VISITORS

It's August, almost without me realising it, it's time to think about a summer holiday.  We have a few things to do this week, but I think we'll drive off somewhere next week.  I don't know what happened to July.  I have a great calendar that someone bought me for Christmas, with photographs of roundabouts.  Here is July's that I have hardly had a moment to enjoy.

It's described on the caption as 'awesome'.

We have been visited again this month by deer.  I thought they had decided to leave us after I chased them off my gooseberry patch.

And he was here this morning.

But we have had an extraordinary number of butterflies.  And that just after a wildlife warning of declining numbers.  Mind you, I have no idea whether rarer species are in trouble and the vast majority of those here are large whites (which frankly we can do without).  But here's a comma

and a rather nice peacock.

PREPARING FOR WINTER

In a month's time it is Midsummer's Eve.  From then on we must be thinking about the nights drawing in and the days getting colder . . .

Those of you who look around gardens and the countryside will already have noticed that this year plants are either late or just plain confused.  My rhododendrons are still in bud; most trees are now in leaf, but one of my fruit trees is struggling; daffodils are still blooming, along with primroses and bluebells.  Five weeks ago, we walked the 8th leg of the Sussex Border Path and I took this pic

We were walking through a bluebell wood and were quite certain that, by the time of next week's leg, the bluebells would have come and gone.  But, look - apart from a few growths of ivy, not a leaf on the trees!  The bluebells are currently in full bloom and we might yet get our bluebell walk next week.

For the last month, I have been walking in N Cyprus, Morocco and S Spain.  I will try to post some pics later.  All I wanted to say here was that the temperature was 20° higher where I was than when I left UK.  It was still 15° higher when I returned.  What's going on?!

I usually spend a few intensive days preparing for my trips away, so we took a couple of days off in Devon to relax before I went.  Here is the coastal footpath 

 

It hadn't rained for  nearly a week, yet the footpath was badly eroded and still running with water like a small stream.  There weren't many people on the beach or in the beach cafe either.

 It was the same story further along the coast in the popular holiday resort of Torquay.

We've just had 3 lovely sunny days, with temperatures soaring to almost 15° and I was able to spend a delightful day in the garden, clearing the debris off the lawn.  I expect there'll be a hosepipe ban soon.  Thank goodness for garden centres.

  

GLOOM WITH A VIEW

For various reasons, I'm a bit fed up at the moment.

I've been working hard on my next walking holiday.  I'm going to North Cyprus, which I don't know very well, for a couple of weeks.  Today I am supposed (according to my arbitrary timetable) to sort out my backpack.  Where are my essential bits and pieces?  All put away safely somewhere no doubt.  I have to go through my first aid kit; I can't believe it's all still in date.  And I suspect I've nearly run out of blister plasters!  Then there's the clothing.  All this winter I've been mooching around in sweaters and fleeces.  Now I need lightweight T's (I've just checked the weather in Kyrenia and it seems to be in the 20s at the moment : ) ).  And lots of hiking socks; I know I put those somewhere sensible last autumn.  And what about water bottles, torch, spork, etc.

But I haven't quite got round to that yet.   I have a good idea of where I want to go while I'm there and what I want to see, but I have no maps.  They just don't make them.  I think the area has remained a little sensitive ever since the Turkish invasion of 1974.  You try Google maps for Cyprus and see what I mean; the whole of the north is one big green blob.  Perhaps it is just grass with no roads or buildings?  But it's a shame, isn't it.  I have absolutely no interest in military activities; they can conduct war games underneath my hotel window all night if they like and I'll just stay in bed and, during the day, I'll go somewhere else.  Actually, Cyprus is so small and accessible to tourists and Turkey so vast that I can't believe they'd choose to do anything sensitive militarily on the island.  But, on the other hand, one thing they desperately want is tourism.  So why not make it more tourist-friendly?  All I want is to know that I'm walking towards the Crow's Nest Pub and won't get lost and stumble into a minefield or a tank trap.

I've ordered my currency.  I don't think, by the way, before you say, that N Cyprus is at all affected by the problems with Greek banks in Cyprus.  Anyway, nothing I can do.  I just have to take cash and hope it isn't suddenly devalued to toilet paper while I'm there or that Germany doesn't invade to impose on the spot taxes.  I've drawn up my timetable for walking.  I've made a list of variables to check out while I'm there, pub opening times, nearest fish restaurant, receptionist's phone number, etc.  So I ought now to be ready.  But still I feel unsettled.  It's all wasted if I don't find the footpath.

Then - bridge.  Something has happened.  I have been reading up on safety plays and leads, because I am weak in that area.  At least I always seem to help the opposition with my play.  But the more I study, the worse I seem to get.  I have heard of golfers (like Rory McIlroy at the moment) losing their technique, or footballers (like Fernando Torres over the last 2 years) having off periods, perhaps it's like that.  And one day I will storm back.  Or perhaps I should switch to canasta?  But it's depressing at the moment.

Then there's the weather . . .  No need to say any more about how miserable that is.  Actually the sun came out a bit today and I have just been out the garden planting some new shrubs.  Last autumn we became so fed up with some ground cover plant that the previous house owner had put in that we dug it all up.  We had seemed to spend most of our time in the garden during the summer trying to control this bloody thing.  It spread all over the flower bed like warts.  So two back-breaking days later, we had dug up several trugs of plants and several more of roots.  The roots were like a sponge all over the flower bed to a depth of about a foot.  The bed then needed a few extra inches of earth to compensate, then we left it fallow for the winter.  But of course the neighbourhood cats thought it was wonderful.  So I have just spent a most exciting afternoon burying several tons of cats' poo and turning the soil for planting.  I did get a few small shrubs in though and even a few daffodils.  None of my bulbs came up this year - killed or delayed by the cold I suppose - so I stuck in some ready sprouted plants.  But all that effort has just made me think I should have been sorting out my walking gear instead.

So I suppose I'd better get off now and stop putting off sorting out my kit.  I'll just go and have a cup of tea first.  Then maybe I'll go and watch television for a little while and listen to the discussion on today's budget announcements.  That should cheer me up.

SCENTS AND SENSIBILITY

I have blogged before about the problems of my garden being considered a public convenience by most of the local animal population.  We have found the best solution is a product called Dog Off , which I call 'Fox Off', for the obvious humour value and for the reason that we actually want to repel foxes not dogs), which has a strong perfume that apparently confuses animals that rely on scent marking.  It seems to work on cats too.  But the last bottle bought had a 'new aroma' which turned out to be garlic, making our backyard smell like an Italian restaurant rather than a rose garden.  Not such a happy solution to the problem. Still, the other product that works quite well on the lawn is pepper, which actually goes quite well with the restaurant theme.

The problem though with these products is that they don't easily survive the present run of wet weather (the wettest June this century).  So we have supplemented olfactory deterrents with aural ones - PIRs with a high pitched sound emission.  I think the combination has been successful.  No evidence of animals for a while anyway.

This morning when I left home however, there was a dead fox on my doorstep.  My first thought naturally was that I have been targetted by a gypsy for some reason.  Can this be a warning to other travellers that I'm unlikely to give them 20p, even for a cup of tea?  Or a sign that I never  seem to want my kitchen knives sharpening?  Or maybe it was a death threat?  Or maybe it suffered from a garlic or pepper allergy.  But then the next thought was what do I do about it?  Fur collars and stuffed animals are not so much in vogue these days and there wasn't much meat on it.

But it was later that the paradox struck me.  I will spray my garden with Fox Off and chase away any varmints I see out there, but, when it comes to disposing of a body, my humane human instincts kicked in and I debated with myself where and how to bury it decently.

I had the same thoughts last night as it happened.  We had been out in the garden for much of the day with the house door open and the living room had filled with flies.  Normally I would swat them with a folded copy of Bikini Monthly, but there were so many of them that my stomach reacted to the thought of disposing of all the corpses and so I chased them back out the door instead.  Having done so, I did think it was perhaps an odd solution.  Maybe I should have just got out the Bug Off spray?

The same thoughts arose when I went to bed.  There, sitting on the bedside lamp, was the most enormous insect I have seen for a long time .  It was either a hornet or a queen bee, not too sure which.  I thought how fortunate it was that it had settled on the lamp and not the pillow where I might not have seen it until too late.  On the other hand, maybe it was the lamp that attracted it into the house in the first place.  Anyway, I found a tumbler large enough to hold it and a large card and carried it to the back door for release.  For some reason or other, it promptly flew back into the house.  Maybe it was in defence or attack mode.  Luckily it settled on the wall and I trapped it again and successfully liberated it.  How strange I thought though that my own defence or attack mode didn't activate and lead me to simply swat it.

Of course, like most of you no doubt, I am always carrying spiders safely outside in tumblers.  But I wonder where we normally draw the line.  I was reading an article in Cowgirl magazine recently about Clint Eastwood at home.  It caught my eye because I am often mistaken for Clint (a serendipity he has never used to his advantage incidentally).  But he apparently always rescues insects from the house and carries them outside.  Any insect, however small, which I thought at the time rather over the top.  But perhaps I tend to the same practice.

On the radio the other day, on the other hand, I listened to people ringing in with tips for disposing of slugs humanely.  Apparently, pouring salt on them works spectacularly, but is very painful.  Personally, I'm not sure I'm much bothered by the pain of slugs, but then I do leave out beer which they like so much that they drink themselves to death.  Perhaps that meets my humane side better than salting them.  There is something kind I suppose about giving unwanted pests what they desire and killing them with kindness.

Apparently foxes think of the houses/gardens they inhabit as home and, when injured, or otherwise dying, they make there way back before finally expiring.  That's probably what had happened in my poor creature's case, since it had no obvious injury.  Anyway, the balance of opinion was that the best way to dispose of it was to leave it in a woodland, so I took it into the copse where I think the rest of its skulk live, on the assumption that they might like to know what had happened to it and where Nature will hopefully take care of it.  If I now get murdered by didicoys, you'll know I misinterpreted the semiosis.

Tags: garden, signs, animals, haslemere