The essential nature of Nature

This year more than any other (perhaps because my life is generally so brilliant and balanced these days) I've found myself afflicted by Hibernatyitis. (Another possible reason is the replacement of one -itis by another: my severe bout of Londonitis seems to be well and truly over and lifted at the beginning of this year, rather suddenly.) Thankfully, life has been such that my Hibernatyitis hasn't been too torturous (I just find myself more inclined to curl up in a small ball and sleep) but I have been missing daylight so much. Walking to work means that for the majority of the year I get at least 30 minutes of daylight exposure, and in the summer often more when I loiter on the beach on my way home. But for a good while I've been lucky to see much daylight either side of being in work. Which just isn't a good thing.

Wednesday saw me go and administer an hour of daylight in the middle of the day (I hear some people call this a lunch hour...) but TODAY I got to get my favourite dosing of daylight - up on the hills, with a pair of loppers and a pruning saw in my hand. And the obligatory rain and hale showers here and there. Of course.

It wasn't a particularly strenuous day but I like to hope one of today's activities in particular will have made my Da proud: Beasting Elders. We have a long family tradition of attacking these poor, unsuspecting trees (in fairness, they generally get replaced with other native trees but I recognise how weird this family trait - one I absolutely share - may seem, particularly for a card carrying tree hugger). My beasting was of the mild variety (severe lopping rather than complete removal) and was inspired by the fact that another bundle of elders in the same location had been lopped last year and produced many more flowers and fruit. The whole business of pruning is an interesting one and although a brief visit, my time today in this local forest garden added yet more food for thought to my plottings of "Tigger's Idyll".

It also added comfrey to a couple of works' borders (removed with permission, I hasten to add!) Comfrey very much seems to be a double edged sword in permaculture applications, being a great nutrient accumulator, ground cover and voracious grower...but also being a voracious spreader. It's fairly contained in its new locations and (the theory goes) will help "feed" the fruit bushes it's planted alongside but at the moment its all very experimental. The process of devouring a great book on perennial vegetables with a view to choosing different plants for different locations (work may not have a lot of space, but being on various sides of a building it certainly has lots of rather distinct microclimates!) is continuing and I may even get around to hunting seeds and possibly small plants by the end of the weekend. With such a blank canvas ahead of me, anything could happen.

But best of all, I can feel the Hibernatyitis lifting as the days lengthen. Huzzah! That's not to say I won't still take the option of curling up with a duvet when the mood takes me - simply that I'll do it entirely through choice rather than by any midwinter affliction.