No More Bugs?
The Lurgy, More Rejections and Where's The Bloody Stapler?!
Where Have All The Butterflies Gone?
I am privileged to live on the edge of Epping Forest in the UK. The forest is home to hundreds of thousands of animals, birds and insects that share an uneasy coexistence with the nearly 10 million visitors to this oasis of 8,000 acres every year. This year I have noticed a big drop in the number of butterflies I would normally see in the summer when out walking my dogs every day. Several experts have said that it is because of our very wet spring and a late start to the summer sun, others have said it’s climate change and yet others have said that this is normal as butterfly numbers go up and down every year. What is undeniably evident is that there is a large decline in the general insect population, regardless. 20 years ago my 6.5 hour journey by car to Cornwall would require me to stop and clear the windshield and number plate of insect collisions at least once, now I can drive 4 hours to Devon and there would not be one single bug splat - not one. I believe that the dramatic decline in the insect population and the bee population is down to the combination of farming practices and the use of insecticides.
However, this morning when I was out with the hounds I was gladdened to see a couple of Peacock butterflies dancing around each other through the bracken and then this afternoon I managed to espy a few Small Whites. What was even better were just how many dragonflies were zooming about. The long hot spell was been broken recently by a couple of showers, just wet enough to bring out the flying ants, the insect equivalent of a buffet for our majestic dragonflies. Our kid’s holiday club at the new school has a very sizeable piece of green land that is chock-full of blackberries and more importantly - ladybirds. The children have been finding them, counting the spots and colours and then putting them gently back into the brambles. They have also stuffed their faces with blackberries and gone home covered in purple juice - which is a bugger to get out of clothes. We can all do our bit to help our insect population (you never know, they may one day be our overlords) by encouraging our local authorities to set aside green areas in the community to be planted with insect-loving wild plants and meadow flowers, and for those of us lucky to have a garden, to let it go wild. I have no problem with that as I’m a rubbish gardener and my garden already looks suspiciously like the Amazon forest.
The Lurgy
Last week, as is the norm for any man who decides to take it easy for a few days, I got The Lurgy. Not just any old Lurgy but the ‘I’m going to die and I haven’t finished watching the Great British Bake Off yet’, type of Lurgy. It only lasted for 4 days and I endured my partner’s well-meaning concoctions (grass and mint blitzed in a blender anyone?) but for 4 days I could not sleep and had a racking cough that would double me over in a paroxysm. This wasn’t helped at all by my supposed friend, Michael calling me on the phone to enquire about my health and then telling me lots of crap jokes. My partner had to sleep in another room as I sounded like a tranquilised rhinoceros. Stuck in bed I tried to read and came across a recent BBC article about a tribe in the Amazon jungle called the Tsimanes (pronounced “chee-may-nay") who apparently have the healthiest arteries ever studied. This is down to their hunter-gatherer way of life and the fact that they have very little fat in their diet and don’t have a particularly sedentary lifestyle.
Deep in the Amazon rainforest lives a community whose hearts age more slowly
What I thought was interesting was the sentence, “We found zero cases of Alzheimer's among the entire adult population - it is remarkable,” and then I continued reading to find out that actually, not many of them reach old age because of infections etc. It is worth a read, just out of interest but it is also bleak in that continued contact with the outside world will irrevocably change their health forever. Some of the tribe have already started to show signs of diabetes.
More rejections
Since I last mentioned it I have managed to receive another 2 rejection slips for my children’s picture book text. I’m not discouraged at all as I know it’s a good story. It doesn’t have any of the tropes that kidlit publishers want right now, just good old-fashioned fun and adventure, but at least I have another few agents on the list that haven’t replied. Who knows? It could be me next!
Where’s The Bloody Stapler?!
Finally, I am having a complete rebuild of my home office. This was inspired by the fact that I could not find my stapler. It was on my desk, under a pile of papers and post-it notes, biscuit wrappers, textbooks and a Jammy Dodger. And then it wasn’t. I turned the place upside down. In the sixty years of being on this planet, being in a relationship forever, 5 grown-up children between us and living at the same address since Jesus was a babe, I cannot believe that we only have one stapler. One. It’s madness. The partner swore blind she hadn’t moved it. I thought that’s it, I can’t work like this anymore. I’m going to remodel my office and have a more streamlined workflow. A place for everything and everything in its place. Oh, how my partner laughed. Well, I have made a start and ordered a new, larger work table, some new wall hangings and a fancy new office chair for my fat backside. Ok, they’re all from Ebay but you get the idea. I’m too ashamed to post a picture of my current office, but I’d be delighted if you wanted to share a pic of your work/writing space/office so I can get inspiration and be envious.
That’s it for this newsletter my friends, in the next newsletter I’ll be taking a close look at the gagging of free speech in the UK and what this means for writers. The end?
In the meantime, enjoy life, send me your home-office pics and be back in 2 weeks.
Cheers, Simon JJ Green