Save our Forests

When ever I read something in a newspaper which I really know about the truly frightening thing is that the article is littered with inaccuracies and the conclusions, when drawn, are normally grossly unfair.  The row over the govt. 'consultation' on the 800,000 odd acres of land managed by the Forestry Commission (FC) in England is a case in point.  The 'luvvies' and second rate 'celebs' have rushed to sign up for something called 'Save our Forests' when there is actually - in the government's proposal nothing to save them from.  Public access to forests will continue ,even if they are sold, as it is enshrined in law, the  FC has not, strangely, either been the superb woodland manager of legend and so, if these woods are sold they may well end up better managed than before and, consider, over the last thirty odd years many industries have been privatised and all now give a better service to their customers and provide a better return to their owners than when they were in public hands -so why should the sale of public forestry estate have a different outcome?

No if the 'luvvies' and 'celelbs', plus -oddly- the Archbishop of Canterbury, really want to Save our Forests then they should be campaigning for the total ban on importation of plant material into this country.  Such plants -imported by so called 'nurseries' in the UK too idle to grow their own -are a enormous threat to the health of the UK's woodlands.  Already tens of thousand of acres of larch trees are being felled throughout Wales and SW England because of a disease called Phytophra Ramorum   brought into this country via Camellia plants imported from China via nurseries in Holland while a ill thought out reader offer by the Daily Telegraph  of Acers imported from China resulted in several of the plants being found to be carrying the deadly Asian Long Horned Beetle which, if it became established, would devastate the UK's hardwoods.  So come on the 'luvvies' and the 'celebs', plus all those MP's who have suddenly decided to become experts in trees, do something which will really help to Save our Forests - campaign for a ban on the importation of all plant material.     

Febuary

Febuary is the most dismal month of the year. The weather is bloody, winter seems unending and all our friends
head off for some winter sun to recover from the shooting season which has just ended.  How I wish we too could join them - though having said that I know I would very soon get bored lying in the sun and having nothing to do but read a book.  The answer is to grit the teeth and 'fight through Febuary' in the hope that March will herald a marvelous Spring.      

insurance

We have - so far - avoided a repeat of the burst pipe incident - but one of the silver linings of our water disaster is how very good our insurers, Hiscox, and our insurance broker, RKHarrison, have been.  People often forget the reason you have insurance is that when the 'shit hits the fan' the bloody insurance actually works - as it certainly has in our case.  How often have I heard friends, who once boasted how little they paid in premiums, bemoaning how, strangely, these discount insurers make every effort to wriggle out of the claim when disaster happens.  The other benefit of having the disaster is meeting and talking to the experts who have come to view the damage and make recommendations so the other day I had Patrick Baty the foremost paint archaeologist in the World ( who I once played soldiers with years back) clambering over the scaffolding in my Great Hall taking samples of paint witht he aim of establishing what the original colourt scheme was. all very exciting and proving once again that every cloud has a silver lining.      

freezing weather

The freezing weather is playing havoc with my budget - normally we never have the heating on before January except as a treat on Christmas day - now as I write I hear the massive boiler pumping hot water round the system as it is based next door to my office - this is not just to heat the house - that is a minor consideration - it is to ensure that the pipes don't freeze and that we don't have a water disaster when the thaw sets in.  we have already had two burst pipes with consequent damage and I don't want a third.  

NHS

I have survived and am back home from hospital.  My experience of the NHS is that it is rather akin to driving up to London from Exeter on the A303.  There are times when you simply zip along on an empty road and then - for no apparent reason that you can see- the whole experiance changes to a nightmare and you sit in a traffic jam or crawl for ten miles for the best part of an hour or so till -suddenly -the road clears again and once more you travel at speed.  Like the A303 you know that the NHS will get you to your destination but- just as in driving up the A303 - in peculiar 'bunny hops' 

country dangers

So living in the country is safe - well I wish it was.  Every time I end up with a graze I seem to end up in Emergency Ward Ten.  Two weeks ago I slipped and fell and grazed my knee - no big deal.  Then - two days ago - the wife - ever vigilant for the slightest sign of illness in anyone of her flock - spotted an inflamation of the knee - for two days I managed to bluff my way but today she 'lost it' and I was hauled up before the doctor who has duly sentaeced me to at least a night in hospital being fed antibiotics on an intraveneous drip. This is the second time in three years this has happened - the last time I was in hospital for a week. Apparently the 'air (in Devon) is not alive with the sound of music' but alive with bugs and those bugs are all lying in wait for Fulford to develop a graze when they home in on it and try to kill him. Frankly it is all very puzzling - how on earth did our ancestors ever survive to adulthood is a mystery -still for the second time in three years I put my faith and life in the hands of the NHS and - oddly - when you do that they perform rather well.    

Buzzard

As temperatures are still sub zero we try to keep all doors and windows firmly shut. So imagine my surprise  to find, as I walked through the Great Parlour on my way to my office a sodding great buzzard flapping round the room -finally coming to rest on the frame of my mother's portrait. So how has it got in?  I supose it could have come down the chimney, in fact that is the only explanation which I can think of. Meanwhile I have a problem - what to do about said buzzard?  As ever - with problems - I thnink I will leave it till tommorow - who knows it might find it's way back up the chimmney but I am not optimistic - alternatively of course it could the spirit of some ancestor returning to see what we have been up too recently if so I hope it will buzz off by tomorrow morning.