The world from my window

 Up on the hill on Valentine's Day, the sun is breaking through the mist. It's magical up here at this time of the morning. The dog's done her business (carefully picked up and bagged to drop off later) and she's now off snuffling around for deer and rabbits. Grey squirrels scuttle through the top branches of the beech trees, like flying foxes in a David Attenborough wildlife programme. A few weeks ago, there were mystery huntsmen up here on a Sunday morning, shooting in trees at the squirrels which, in many rural quarters , are considered fluffy-tailed vermin, having invaded our land and practically wiped out their protected Squirrel Nutkin red cousins. It's not illegal to kill them but only if it's done humanely, and you have to have the landowner's permission to shoot on their land. The guns' activity spooked the dog, who ran off to find out what was going on. She came back later and I found out that a fellow dog walker from the vill...

And now the decorations are down, the Christmas tree over the pub door that some woman thought looked like a willy has been dismantled and the discarded trunk and branches of someone else's tree lies on the pavement. It is such an undignified ending for such a previously lauded bit of nature, which stood in the corner of people's front rooms or kitchens and was, for a brief moment in time, more important than the telly. But that's how Christmas is. Once it's over, we're itching to move onwards and upwards, at least I am, grasping at the year ahead like a Chance Card in Monopoly. It's hard writing a blog like this when the madness of the real world shouts loudly all around us. Our own petty problems or comic moments in Lush Places pale into insignificance sometimes. But life goes on, all over the world, and we just have to work hard to get on with it as best we can. And, for those of us who have life and good health, it's our duty to do so. Mustn...