Spare a thought for this old, lone Olive tree this Christmas - uprooted from it's native (Holy?) land and forced to share it's box with some other foreign flora, it has spent the last couple of years in a shady spot in the yard of a cold, northern restaurant; lost all it's foliage when the restaurant went bankrupt and nobody thought to water it all summer; was pulled back from the brink by the new owners, and is now doubling-up as a Christmas tree which will have to survive months of another sub-zero winter in the hopes that the new establishment makes enough money to keep it watered. I suppose that's better than being deliberately burnt by Israeli settlers, after a fruitful life of 200 years.
Someone told me of this chant by some moderate demonstrators:
ReplyDelete"WHAT DO WE WANT?"
"GRADUAL CHANGE!"
"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"
"IN DUE COURSE!"
Meanwhile, once productive hillsides in Italy Greece, and elsewhere, are denuded of their olive trees. It wouldn't be so bad if they would acclimatise to life in Cleethorpes or Barnsley... but they don't!
ReplyDeleteand I THOUGHT IT WAS A POST ABOUT Anna Karen from ON THE BUSES
ReplyDeleteThe tree is lovely. I hope that both the tree and restaurant make it.
ReplyDeletePoor bugger olive.
ReplyDeleteWe've planted some out at my gold country block and they are going gangbusters, in fact, so well that we worry they will turn feral.
Your story reminds me of when my son and his dad brought a thorny devil back from the desert to our southern winter. His skin peeled and he turned a horrible colour. I gave him to a ranger who arranged to helicopter the humble lizard back to his home. My son was so cranky with me! But it was a good lesson for him: it is a silly idea to appropriate things that don't belong in your own country.
A Thorny Devil? Sounds inviting.
ReplyDeleteAnna Karenina in 'on The Buses'? What will they think of next.
The restaurant is a crap chain, Starting - 'Cote' - I hope they go under.
I think olives get cold and survive, Cro - just so long as someone gives them a bit of water every now and then.