Some days are cold
The sparrows won’t feed
The smoke lies in flat Sunday lines
Then there is good news :
a friend will be vaccinated in two weeks time.
It can stay grey, the sparrows can hide in the leaves for just a little longer
The sun will return!
Today is effectively the first day of my retirement and I celebrated it by making this cut out squirrel from the back page of the LPO ( the French Bird and wildlife protection organisation) magazine.
It is silly, flimsy, unplanned and potentially metaphorical . Outside is a hard frost and bright sunshine in a cold blue sky.
The squirrel is profoundly impressed!
Covid is raging across the world and life can seem to have shrunk to a penny piece, but there is still wonderful good news to hold onto.
Here on one of the busiest and most polluted rivers in the world , ospreys are returning to breed. A huge international rewilding project is returning a little bit of the river Rhine to its natural state and wildlife is moving straight back in to rebalance the world.
At the other end of our astonishing planet blue whales, which were nearly hunted to extinction, are reappearing again after hunting was outlawed.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/19/blue-whale-sightings
Good people who shout loud enough and who care, can make a difference. Wildlife just needs a hand and it will come back: things can get better for us all!
I have been keeping a close eye on the research about the usefulness of face masks to protect us from Covid infection. Unfortunately the cloth masks we have made, are not very effective at filtering out the virus . Disposable masks with pinch-able nose bridges are much better, but it seems terrible to use something once and then throw it away and it goes against all my green principles!
By mistake I have often machine washed a disposable mask that has been left in the pocket of clothes. I have been surprised by how the process has not harmed it all and how fresh and intact it was after a long wash. I was delighted therefore to read that studies have shown that a disposable mask can be machine washed, tumble dried and even ironed 10 times before its filtration of covid virus is impaired.
This is really good news to keep more of us safer and doing less harm to the environment while we wait for the vaccine to restore normal ( what ever that is! ) life!!
Disposable masks can be reused 10 times says French group
— Read on www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Disposable-masks-can-be-reused-and-washed-up-to-10-times-says-French-group-UFC-Que-Choisir
Today sounds of robins, their rich round burble of music rolls from the hedge and is answered in kind by their mate hidden in the tall tree . Robin song always sounds like Britain and is a relaxing link with home. Here in France they are much rarer in gardens and I can go a whole year without seeing one in the garden. They remind me of my garden in Wales, which was a damp suburban slice in the shade of a magnificent oak tree.
We loved the tree as soon as we saw it and owning the tree was as exciting as owning the little bungalow that sheltered under its bows .
The oak was pollarded periodically and then we left it to go and see the world and the bungalow and guardian oak was rented out to a long succession of tenants.
At the very end of this summer, when the tree was thick with green leaves there was a huge storm and the wonderful tree was uprooted. It walked like an ent from Tolkein across the lawn and it threw itself onto the little bungalow and crushed it utterly .
The house in boarded up now and there is a temporary roof on. It will be rebuilt, we had insurance, the tenant is OK and rehoused, but the oak is gone forever. It was all very shocking.
When the tree was still lying across the house it appeared as if the foliage had simply finally engulfed the upstart house, but when it was sawn up and hauled away by a crane, the full extent of the devastation was apparent.
This was the house we (and the bank) bought when we were first married and we always considered that it was the home we could return to when our wandering was over.
Brexit, Covid and a huge storm has made even knowing where home is anymore , more more difficult .
So when I hear the robins sing I think of our lost oak tree and hope it set plenty of acorns in the hedge for when and if, we ever go home.
November in the northern hemisphere is well known for its lack of light and hope.
The last remnants of autumn flowers are defeated by rain and wind and the firework of turning leaves are swirled into the mud.
But robins still sing round bubbles of song and siskins jangle their pocketfuls of keys over the grey sky.
A skein of cormorants is waylaid by the low fog, but still pushes on through and from a wet apple tree, a dozen red kites lift off at midday to catch the upward air.
Their wings are sharp against the gloom and their sissor tails cut out a wedge of grey sky as they wheel slowly, magnificently upwards .
November
by
Thomas Hood
No sun — no moon!
No morn — no noon —
No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member —
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —
November!
Cathy's real country garden 
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