gardener too. Having fled Nazi Germany as a boy, he grew up in the Middle East and one of his various jobs was in a plant nursery, in a small village near, now a suburb of, Tel Aviv.
Maybe that was where he discovered his love of plants. His amazing memory categorised and stored their names, what was indigenous and what grew in which type of soil. Coming to England via Liverpool Docks as a young man, he ended up living near Kew Gardens and spent many evenings after work strolling the grounds and greenhouses, improving his knowledge of the exotic and the banal.

Growing up, we always had a busy, happening garden. There were seedlings, polytunnels, fabulous crops, plants going in, plants coming out, according to the season. Cuttings taken on holidays would be planted and nurtured at home, delight taken when against the odds they survived. Our garden was aflame with Cana lilies, before they became a staple of urban roundabouts; we tended fledgling coffee plants, figs and olives.

Personally, I preferred a book, a toy, or a water fight in the garden. Whenever I offered to help, I would be asked to weed; my heart would sink and I would slope off as soon I thought that I was unnoticed. My parents got around this by giving me my own little garden patch to tend. When I weeded that I didn’t mind so much.

In many ways, my father’s life story reflects the twentieth century history of Europe. He once said to me that as a displaced person, his garden was the closest thing to roots he had. Even when elderly, he managed it himself, trussing up tomato vines in the greenhouse, persuading his huge and eccentric lawn mower to cut his large lawn, and managing his roses. More recently, he took pleasure in just being, watching the leaves and buds unfurl, a new summer’s crop develop.

I will always think of him, walking up from the garden to the house, the sun on his back. May he be happy in his garden for ever.

Hans-Hermann Bertold Neustadt December 1925 - July 2014

Summer in and around Bucks

The summer holidays are here, and whilst the kids can throw cares to the wind, we must think how to fill the days if we don’t want our children to slump in front of the telly or be a screen bunny for the next few weeks.

So here are my ideas for some ‘Out and About around Bucks’ days.
On a sweltering, sticky day, pond dipping at Denham Country Park ticks the box. Take a net (or buy one there), a bucket, some flip flops and a good book and sit on the bank of the River Chess with tea from the cafe as your kids terrorise the local guppy population. The river flows through trees here, creating an oasis of cool green even when it’s gaspingly hot everywhere else.

It’s beautiful to walk into the Chess Valley from Chorleywood House. Crossing the water meadow towards the river, you pass a community of green woodpeckers, with their distinctive swoop weaving through the trees. If it floats your boat, play pooh sticks from the bridge. Alternatively, follow the river to the watercress beds, buy freshly picked peppery cress from the farm to take home for a very English tea and ice creams for instant sustenance. Take swimmers for a dip in one of the river pools.

A favourite day is spent cycling to Chalfont St Giles with lunch in the garden of the Merlin’s Cave. Fairly typical Pub fare, friendly people and a nice place to sit. You can also hike there from Chalfont St Peter along the Misbourne, or across the hills from Amersham.

Afternoon tea and pick-your-own fruit and veg at Peterley Manor Farm in Prestwood gave us the nicest afternoon we have had this year. Cycling in Hodgemoor woods with a packed lunch is lovely as is a dip in the outdoor pool at Chesham. Seeing the birds at Stockers Lake by Rickmansworth Aquadrome is fabulous, particularly if you follow it with a visit to the Cafe in the Park. Picnicking by the Thames in Marlow, watching hares cavort through the gathering dusk in Cookham and walking up to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill from Turville are all old favourites.

Wendover Woods, College Lake, Coombe Hill.....Writing this, realising all there is to do, makes me worry that the summer holidays are going to be just too short.....

How Green Is My Valley

Everyone who follows Countryfile will know what a rare and special beast a chalk stream is. And in the Misbourne Valley, we have our very own. This water source probably attracted the first settlers in this area, so we are here and our landscape has developed because of the River Misbourne.

In the past it generated industry; hard to believe, it once powered a corn mill (later a silk mill), providing employment for local residents and a name for the meadow which sweeps down to its edge in Chalfont St Peter. Nowadays the flow is observed and commented upon by many and we read the seasons by it. We walk along our river, pond dip, and bemoan its over-extraction – it was once deep enough for swimming, upstream of Mill Meadow.

Our chalk stream also provides a globally rare habitat to flora and fauna – fed by groundwater retained in the chalk aquifer, this unique environment is easily threatened by over-extraction, pollution and the possible impact of the construction and existence of HS2.

Last Sunday, a working party from the River Misbourne Action Group convened by the river, to help maintain the river bed and its banks. The Group regularly clears the river of detritus (mostly natural, but some human-generated) and monitors levels of aquatic invertebrates, a key method of establishing its health.

I am very much a fringe member, but I have to tell you that it was a great way to spend the morning. Working outside, sun shining, up to the tops of my wellies in water, was a lot of fun, and stresses and strains were washed down river. Straightening up to relieve my stiffening back and seeing that our work had made an obvious difference was the kind of instant gratification I rather enjoy.

As with anything voluntary, more can be done with more people, so please consider visiting the River Misbourne Action Group’s website or their stall at Feast day. We have to take care of our natural world, otherwise as Paul Weller says,

Paradise found down by the still waters
Joined in the race to the rainbow's end
No fears, no worries just a golden country
Woke at sunrise, went home at sunset

Now life is so critical, life is too cynical
We lose our innocence, we lose our very soul...

Tales from the Riverbank

Incredible Edible Todmorden

Imagine a village in South Bucks aiming for food self-sufficiency. It would take community vision and involvement, local government buy-in, somewhere to plant and lots of trust.

In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is underway. ‘Incredible Edible Todmorden’ is on the road to self-sufficiency with raised beds in the town centre, herb and physic gardens on railway platforms, hen-keeping projects, 1000 fruit trees planted, polytunnels, and (rather wonderfully) every school actively involved in growing food.

As their website explains:

‘It doesn’t take big things to create big changes. It takes small things that capture the imagination. A vegetable plot with a revolutionary sign: Help Yourself. Runner beans planted secretly outside a disused health centre. People talked about those beans. They helped themselves to vegetables. Then they started doing things themselves.’ (www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk)

So, it all started with some ‘guerrilla gardening’ - the idea that one plants quietly on disused or neglected land to make it productive or more beautiful. I am not advocating this (or at least, not in public), but am attracted to the idea when I notice unproductive pockets of land that could be transformed by the community.

In Chalfont St Peter, we have made a start producing community food, with two community orchards planted since 2010, and plans (and funding) for a nut grove. The haywardens have planted perennial herbs in the village centre displays; better than bedding plants that are planted then discarded in so many towns and villages across the country.

Of course, there is a distinction between community planting for harvesting by everyone and allotments whose produce is not for general consumption; although allotment holders would be hugely welcomed by an Incredible Edible movement for their knowledge and established community ethos.

So, how about it, everybody? Is this an impossible dream for South Bucks or could we enrich our community and our local environment?

I imagine that in Todmorden, things have moved on greatly from the small acorns of a new movement; in place of planning and a little bit of rule breaking, there must be a new sense of identity, pride and achievement. As they say in Todmorden, ‘We grow for anyone to pick and use. Go ahead, have some!’

Train travel in Europe

Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone.
Philip Larkin – ‘The Whitsun Weddings’

Like many of my fellow students, I spent my summer holidays travelling by train, covering vast distances crossing Europe. On some journeys I ‘inter railed’ through Italy, France and Spain. On another, I endured a three day journey from Victoria Station to Istanbul, via German guest workers, intimidating Bulgarian border guards, and a very nice Greek lady who tried in vain to persuade me to smuggle something deeply dubious for her. I was awoken by drunks, a man unforgettable for his appalling foot odor, and random baggage falling from luggage racks. I discovered that West Berlin was (in those far off days) something of an island in a sea of Communist walls and bad –tempered sausage sellers, and that after sitting on my back pack for an entire wakeful night, swaying in time with the undulating corridor outside a packed carriage, there was no better meal to be found than from an early morning, fragrant bakery selling off yesterday’s fare. Dizzy with sleeplessness, a handful of onion bread and a cup of scalding coffee set me up for the day ahead.

Over time, travelling changed; there was a little more money and flights became cheaper, and I got a car. Then the only train I took was to commute into London, and that was strictly eyes down, absorbed in my book, never recognising any one of my fellow commuters who must have got on the same train as me for years on end.

After years of cars and ‘planes, I’ve started travelling by train once more. We try to limit the amount we fly these days, so our European holidays are often started on the Eurostar. And there is something utterly seductive and timeless about the glass temple-like roof at St Pancras, giving the walk along the platform and the groaning and grunting of the train as it waits to depart that uniquely muffled quality that echoes down the years, even centuries. There are the same harried families as there have always been, too much baggage and too few hands, searching for the right carriage, and the anticipation of the journey and holiday to come.

Travelling long-distance by train has a unique feel to it. It is comfortable, inherently leisurely and provides constant ‘in-flight’ amusement. You can settle in, walk about; you have space, fresh air and views. Last summer we went to Italy; by mid-afternoon we were passing Lyon and within 12 reasonably relaxing hours of leaving our front door we were sitting outside a restaurant on the gracious streets of Turin, sipping wine and watching the world pass. En route we had watched the French countryside roll by, rivers and hills giving way to escarpments and snow capped peaks. I will never forget climbing over the Alps in the train, the majesty of the mountains within touching distance through the window as France gave way to Italy.

We have been to Amsterdam, Paris and Lille, packs on backs and self-contained. No lining up at the carousel to reclaim luggage, no schlep from some distant airport to the town centre. The train takes you to the heart of where you want to go and you walk from your carriage to the main street within minutes.

We plan our route with help from a great website, The Man in Seat 61 (http://www.seat61.com/) a massive resource put together by Buckinghamshire man, Mark Smith. Practical and clear, it steers your through the various train networks of the world. So far, we have only used the European section of it – but in future, who knows?

Train travel is not perfect – there have been dogs on the line, broken signals, nail-biting transfers and underground waits. But compared to the sweaty factories that are airports, travelling by train gets my vote every time.

When Nature Comes to Visit

Some time ago, we redesigned our back garden. Out went the shrubbery and in came the pond, the hedgehog mound, and what we fondly hoped would be a meadow but is now more honestly referred to as the Wild Area. Basically, we just don’t cut an area of the lawn until September in the hope that bugs and butterflies will thrive. In fact, all the changes were made with the intention of making our garden more ‘wildlife friendly’. And it’s really really worked, despite our marauding cats, of which more below.

So now we have lots of animals who use our garden, some who live with us, and some who just potter by from time to time and happily don’t seem to be aware of such human concepts as borders and boundaries.

Since we have made these changes, we seem to attract many more wild birds to our garden. We keep them well-fed and they amply reward us with colour, variety and displays. I have whiled away gentle hours watching them.

For the most part, they are common, but beautiful; greenfinches, sparrows, blackbirds, the occasional thrush... The most unusual visitor we have ever had was the linnet we saw last year, but other notable moments include the recent swoop and landing of a kite in the back garden (it actually landed! That was a first!), a sparrow hawk taking out a sparrow in mid-flight, a grey heron fishing in the pond and my absolute favourite, a resident flock of starlings. It’s far from being a murmuration, sadly, but nevertheless, a small flock of about 20 birds regularly comes to knock hell out of our garden worms. We also hear owls and buzzards and for the first time last week we saw a little owl in our neighbour’s garden – let’s hope they all come and visit.

Back to the cats, who arrived by invitation and remain by somewhat stretched tolerance. Not least since one of them leapt, four paws off the ground, to snatch a goldfinch from the bird feeder last month.

Springtime, with all the baby field mammals being born is the worst: often our greedy felines bring mice inside to eat them in peace and quiet, leaving the guts as glistening deposits wherever they fall. Often, though, and despite their highly honed hunting skills, our cats prove too stupid to hang on to the small creatures long enough to kill them, and the victim makes a break for freedom and I end up chasing a mouse around the house with a fishing net (yes, my dear neighbours, that’s what you see me doing. We are not re-enacting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang here, with me taking the role of the Child Catcher!)

Our cats also specialise in decapitating baby rabbits. If I find headless corpses in the garden, frankly that’s not too bad as I find a faceless ex-bunny easier to deal with than one looking sweet and cuddly, but dead. However, on one memorable occasion my nose detected a vintage corpse which had been snuck inside some time ago and left in a little-used drawer under the bed. Too old to stew, too smelly to ignore, I donned rubber gloves and cleaned it up. Probably finding decomposing animals under one’s bed is not something that I should be sharing this widely but too late now and hopefully my friends will not desert me.

What else? Well, spawning frogs and toads have given my kids a series of biology lessons that they’ll never get at school (do you know they can even ‘do it’ when they swim? Goodness knows how the ladies stay afloat - I wouldn’t be able to. But what an impressive example of female multi-tasking!) We also have newts, dragonflies, damselflies, pond skaters and probably a whole host of creepies that we are too ignorant to recognise.

A path across our grass travelling from under one fence, across the garden and out the other side, so often used that we can even see it through snow, marks the fox’s route. I rather like foxes, except when they howl in the dead of night or make out noisily in our rhubarb patch during mating season.

But my top-of-the-list all-time favourites are the bats. We have at least five who swoop and flutter in the half light of evening as we sit in the garden, mesmerised, trying to make out a solid animal from the frenzied balls of movement as they pass. They’ve just re-appeared, so it must be Spring. Just don’t tell the cats.

One Can Trust - our local food bank

Earlier this year, my kids received a late Christmas present of £10 each. Rather than give them licence to cruise the local shops, though, this was money with a string attached: they had to pass it on to somebody who needed it more than they did.

After some discussion, they decided to shop for a food bank. Food banks are springing up across Buckinghamshire as in the rest of the UK; I know of banks in Chesham and Rickmansworth and there are, I understand, talks of a bank in Chalfont St Peter. We found a local organisation, the One Can Trust, established that their collection point is just the other side of Beaconsfield, and went shopping to a local supermarket.

The charity gives out lists of what it needs, and this does not include fresh food, so immediately our shopping experience was different from usual as we headed for the aisles of tins. The children had to buy to a budget, and kept a running total of what they put in the trolley.

My daughter alighted on large cans of potatoes for 14p, and collected an armful. Her strategy was clear: pile it high, get as much as you can for your money - more food feeds more people. My son’s reaction was a little more complex. Whilst he completely got the ‘quantity’ argument, he was uncomfortable that cost was the overriding consideration. ‘I know I’ve only got £10’, he said, ‘but why can’t they have nice food too?’ A tricky one, hard to resolve. Making up rules on the hoof that actually bear scrutiny is part of being a parent, so we decided that the quality couldn’t fall below certain standards; for example, no items full of additives, and we were also really hesitant about cheap meat products that might be bulked out by donkeys’ toe nails, or something equally unspeakable. I guess that the bottom line was if we wouldn’t eat it ourselves, we wouldn’t buy it for anyone else.

We learnt a lot of lessons that day, not least how hard it is to buy frugally, yet nourishingly. I have to admit that I have not, since far-off student days, had to eke out a small sum of money to feed a person healthily and cheaply and the experience was timely and humbling. And as we did the task, and delivered our little boxes to the drop off point, we couldn’t but...not walk in the shoes of people who are in such need, but think a lot about them, and the disparity in the fortunes of our local population.

People in communities all have different needs and most of us try to support each other in a variety of ways. That we live amongst people who are struggling to feed their families is a relatively new departure which hopefully will be treated with the same community spirit.

Living with - or relying on - the weather. (written summer 2013)

Ho, hum, the weather, eh? Can’t live with it – can’t live without it. Last year, I had an almost total crop failure. I don’t count slugs as a crop and they were the only thing prospering in my garden, the merchant bankers of my veg patch, growing fat and smarmy at the cost of everything else. The only unexpected saving grace was that I had a bumper, late crop of tomatoes – by November the vines were sagging, weighed down with huge quantities of very green tomatoes which I harvested, put in brown paper bags to ripen and then feasted off as they reddened throughout the winter. Oh, I loved the pretention of serving luscious scarlet tomato salad to friends in January saying – ‘help yourselves – they’re from our garden, you know’. ‘No!’ ‘Oh yes!’

Things aren’t a whole lot better this year. Everything’s late, but at least it’s not so wet (and by the time you read this, we may well be deep into an August drought). But it’s ok. It’s not a matter of life or death; if my harvests fail, I’ll pop to the supermarket or see what local farmers have managed to drag up through the soil.

But. What if the timing of the seasons really matters to you? What if my family was relying on what I could grow in my garden? What is happening in other areas of the world where the increasing unpredictability of weather is making subsistence farming increasingly fraught?

As an Oxfam report on Tajikistan sets out, climate change ‘is affecting agriculture... and threatening the food security of thousands of people who depend on small-scale subsistence farming for their survival. Intense droughts, extensive flooding and increased frequency of weather-related shocks are becoming more apparent, and hitting poor people hardest’.

So when the birds get into my strawberries, or I’m complaining about my wrinkled beetroots, paucity of cucumbers and brussel sprouts that promise much but deliver little– I’ll try to put my lot in that context.

How to get a gardener and not a cowboy.....(written January 2014)

At the top of the year when it is cold and miserable, everyone looks longingly for the first signs of Spring and newspapers are full of columns about gardening: what to do to attract wildlife, how to decide on which seedlings to plant and more than anything, when to get started.

Sometimes, though, life gets in the way and you start a bit late, or it begins to feel like a chore. You definitely could plant your potatoes out once the bed has been weeded, but when are you going to get around to digging? Or you would like a pond but don’t have the knowhow...and so your ears start to prick up when someone talks in glowing terms about their gardener.

Before you make that ‘phone call, here is my list of how to get a gardener and avoid a cowboy. Believe me, I’ve learnt from painful experience.

1. Try to get several recommendations for a gardener, not just one.
2. If someone is happy to recommend, then don’t just to discuss the positives. Consider asking ‘apart from the things that you were obviously happy about, is there anything at all that you didn’t like?’ This question teases out issues that you need to know.
3. Establish whether your gardener is an unskilled labourer or has any specific training. If your gardener asserts he or she has certain qualifications or has won prizes, get proof.
4. Agree what work is going to be done, for how much and roughly how long it will take. Don’t leave a project to ‘evolve’ and don’t expect to have the same priorities or perspective as your gardener. Put a list or a drawing together so that misunderstandings are avoided.
5. If you are quoted a daily rate, check what hours your gardener intends to work. A person who works from 9.30 to 3.30 with an hour for lunch is far more expensive than someone who works 8am through 4pm.
6. If your gardener might borrow your tools, mark them clearly. It’s hard to work out later which muddy spade is yours.
7. Never pay in advance.
8. Make it clear that you will always ask for receipts for money spent on your behalf.
9. Once a project has been started, don’t feel trapped into carrying on with the same person; it will only be harder to sort out later. If you’re having second thoughts, shop around and see if you can find someone better.
10. Don’t assume that just because your gardener works outside, he or she is skilled at other things such as fencing, building walls or laying a path. You might just end up with an expensive disappointment.

Above all, stay in control! It’s your garden, you are going to live with the results, and it should be a source of happiness and not regret for missed chances.