Chug chug chug....

I should be complaining that I haven't seen the sun for a couple of weeks. The mountains here abouts have been shrouded in a murky, damp and definitely not dusky goo that resembles mist but feels more like a cold bed after the remains of a torrid affair. Miserable in fact. Still, I'm not one to let a little SAD get in the way of a good moan. What is depressing about winter is not the cold and damp but tis the things that folk do to relieve the monotony of those long nights and short grey days. Firstly, there is "la chasse". At a time when most furry things can think of nothing better to do than curl up and stick their furry noses up their furry butts and sleep, they are pursued across hill and dale by a slathering pack of hounds and short fat gun weilding green men. Boars have the same ill fate except that they are pursued relentlessly by the aforementioned who this time have to wear fluo-orange over their camoflage so that they do not inadvertently, or otherwise, shoot each other. This is the sort of contradiction that highlights our (including youse and me) attitude to Nature.

Winter is also the time of year when hedgecutters have their rutting season and destroy what ol' Mother Nature has spent the past year or so in cultivating. Ironic that boars are viscously (this should be viciously but running through syrup gives in a more nightmarish quality!) pursued because they cause "so much destruction" to the poor farmers' crops and yet come November hordes of mechanical flails are out and about "cleaning" our hedgerows. Now, I am not that old - just miserable - but one only has to live in the country long enough to see how it is not only slowly being consumed but literally torn apart...

Perhaps, time will tell. Eventually, Nature will reclaim her own in spite of the monumental stupidity of the featherless biped. We, unfortunately, will not be around to witness this resurrection - we will be long gone having sat and watched whilst our fellow "stewards" of the land tear it apart, flatten it out and generally make a mess. An eyesore for us but a catastrophe for our lamblike offspring.