Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
4th January 2025
Watch the Birdie
It’s time to get prepared for this years Big Garden Birdwatch which takes place at the end of the month. The world’s largest garden wildlife survey is made possible by hundreds of thousands of bird lovers contributing and helping to build a picture of how garden birds are faring each year.
It is a great thing to be part of and interesting to see which birds are appreciating your own garden.
Simply spend an hour watching the birds in your garden – or even a feeder on a balcony or window – between the 24th and 26th of January, and record only the birds that actually land on your patch. Then submit what you saw – even if that’s nothing at all – online or by post.
Last year over 600,000 people took part in Big Garden Birdwatch counting a whopping 9.7 million birds, but, despite the huge numbers, birds like the House Sparrow are still down in numbers by 60% compared to the very first Birdwatch in 1979. And that’s the whole point of monitoring these numbers.
You can get your free guide and lots more information at www.rspb.org.uk and still have time to stock up on supplies. The RSPB shop is also offering 20% off and free delivery on food and feeders.
Yogi found this beautiful little Bullfinch on the ground near the cottage last week. After watching it for a while, and getting nervous about the local feral cat finding a free lunch, I took him back to the cottage and fed him some mealworms (which I had bought for my chickens for Christmas). After a little rest, a big meal and a few ‘test flights’ he flew off. A happy start to the new year indeed.
What, Where, When, Why?
Every year Google publishes a ‘Year in Search’, which shows what people around the world have been looking up in 2024. Donald Trump was the most googled person worldwide, followed by the Princess of Wales and Kamala Harris.
As always, I fear it says a lot about each nation when you see what they searched for. In Britain, the most searched-for ‘when’ questions ranged from ‘when is the budget?’ to ‘when is Coronation Street on this week?’ Colombians’ top ‘why’ search was ‘why are bees so important?’ And both the Australians and New Zealanders wanted to learn ‘how to mew’. Mewing is apparently a facial exercise which claims to reduce baggy jawlines – and yes, I had to google it!
French users asked ‘why were chainsaws invented?’ Interestingly I didn’t haven’t google that – I knew the answer. I’ll spare you the details but the very first chainsaw was invented to cut the pubic bone to assist childbirth. If you want more details – or don’t believe me – I’ll leave the googling to you.
Whilst cutting up and clearing a tree that had blocked a local road in Storm Darragh, one of the boys offered me his chainsaw saying. “You’ve got your licence, you can use this one.” I politely reminded him that whilst I did indeed have my chainsaw licence, no one wants to work alongside a menopausal woman with a chainsaw.
He withdrew the offer and used it himself.
Lush and Loathsome Lists
Whilst I am generally a ‘cup half full’ sort of person, and don’t like to use the word ‘hate’, I recently read a list of ‘things I hate’, and it made me laugh. Compiled by crime writer, Raymond Chandler – presumably during a period of writer’s block – the list recently fetched just over $2,000 at auction. I imagine it was a lot more ‘harmless’ and compiled with less ‘heat’ than a list would consist of today as it contained fruit salad, golf talk, hard-boiled eggs, baggy trousers, ‘arty’ people and those who ‘talk as if they can’t imagine anyone not listening to them’. ‘Women who believe men can’t think of anything but women’ is listed just above ‘men who can’t think of anything but women’.
It made me think of a few of my own: brambles that whip you in the face as if getting their own back, people who don’t respond when you give them a cheery “hello’ or wave in passing, and people who phone me in response to a text.
Not surprisingly, these ‘lists of irritations’ are in fact very satisfying to read. The French intellectual Roland Barthes couldn’t stand women in trousers, strawberries, animated cartoons, geraniums, the harpsichord, the afternoon (seriously?), Vivaldi, telephoning, the organ, and evenings with people he didn’t know.
If, like me, you are enjoying all these lists, do read Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s book ‘Screams – Shrieks of Horror and Yelps of Pleasure from Modern Life.’
Chapters are split into months and January’s includes: daffodils in the shop before snowdrops are in the garden, which must be the gardener’s equivalent irk of Easter eggs in the shops before New Year. She also writes, ‘On the hall shelf sits a shallow NHS cardboard box addressed to you requiring you to send in a stool sample for bowel cancer…’
I’ll let you read the rest but, suffice to say, it is very funny – and in case you hadn’t guessed already, pertinent, as the same package was amongst my Christmas cards this year. I know I should (and I will) but can’t quite get to around to it just yet …
I mentioned being a glass-half-full sort of person so I think it’s important to leave you with the antidote to ‘lists of loathsome things’ in the guise of ‘lists of lush things’ (see what I did there? Wasn’t the last ever Gavin & Stacey all we wanted it to be and more) and I’ll start you off with a gently snoring dog, brand new, razor-sharp edging shears, a client giving you a cup of ‘proper’ coffee, feeling warm air against your skin on a summer’s evening, the lawn mower starting on the second pull, walking through crisp autumn leaves, the smell of a puppy’s tummy – and dogs paws.
I have just realised that this list is so much easier to compile than the loathsome list, which is probably something else to include in my lush list! And despite Ysenda including New Year Greetings in her list of irks, I do wish you all a very happy 2025. The older I get, the more I realise that happiness depends on only two things – good health and a short memory.
Thankfully I have both.
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