Spring has sprung, the grass has rizz

The birds in my garden are now mostly fledged and the young starlings haggle and scrap over the suet balls like politicians at Prime Minister’s Questions.

The beautiful, aromatic, insect-laden cow parsley has shed its blossom in Lobb’s Wood and has given way to pink wild flowers and golden buttercups.

It was, like life, a fleeting thing, but it will come around again in a happier time when, hopefully, we will have learned a little of the very real need to protect our environment.

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I seldom if ever engage myself in local or national politics.

Like so many people, I have little respect left for politicians in general and those I do support, I do it in the full awareness of their efforts in our community and not for the colour of their rosettes.

By all accounts, both in the local press and on social media, the recent meeting of the ADC was a bickering shambles beautifully summed up by Karen Dunn, this paper’s local democracy reporter, in a simple phrase: indicating some councillors were ‘unable to agree on the colour of grass’!

I simply wish they would bury their egos for a while and do what is best for this battered, divided country, our ailing town and county, and get on with the job, leave the squabbling for another time if they feel so inclined.

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THE local MP for Arundel and South Downs Andrew Griffith commented, following the car crash of an interview given by Mr Cummings, that the Domgate affair was over and we, the media, ‘should crawl back under rocks’!

Well, it may be dark and out of the sunshine but we keep some very outstanding and fine company down there and I doubt that his comment will give the media cause for concern and it will press on, certainly I cannot accept that the past 40 years of my life have gone down the Swannee and into the darkness!

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I AM really enjoying a relaxed Springwatch on BBC Two.

It is a very different format this year but, I think, the better for it.

No frills, good humoured and informative to be enjoyed by all.

A variety of interesting subjects examined at some length.

The beaver project is a real success story and it is difficult to understand why Scottish Natural Heritage agreed to the shooting of 87 beavers.

Why not simply relocate them?

Scotland appears, at present, to be the epicentre of wildlife slaughter, from birds of prey to ravens.

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NOW that lockdown has eased and you are able to get out and about more do remember to start picking up your weekly Gazette again.

There is plenty going on around here that you need to read about!

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