Making new friends

 If only.....

Two jackdaws stare at me from their perch in a beautiful stand of spring-tipped silver birches.  They are suspicious of me, but I mean no harm.

A jay looks, slightly myopically, in my direction, not sure if I will pass by....

A red kite surveys me from the safety of his thermal, then zooms away, uninterested.

Geese - Canadas:

Greylags:

Brent:

And Egyptian:

Fly past in formations, oblivious to, or just unconcerned about, my insignificance. 

I walk, with my wife, quietly - with little conversation - every morning.  I carry a camera all the time.  One time I may see a Barn Owl dropping in on some busy rodent:

Another time I may glimpse an angle-poised heron cruising above the fish he will invite to dinner:

I use the camera to record the lives I witness, and also to help identify my fellow creatures.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish one little bird from another, and only when I magnify the pixels can I be sure of who I have pictured.

Here, for example, are a few tiny souls whose paths I recently crossed:

Meadow Pipit

Linnet (f)

Chiff Chaff

Chaffinch (f)

Yellowhammer

Swallow

Wren

Stonechat (m)

But they have all kept their distance. I cannot reach out and touch them. Our friendship, if you can call it thus, is distanced. What does it take to make a friend? What is it that makes us all so detached? I mean them no harm. I have no axe, nor grinder. We breathe the same air, eat, if you like, pretty much the same organic produce, and certainly need to drink the same water. 

I am not bathed in an aura of loving everything and every body - for example, I have no desire to spend my time in the company of woodpigeons with their monotonous phone-dial croonings or their huge appetite for my broccoli. And if push came to something like a shove I could probably live without mallards.....  But, for God's sake, why is it so difficult to be friends with your neighbour?

Here are a few more snaps taken recently, from a distance, of beautiful things who really don't want to associate with me, or others like me.....

Yes, the world is full of life, for the moment..... And though we don't all speak the same language, we do all breathe the same air. 

I just wish we could be friends..... 

Especially as life is so short.  We must make the most of every ray of sunshine,

For tomorrow is another day, and some friends have already gone.....

A Night on Wild Ken Hill

Lessons in rewilding

We have only been in Norfolk for a few weeks, but it's growing on me....  No offence, but it's like ivy is creeping up my legs, and mistletoe may have taken root in my armpits....  Although we are in a substantial village, our new home is only a 45 minute walk to the beach on the eastern shore of The Wash.  And the walk takes us through the forest of Wild Ken Hill, a romantic name if ever there was none....

The Wild Ken Hill estate is, to quote its website (https://wildkenhill.co.uk): 

returning land to nature and farming sustainably in coastal west Norfolk. We use rewilding, regenerative farming, and traditional conservation practices side-by-side in a unique, innovative approach.....

I hope they won't mind me quoting like this from their website, but the statements are clear, and there is no point in me trying to paraphrase them.  They say that: 

At Wild Ken Hill, our motivation is to deliver benefits for those around us. From providing free visits for our local schools to helping the UK Government meet its biodiversity and climate change goals, Wild Ken Hill seeks to show land management can work for everyone.

And they express the following details of their approach:

Regenerative Farming

We’re experts at regenerative farming, growing healthy food while fostering amazing farmland biodiversity and storing carbon in our soils

Rewilding

We’re letting nature take over on 25% of our site, with ponies, cattle, pigs and beavers managing the rich landscape for us

Traditional Conservation

We actively manage freshwater marshes, river valleys and woodlands, spending time and effort to create great habitat for rare species

My daughter and I sign up for a guided tour, specifically entitled Nature by Night.  This is just one of a number of scheduled tours, led by members of the team, now possible since our partial release from lockdown. 

Despite the title, we start in daylight. We are led by Lloyd, Conservation Leader and Ecologist.  Although Lloyd has only been in post since October, his knowledge of the site is impressive, as is his clear grasp of ecology and knowledge of the natural world.  Rather nicely, too, the group is only six, including him, so it is easy to hear explanations and to engage in conversation with him, and with others in the group.

Lloyd has with him a thermal imaging camera, a bat detector, and, though we don't need them yet, a set of torches.

As we start the tour, we are told of the changes the team have been making in agricultural techniques, much of which is explained in their Land Use Model publication which was published last year.  Among the points I learned on the tour were that that are using cover crops, and variable depth seed drilling; they have introduced various grazing animals (Tamworth pigs,  Red Poll cattle and Exmoor ponies) all of which have, like the native deer and other wildlife, free range across the site; there is also an enclosed area where four beavers are working on controlling the natural flow of floodwater; the team have stopped cultivating unproductive areas, and leave extensive margins around the fields that they are still actively cultivating.  They are not using insecticides and are aiming to be free of fertilisers in a year or two.

The statistics are impressive: Wild Ken Hill is a four thousand acre family owned estate and it stretches from the sea through coastal scrub, freshwater marshes, heathland, wood pasture to nature-rich farmland.  So far, 2,500 species have been recorded on the estate.

The first creatures we see are brown Hares, of which there are too many to count, but then overhead a Sparrow-hawk flap, flap, glides into the dusk.  

We see two pigs sauntering along the edge of a field.

The Red Poll cattle are lurking in the gathering gloom. 

The sun begins to slip through the hedge, while a Grey Heron slides across the clouds like some stealth bomber.

In the shallows before the flood defence a myriad of Curlew religiously stand toward the north.  

Around a scarecrow tree I see three Marsh Harriers unsure as to who should have the high perch.

Back toward the forest two young female fallow deer ignore the hares that career pass them.

The moon, a sliver of its sometime self, poses with Venus, and the darkness falls.  

We stumble into a field, discovering what Lloyd deems the highlight of the night, a Woodcock roding, circling above our heads in a display flight that seems to take five or ten minutes - so must be something like a mile in circumference.  It is now too dark to catch a photo, but its quiet, rapid wingbeats brush the air like the insistent beat of a fan.  

Then it is dark.  Our last stop is a powerful moth trap.  On the way, Lloyd picks up a pipistrelle on his monitor, but we don't see its radar.  We hear a Tawny Owl parodying itself, but don't see its shadow.  Woodpigeons clatter off their roosts as we plunder through the brush, but the rest, as they say, is silence.....

The moth trap has a number of hapless Hebrew Characters and other moths, huddled in egg boxes, and Lloyd effortlessly identifies each.  

By now I am flagging.  It is a wonderful world, but my batteries are low and we need to curl up in a nest somewhere.  

It has been a stimulating walk into the night, and I very much look forward to my next encounter with the estate, which is due to be in search of the dawn chorus in a week or so's time.  

We were lucky, I guess, to have good weather and a spectacular sunset, but all in all it's not the weather that makes this a special place.  It is down to the management and the cultivation of a natural environment.  There is a paradox in that, but let's not get too exercised by it. 

It is an exciting enterprise, and I thoroughly applaud it.  Thank you for having me....

Quietly.....

In Memoriam G L Webster 09/03/1948 - 12/04/2021

We are glad you passed this way.....

G L Webster, Trajan's Forum, 1981

Sometime last autumn, when we weren't quite locked down, I was in a London street, and my friend Lindsay Webster rang me. He asked how I was, so I burbled on about my aches and pains and how life was tough, etc, and then I asked how he was..... Not so good....  He had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.....

The train has left the station....

Last Monday morning, April 12th, he died. He was just 73.

Kirkby Hall

I met Linds in Sheffield, in the late sixties.  He was at University with my older brother, and he was one of a small group of friends sharing a fondness for beer and curries, amongst other things.  

Linds and my bro, Simon, in Howarth.  We had a running joke about the exchange of cash. No idea why....

Over the ensuing years we met regularly, though sometimes in a fog, here, and there.  At our home, where my younger brother fondly remembers his signature raincoat, and in Kettering and environs, where he lived and worked, as a teacher, firstly at Tresham College and latterly at Brook House College, Market Harborough.

We made many trips together, including an early morning drive over the Pennines from Sheffield to Lancaster, empowered by bacon butties and mugs of tea from all-night cafes; and a particularly frenetic visit to Paris in the early seventies, fuelled by absinthe and steak tartare.

During a visit to Palestrina, with another great friend, Antonio, in 1981.  Note the raincoat.....

In 1980 he attended my alma mater in Lancaster for a Master's degree, and I recall waking him there with the snap and fizz of a can of beer - we had a common interest in the intellectual qualities of alcohol - and then subsequently, in '81 he came to visit me in Italy, at Christmas time, where we explored the delights of Ancient Rome and then, with a rented car, the wines and spirits of Siena, where, after a bitterly cold evening in the Campo, he barricaded the hotel door against imaginary pursuers, only to find, in the morning, that the door opened outwards.

After that he was particularly anxious not to miss his flight home, so I accompanied him to Rome Ciampino airport, and he took off in the hope that a beautiful Polish girl would be waiting for him back home.  After taking a taxi from Luton airport, he found that he was indeed in luck, and not long after he and Anna married, to enjoy forty years of life together.

Ten years ago, Linds and I began a series of July excursions, fitting in a few days walking and a few nights beering between the end of term and either a holiday with Anna or one of his many journeys to the Far East or Asia Minor to recruit students for his college.  

Our first such adventure, in 2011, was to Lindisfarne, which I then commemorated in a blog piece which ended thus.....

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne’s name originates as the island of the people from Lindsey or Linnuis (OE Lindesege) which was the name of a small Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lay between the Humber and the Wash, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.  The name Lindsey itself means the 'island of Lincoln' which derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and was very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner.  A fitting name all round. (The picture shows old friend Lindsay thinking about St Aidan, and the dangers of water.)

The following year we stayed in Blakeney, Norfolk, and walked (some of) the Norfolk Coast Path.  It was not the first time we had visited here, as this next photo reveals - a youthful Linds near Wells-next-the-sea - so many years ago now that I don't recall the details, except that he had 'borrowed' a tiny cottage and it was only in the early hours that we discovered that the owners were not entirely aware of the arrangement.....

In 2013 we ventured to Suffolk; in 2014 to the Peak District, where our advancing years began to show ascending Jacob's Ladder, and even more on the subsequent trail down a very rocky gulley. 

 The year after that we stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon, took in Volpone (in a hospital bed) and wandered on the Malvern Hills, checking out Elgar's cottage and his last resting place. In 2016 it was the Cotswolds, where we followed in the feetsteps of Laurie Lee. 

2017 had us in Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales, on the trail of J B Priestley. In 2018 we stayed in the glory of Tracey Emin's Margate, breathing in the dust of T S Eliot, and then, in 2019 we were in Essex, savouring the salt at Great Maldon but also admiring John Constable's country.

The pandemic blew us off course in 2020 and that, sadly, is that, for now, though in addition to the July sorties there were also meetings in London, Manchester, Sheffield, and in the vicinity of his home town of Kettering. 

 

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

Much of all this was informed, subtly, by Lindsay's erudition.  He was well educated - a classmate had been David Hare - and his relationship with professor William Empson was not solely steeped in spilt drinks.  Indeed, on March 9th this year, Linds wrote to me (with reference to something I had written):  Before his annual poetry reading we used to take him out. Me, "Prof. Empson, can I get you another drink?". Him, "Another. You're politely reminding me it is my round."  Double gin and peps for all followed.  Later as he stumbles over the threshold of a Chinese restaurant he puts his hand on the head of a bemused Chinese child saying, "I wish I could tell you something but you know it all already".  Needless to say the reading was always entertaining if at times difficult to follow.  I gave a copy of his poems to someone inscribed with a note.  When she asked him to sign the book, "Someone has already signed it.  Are you sure you need me to do so?"  !  His shadow provides lasting shade.

Linds himself was very well read, though his interest in international affairs and politics was lightly worn.  We would walk and talk, and apart from his engaging relations of adventures in China, Nigeria or Kazakhstan, he would always be ready with a quotation or reference to literature stored accurately for appropriate use.

I should also record that Linds was a proper European. His father was an upstanding Englishman. His mother a resolute Irishwoman.  His wife a native of Poland.  

But behind that Linds was a true cosmopolitan. There were no boundaries. As a youth he had worked on a Kibbutz in Israel, and travelled in North Africa and the Middle East. In later years he went on numerous recruitment trips for his colleges to many countries, from Viet Nam to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, often extending his trips at his own expense to explore the culture and history of the region.  (And, quite recently, giving helpful advice to my daughter before she herself went to work in Azerbaijan....)

Sadly this is over now.  His store of knowledge and anecdotes of crazy hospitalities are archived.  

But all is not lost. 

While it is sadness crystallised to lose someone, especially if it is sooner than expected, we must know it will happen to all of us, and what remains is the love we had all along.  We remember the kindnesses, the laughter, and, in some cases.... the drinks.

I was going to see Linds again in London when lockdown eased.  Anna was planning to bring him to see us in Norfolk for some sea air and we would have met again.  We have to accept this cannot now happen, but instead we have to reflect on how much we enjoyed what was allowed to us all.

The process of dying is the difficult part. But, whatever faith one has, death itself shall have no dominion. What is done is done, and everlasting peace is the gift of the deceased.  

{I have tried here to paste in a video of some pictures taken on trips with Linds over the years.  It may well not work for all, if any, so apologies if not....}

I have been privileged to have had good friends. Between us we will suffer individual deaths, but we will forever share the laughter and twinkling memories of lives that have not entirely been wasted....

With apologies to both Luke Kelly and Michaél O'Caoimh, I quote a few lines from Luke, A Tribute, sung by Christy Moore.  I met Luke Kelly in Dublin when I was a very young thing, and heard him sing.  He left a deep impression on me, and when I heard this song, some time after he died (in 1984) I couldn't help but weep.  

The sentiment still applies to Luke, but transfers just as well to my dear friend, Lindsay:

I still can clearly hear your voice

Though your time with us is o'er

For memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we'll always honour, (Linds),

We're glad you passed this way

Somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.  Pies, mushy peas, and pints of ale.....

When this bloody plague is over.....

What a fiend we have in Boris.....

No one needs me to cite the infidelities, the lies, the illegalities, the egocentricities, the toe-curling attempts at popularism, the shameful evidence of nepotism, the blatant protection of toadies or the grand attempts at self-promotion  that cling to the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom like plastic bags of dog shit to a gatepost.....  

So I won't.....

The innocent are innocent as long as they have money or power.  Or until they are eaten by buzzards.....

When this bloody plague is over

Oh, how happy we will be;

When I get my open face back

No more social-distancing for me.

 

No more lonely Sunday vigils,

No more clapping in the dark;

I hope the creepy Cabinet Monsters

Will wear some other tragic masks.

With luck, perhaps, the jet stream will blow all ills away, soon, and the world will recover its equilibrium, despite all.  And funerals will be conducted in churchyards across the face of the earth, with no restriction, no let, no hindrance.....

And the poor will be catered for by public subscription (and political goodwill.....)

And we shall all live 'til we stretch out in comfort (and our hair falls out.....)

Flock immunity shall be the watchword.....

Though it is to be expected that some will be beyond reproach.....

And that some may not dare to take the plunge....

And of course there will be those who just want to stand and stare....

 No more putting in for furlough

     No more Tory lies for me....

     Full employment and proper services

Oh, how happy we shall be.

When this bloody plague is over

No more shielding for you or me

We may mix wherever, whenever,

Oh, how happy we will be!

 

(With credit to Anni Tracy for the penultimate stanza)

 
A dog's dinner

Though the plague will still be with us, of course, quietly rotting our well-being and blinding us to reality.

The dire reality of a mismanaged world.

What a fiend we have in Boris

All our care and griefs to raise

What a privilege to carry

Everything to him in praise

Oh, what peace we often forfeit

Oh, what needless pain we have

All because we do not carry

Everything to him in love

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged

Take it to Boris in prayer

Can we find a friend so faithful

Who will all our sorrows share?

Boris knows our every weakness

Take it to himself in prayer

“About aaah about aah you know your sort of league table question I I I you know I think I mean I er respectfully er go back to the answer you would have heard from the podium many times which is that the er the er the the pandemic is er alas tragically is not over yet er across the world and we will continue to er protect everyone is er to the to the er to the best of to the best of our abilities. This this this is not over and I think the international comparisons are are are premature at this stage.”

The Prime Minister has left the room.....