Wednesday 3 September 2014

Season of Mists... oh, never mind


Bags I the first 'Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness' post.

Well it certainly is fruitful. The tree at the bottom of the road where I park my car is laden with little, sourish plums, and the left-wing looney woman who normally guards it with a gun (she used to work for Ken Livingstone) has even begged me to pick as many of them as I can to relieve the weight on the straining boughs.

All that rain followed by all that sun has covered the trees and bushes with fruit, and it won't be long before my first mushroom foray. I picked up a small handful of imported Ceps when in London, and they tasted almost as good as the ones you find yourself. I'm glad about that, because four of them cost me £4.75.

We are sliding into the almost perfect Autumn, and a thin mist hangs over the hills around Bath, promising some bright sunshine in the hours to come. Pretty soon it will be time for the first 'Winter of Discontent' post, followed quickly by the first person to crack under the strain and mention Christmas. Oops - I just have.

To live in the moment and savour it, it is best to look forward future moments and try to ignore some aspects of the impinging present.

For instance, I am well aware of the meeting in a huge Welsh hotel not far from here, where a load of NATO big-wigs are discussing the best way of starting WW3 in Europe by getting involved in a Cold-War style stand-off between Putin and themselves, and accusing Obama of being a lilly-livered, hesitant procrastinator who is scared of pressing the button. Fucking hell - for once, George Galloway has a valid point.

I am also aware that the South London rapper with the 8 inch knife has taken the head off another American, and is just about to do the same to a Brit, if he hasn't done so already. The notion that he decapitated all three at the same time and is just releasing the videos one by one, is a good one if you want to justify not paying a ransom on the grounds that there would be no returns on it. In any event, if he really did want money, then he would have asked for a more reasonable £1 million, not the 80 that he is supposed to have demanded.

The bloke on the supermarket roof with the Harris Hawk seems to have lost track of the seasons as well. He is up there as I write this, pretending to scare the Gulls, but the Gulls are taking no notice of Harry the Hawk (who is even less hawkish than Barak Obama) at all, for the simple reason that most of them are out in the countryside, picking up worms behind the ploughs that are ripping up the remaining 10% of wild-flower meadows which are being destroyed before the EU can legislate to protect them.

The farmers heard a rumour that Britain's scarce (90% have been lost since 1945) flower-meadows were about to be protected, you see, so they thought they would make the first move. These are the 'custodians' of the English countryside. Yeah, right.

Harry the Hawk is supposed to stop the Gulls from nesting on the rooftops (but doesn't) so what he is doing up there in September is a mystery.

I guess that he has a contract that runs the whole year - signed by gullible townies from the supermarket  - so goes up to fulfil his duties to the letter. Well, it pays for his keep, I suppose.

18 comments:

  1. Before I puke over the computer in the library about all this fucking autumn mist stuff thanks for last night. (That should bring on a few palpitations amongst your readership).

    And as an erstwhile farmer I would just like to say that we do look after the countryside for you,. we have stewardship schemes and you are paying us for it via Brussels . In fact this morning through the mist I saw a few weeds around a wheat field planted to get this very subsidy and a bird run over by the combine harvester gently laid in it.

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    1. As a newcomer to this rarified world, you will not be aware that I single-handedly stopped everyone from posting Autumn blogs with that title. Before I arrived, it was wall-to-wall cliche.

      Yes, I am sure you make the most of the grants, no matter what they ask you to do. The generous allowance of six square feet in the middle of a wheat field for Skylarks must net about £4000 per year.

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    2. I have been blogging for 5 years and have never mentioned Autumn in a blog. It just isn't my style.

      The grants we got were vital to us to stay afloat.

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    3. Now that I can see HI on the computer as opposed to an oblique miniature on the phone she looks pretty cool if not a bit formidable. Please say hi to her from me.

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    4. Re the grants, it is a battle between industrial farmers, smallholders and the supermarkets. They are all being told that the supply for food worldwide is about to be outstripped by demand, but when they say 'food', what they really mean is cheap meat. Simples.

      I actually heard a 'green' woman on Farming Today this morning (at about 5.00 am) say to us that we can eat as much chicken as we like, but we should cut down on the beef. It is all such utter bollocks - or bullocks.

      Re H.I., I am not passing on any messages from you to her. Why would you want to say 'Hi' to her anyway? (I told you I was going to be nice from now on, and you told me you liked me just the way I was. You told me I should keep Heron as well).

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    5. Oh, and Re Autumn, I once heard a hospital doctor say that he knew Spring had arrived when the sputum became clearer.

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    6. I don't know why. She looks so bloody scary.

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    7. And I already admitted I was wrong about Heron so don't keep harping on about him. Anyway I think it is quite funny now that he sent me the Je t'aime email.

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  2. Hi-Viz jacket and Aussie Hat are, I presume, official wear for such folk. Does he sit up there in the rain?

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    1. If he didn't have the HI-Viz, he might get hit by a plane.

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  3. But, wait. What is your solution to world chaos. We've had Cro's; we need to weigh and decide.

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    1. Let the Russians keep Ukraine. If it involves the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, then this might be better than the deaths of millions due to another world war.

      As far as ISIS are concerned, they all need to be killed very quickly and very efficiently, preferably by the strongest armies in the world.

      Call me pragmatic if you like, but I am not sure we have the money to tell Russia what or what not to do.

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  4. Wild flower meadows? We still have quite a few round here in the Dales, but then we are a predominantly grass area and such meadows do attract tourists. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but isn't it all to do with money?

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    1. Yes, I believe it is, Weave. You probably have the surviving 10% - at the moment.

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  5. Please Tom will you pop over to my post today and leave an opinion - you will know why I have asked when you read it.

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    1. I just did. I'm very generous with my opinions.

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  6. I've just painted my nails with Estee Lauder's new season colour (color), Purple Passion, after a massive row with Mr EM. He says it looks like arterial red.

    Oops, sorry, did you say something , Tom?

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    1. That's a crime of passion then. You carry on, Elegance.

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