You can't keep a good tree down

April was such a great month. Not only did we get an extended holiday because of Good Friday and Easter Monday/Tuesday, but these were followed by the royal wedding and the normal Spring bank holiday.

Like many people, we too the 2 extra days and made a lengthy break. With nowhere to fly off to and no major events to organise (e.g. Christmas), this was a really restful period; maybe good practice for retirement. We went to watch cricket (in the sun!), spent time getting the garden into shape and generally enjoyed ourselves.

Meanwhile, the village is looking forward to Summer - everywhere is greening up and blossom covers the hedgerows.

The vandalised elms have sprouted again - you can't keep a good tree down. My neighbour says they will never grow into proper trees but I wonder whether, if we take off all the shoots but one and create a single leader, we might get a result.

All the rest of the elms are burgeoning and will look magnificent in a few years time.

Across the road, the guy who broke into our house and disturbed Marea has set up a sort of playground for his children and they light bonfires on warm nights. Still, they haven't bothered us yet.

My favourite plant, cow parsley, (keck) is out everywhere and is at its best at this early stage.

It has a smell that brings back Summer every year. Marea and I both love this plant so much that I actually bought her a gold and silver brooch representing cow parsley for Christmas from Paula Bolton Jewellery http://www.paulabolton.net/acatalog/Hedgerow.html.

I've bought Marea lots of Paula Bolton jewellery in the past. She's a favourite designer.

The dandelions have all gone over but, from the look of this, we won't have to worry about not having any next year.

Sumer is icumen in;
Lhude sing cuccu!
 
http://www.pteratunes.org.uk/Music/Music/Lyrics/summerisicumenin.html

Things that make me angry or make me smile

If you've read this blog in the past, you'll know about Sutton's elms. http://www.livingvillage.blogspot.com/search/label/Elms Sutton in the Elms has its name because of the elm trees under which, in 1650,  the Baptists from nearby villages assembled secretly to worship. Elm trees have, in recent years, been subject to the depredations of the Elm Bark Beetle and the fatal fungus it spreads so that the Elms of Sutton in the Elms are long gone.

Last October, the village got together to plant new elm trees through the village and, over the hot Summer of 2010, they watered them and cared for them.

A few weeks ago, someone tore down one of the elms in the outskirts of the village. It has been put back together and its trunk bound theough it seems unlikely to survive. If that weren't bad enough, the final, symbolic tree was broken and cast down in the early hours of a morning this week.

Other things were part of the vandalism, an old lady's bins were removed and dumped on the main road - perhaps not a great crime, but very difficult for someone old and frail. The notices asking people not to park their care where bulbs had been planted were also pulled up and thrown about.

I know I'm getting old and crabby (as opposed to young and crabby) but what makes me angry is the sheer pettiness, the blind destructiveness of destroying something that gives people pleasure and into which they have put a fair bit of hard work. It's as if the vandals are saying,"No matter what you do to make life better for everyone, we can still bring you down to our twisted level". "What we want is for you to have lives as stripped of light and joy as our own". It's the simple banality of that point of view that angers me. Instead of doing what they can to improve people's (including their own) lives, they simply destroy.

I'm also made angry by the fact that this happened at 5.10 in the morning. This wasn't some drunken spree after the pubs close, it was a calculated piece of contempt. Of course, the most depressing thing of all is the fact that the Police attended and gave pursuit but lost the culprits. This is a village! What's wrong with them? Don't they have radios, cars, even a helicopter which seems to hover frequently overhead. I almost despair that they are capable of any real action.

So, it's time to write a bit about what makes me happy: living in a beautiful part of the countryside, the passing of the seasons, snow, frost and startling sunshine. I'm easily pleased.
 

Some of the elms survive and people are keeping a watch on them

Startling sunshine  - a village dawn



That's Sutton in the ELMS, you know

Back to the blog after a few weeks of other vacation, etc.

So... I went out to check on the chestnut question again, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

Sure enough, all the nuts had been shed, the tree was bare of fruit and, for the second year, there was no chestnut crop. The lovely warm, gentle Autumn came too late to overcome another cold, wet Summer.

As the clouds gathered, I made my way back towards home with Molly, the Spaniel.

A few days earlier, there had been a number of stakes hammered in along the grass verges. In this village, people are rather suspicious of things like that; we're always a bit concerned about unwanted development. While being ignored can, and does, have its compensations, it can also mean not having a say in planning matters. Imagine our pleasure when we discovered that the Elm trees which give Sutton in the Elms its name and which were all lost to Dutch Elm Disease, were about to be replaced.

The work has gone ahead and 14 trees have been planted with the 15th being planted ceremoniously this Saturday in the grounds of the Victorian Baptist Chapel.

The non-conformist history of the village is tied up with the elm trees, not just in the name, but because in 1650 the Baptists from nearby villages met secretly, in fear of persecution because of their non-conformity, in the shadow of the elms at Sutton, forming the Baptist Chapel - the oldest in Leicestershire and the mother of subsequent Chapels in Leicester and elsewhere.

The Quakers also began in Sutton in the Elms. George Fox, founder of the Quakers, addressed his first open air meeting outside the 'steeple house' in 1647 and the Quaker Cottage at Sutton stands today.

http://livingvillage.blogspot.com/2009/01/non-conformism-and-bad-puns.html