Three Weeks

A lot can change during 3 weeks away, especially if one leaves during a thunderstorm, wrapped up in wind-sheeter and polar necked jumper and arrives back to Spring sunshine, wild flowers and wide awake tortoises. The one above can move almost a quickly as Jake.

Before I left, I was beginning to wonder if my wisteria had died as it was showing no shoots at all, but it made up for its late start with a heady display.

Some changes are not so welcome. Driving to the village, I was surprised to see additions to the road; some of the corners had been bypassed to straighten the route. This made my heart sink as the only reason for this is to accommodate extremely long lorries.

And a couple of kilometres along, there they were. Wind turbines ready to go.  Locals have not been consulted in the siting of these leviathans and their installation threatens the eco-system of the forest. Pine trees need a certain amount of humidity to thrive, turbines reduce the humidity. Bees in the area rely on pine pollen to make honey so honey production - one of the original backbones of the Mumcular economy - suffers.  The last time I looked, there were 28 applications for wind turbine installations in our region - that's a lot of honey to lose.