Strange days have found us

A visit to New York city in 1966 prompted the late great Jim Morrison to write Strange Days. The lyrics have perhaps never rung so true as they do today.

Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing
Or find a new town

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin
And you know this is it

Strange days have found us
And through their strange hours
We linger alone
Bodies confused
Memories misused
As we run from the day
To a strange night of stone

We have two horses that we have to feed and water everyday so we are combining this with our once a day early morning permitted walk with the dogs at Dix pit. Its eerily quiet out walking with essentially all industrial noise and the background murmur of other humans going about there daily life’s silenced.  The everlasting cycle of nature continues oblivious  to the man-made disaster we have wrought upon ourselves. The majority of winter wildfowl have left Dix Pit and the absence of the continuous whistling of Widgeon that has been my companion on my walks for many months has gone further adding to the surreal feel. Apart from singing Chiffchaffs no other spring migrants seem to have arrived yet – it feels like silent spring in reverse. The spring violets and cowslips are in full flower. As a boy growing up in a small hamlet called Hindon in Wiltshire we would go out for long carefree spring walks picking cowslips and violets to take home for our mums. This seems a literal lifetime ago.

Where have all the Widgeon gone?

I was talking, at much more than the safe recommended distance, to an elderly lady who I often meet walking her dog at Dix pit.  She lives on a mobile home park and told me that she was getting very worried and depressed because some residence had taken it upon themselves to sit at their windows all day and count how many trips individuals were making from their homes. I felt so angry that just about the only permitted pleasure for this lady in these scary times was been ruined by moronic busybodies, do we really all belong to the same species?

I get bored very easily so I’m very lucky at the moment that I have plenty of spring jobs to do in the garden. The previously reported greenhouse mouse that demolished my first attempt to sow broad beans has been successfully apprehended and transported to pastures anew. The cuttings and seedlings that will become our summer containers and hanging baskets are growing at an alarming rate jostling for what little space is left in the greenhouse. The first crop of pot sown lettuce and beetroot are growing fast with a tantalising promise of wonderfully tasty salads to come. I’ve been using these warm sunny days to complete the first weeding of our flower beds and borders and to re-establish the edges lost to the encroaching lawn over the winter.

I’ve been doing a little garden photography to keep occupied, mainly Great and Blue Tits with the occasional Coal Tit. The flock of Greenfinches is still around but visiting our feeders less and less often as their priorities change to raising the next generation. I spent most of Saturday morning trying to photography one particularly hansom strikingly green male only for him to appear in exactly the spot I desired as soon as I packed my gear away!

The rubbish that gets posted on social media has gone in to absolute hyperdrive with all sorts of unsubstantiated tripe being posted as fact about the virus. This makes my scientific blood boil! If only people would stick to subjects they have some knowledge of and leave “fact “reporting to the experts the world might feel a very slightly less scary place during these awful times. If one good thing comes out of all this I really hope that the powers to be finally recognised and financially reward those who have been neglected for so long, our wonderful and dedicated public sector workers in the NHS and other vital services.