Life must be filled up

When the gardener cut the grass last week, he told me there was ‘a nasty wasps’ nest’ in the grass near the bins. When I went out to look, I found quite a big hole in the ground. I was surprised because I’d previously only seen the beautiful but menacing woven nests. This morning, the pest control man came to investigate. I saw him outside in full white bee keeper’s gear and was just about to take his photo for your delight when he disappeared again. What he told me was rather alarming. He says that a wasps’ nest in the ground usually has a tiny entrance. This big hole suggests to him that a badger has been trying to dig it out. Apparently, the deluded creatures think they will find honey there. Wasps are bad enough (please don’t tell me they’re a good thing because I don’t want to get stung every time I go out to the bins) but a badger? They can do an enormous amount of damage in the garden. Luckily, I’m told that they roam about a lot so they may not decide to come and live here. I’ve certainly never seen a badger in the garden and I wouldn’t want to, unless I was sure it was going away again very soon.

Yesterday evening, when drawing the curtains, I saw a distinct rabbit shape in the garden. It looked black. Reversing the curtain drawing this morning, I saw the rabbit again and it really is black. huskyteer tells me black rabbits are melanistic and do exist in the wild. I’ve certainly never seen one before and find it rather creepy.

Sissinghurst. An Unfinished History, Adam Nicolson 2008
My Garden World, Monty Don 2020

Adam Nicolson and Monty Don are almost exact contemporaries (Nicolson describes Don as a friend since university days) and they have a lot in common. Both are keen on the environment and on sustainability. Both have fond memories of the countryside of their childhoods, which has vanished. The difference is that Monty Don lives in a house (or two) which he bought, whereas Nicolson inherited Sissinghurst. Well, sort of. The National Trust began as an idealistic venture to preserve the countryside for the whole nation. Increasingly, and especially after the Second World War, owners of grand houses were persuaded (usually by snobby old James Lees-Milne) to give their inheritance to the Trust. Not only did they thus save millions in inheritance tax but as ‘donor families’, they were allowed to live in their ancestral homes. This has always seemed to me a strange anomaly. What happens when, as described in this book, the donor doesn’t like the way the Trust administers things?

Sissinghurst has only been in the Nicolson family for eighty years, so hardly counts as ancestral in the way that Knole would, had Vita Sackville West been able to inherit it. The first part of Adam Nicolson’s book is a lyrical and beautiful description of his childhood exploring the Kentish countryside around Sissinghurst, with small farms, hop harvests and great characters. When he moves on to a detailed history of Sissinghurst he is less successful, in my view, because some of his ‘history’ seems to me to be purely speculative. Nicolson’s father, Nigel, adored Sissinghurst and when he died, Adam continued the tradition. But he was dissatisfied. Where was the holistic (as he saw it) use of the countryside? The connection of the house to the land? He wanted to reintroduce farming and to grow organic vegetables to feed the hordes of visitors. This set the cat amongst the pigeons all right. I did see some of the television programme about this and I could see how he and his wife Sarah Raven might get up the noses of people who’d been (as they saw it, successfully) doing things a certain way for years.

At one of the many meetings, Simon Jenkins, then Chairman of the Trust, said, ‘Adam has an agrarian vision, wants to return Sissinghurst to the conditions of his childhood in the 1960s. Why should the National Trust do that? Other people, who work there are just as attached to the highly successful Sissinghurst of the 1980s or the 1990s. Why should Adam’s vision of a dream world have priority over any other? Why is his childhood important?’
Harsh but fair, I think, although I was shocked, reading the book, by just how rude some people were to the Nicolsons. The battle has been partly won and vegetables are grown for the restaurant. It remains to be seen how many more battles Adam Nicolson will win and what his son will do when his turn comes.

By the way, I have never visited Sissinghurst and I don’t want to because the garden is too perfect. The only place for a perfect garden is at the Chelsea Flower Show, in my opinion. I’d much rather visit a garden featured in the Yellow Book, worked in by its owners. I wouldn’t mind the weeds.
( Monty Don )

A few days ago, I was picking up wood blown down by Storm Brendan onto what passes for the front lawn. I was revolted to find that a fox had made several large and disgusting dumps in various places. The poor thing must have eaten something which disagreed with it. I carefully avoided these messes and carried on clearing up.

Yesterday, arriving back home in the car, I noticed something odd about the grass. It appeared to be covered in brown cones, some quite large. On closer investigation, I found that each of these cones of soil was covering one of the fox messes. The soil had that fine, sieved look about it that you get when ants have been busy. My first thought was molehills but I’ve never been troubled by moles before and why would they throw up soil just in those places?

So, here is my mystery. What creature would feel obliged to ‘tidy’ the garden for me and why was there no scratching or digging around these volcano-like heaps to suggest where the soil had come from? I’ve been gardening for years and have never seen anything like this. All suggestions welcome. Moles do seem the most likely culprits.

It’s rather grey and miserable today but the garden, about a month behind, is catching up.


Roses and clematis on gable end of house.
( more pics )

I could hardly believe my eyes this morning when I drew the bathroom curtains and saw a cock pheasant sitting quite high up in the hazel tree that is part of the hedge. I’ve never seen such a thing before and believe it is uncharacteristic behaviour. The next time I looked, he was rootling around on the ground as is more usual. No pic as it wasn’t full daylight. Still isn’t, come to that.

I was complaining recently about the big, fierce birds eating all the food I put out. Today, a robin was feeding the whole time I was enjoying a cup of coffee. Yes, I know he's almost invisible but it's proof.

I’m not a believer in spoiling wild birds. They’re wild! Let them build their own nests and find their own food. But it is nice actually to see the garden birds rather than just know they’re there, so I have a feeder hanging conveniently from a tree branch, just where I can see it whenever I’m eating. When I put out those suet chunks impregnated with bird goodies and which you can buy so cheaply at the market, I had happy visions of flocks of tiny birds clinging daintily to the bars of the feeder, pecking away. Alas, there are too many big birds around. The cunning rooks (or crows, which?), baffled at first, found a way to get at the food. They would fly repeatedly at the feeder, stabbing their evil great beaks through the bars until, eventually, the suet bars crumbled and they were able to eat what fell to the ground. The Messerschmitts of the bird world.

The feeder currently (this is a joke, see later) contains lumps of a courgette loaf which turned out a disaster. As it included vegetables, nuts and dried fruit (geddit?) I thought the birds would like it. At first there were no takers and it seemed the loaf was so horrible not even the birds would eat it. Then it started to disappear. The crows (or rooks) are cleverer than ever; they’ve learned to cling to the sides of the feeder to get what they want. They are so monstrous (if they’re crows), that the feeder sways dangerously and twig, food and bird seem about to tumble to the ground. I hope it won’t happen as I’ve run out of handy twigs to hang things from. I thought magpies were supposed to be intelligent birds, yet every day I see one (I assume it’s the same dimwit) trying to get at the food and doomed to failure. It attempts vertical take off from the grass, flutters frantically just far enough to almost reach the tantalising treat, then collapses back on the grass. This goes on until the poor creature is tired out. Will it find a way?

Picture here if I manage to take one.

A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain.

Isn’t this a lovely cover? There’s a charming line drawing for each chapter, too. A very nicely produced book. This is not nature writing as we might think of it (probably a blessing from my POV), more of a journalistic investigation into these beautiful and fascinating creatures.

Tod, Reynard, Charlie. The names given to the fox reveal a relationship between man and fox which is like no other. For me, the most interesting sections of the book are those dealing with the mythology of foxes, going back before the ancient Greeks, and the history of the changing relationship between man and fox. In recent times (by which I mean over hundreds of years) the change has been the result of the loss of all other large predators except the badger. This puts the fox in a unique position. Pretty well omnivorous and always opportunistic, foxes have now moved into our towns and cities, delighting some and alarming others. I was particularly interested to read that both physiologically and in their hunting methods, foxes have more in common with cats than with dogs.

The hardest chapter to read was ‘Friends and Foes’, which deals with the hunting issue. This is a subject on which it is impossible to be neutral and which I shall keep quiet about. Lucy Jones is very fair, interviewing people from both sides of the debate (or war, as it is for some of them) but it’s pretty clear where her sympathies lie. It’s really extraordinary how much opinion is divided on foxes, hence the ‘love and loathing’ of the title. Some opine that ‘we’ dislike them because we can’t control what is wild. Our beautiful landscape has evolved through being managed. Should this apply to wildlife as well? Where I live, people were pleased by the increasing numbers of otters in the river. ‘Isn’t it lovely to see the otters?’ they said. Then it was noticed that all the moorhens had disappeared. This was not a coincidence. When rats began running boldly around the river bank near the supermarket (I saw one myself not a foot away from me), action was taken immediately. But otters are prettier. Our relationship with wild animals is complicated.

This is a thoroughly researched book and a thought provoking one. I was sent a copy by Elliott and Thompson.

The contributors selected for this book are a mixture of the well-known, like Gilbert White and Edward Thomas and ‘fresh new voices’ from the present day (2016) submitting nature reports. You can spot the difference. Those writing in the past may have been awed by or just curious about the natural world but they took it for granted. Today there’s always a hint of ‘we may lose this if we do nothing about it’. Hence the association with The Wildlife Trusts.

Why do people writing about nature slip so easily into ‘Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.’ mode? How about this: ‘Refulgent fall the golden rays of the sun’ etc. That’s Richard Jefferies. One extract I found quite unreadable turned out to be by D H Lawrence, which explained a lot.

Because the book covers the whole of the British Isles and many different habitats, it has something of the reassuring comfort of the Shipping Forecast about it. The sun will rise every morning. Spring will follow Winter. It may be cold or mild, wet or dry but the earth is renewing itself with signs of new life all around for those who look for them. This is the perfect bedside book.

BTW Gilbert White frequently mentions the habits of his tortoise, Timothy. This gives me the chance to recommend a charming book: The Portrait of a Tortoise, edited by Sylvia Townsend Warner from Gilbert White’s notes. I was given this as a present years ago and it’s a delight.

Three more books are planned and contributions are welcomed for the Autumn and Winter volumes. Have a go? It will be a lovely set when complete. Many thanks to Elliott and Thompson for sending me a copy of the book to read.



Aren’t they pretty?