Burley Old

Autumn's not coming, autumn's here! You can feel it and you can smell it in the air. The tall mature Oak and Beech stands of Burley Old know it, they're grateful for it, it must have been a hard year for them; a relatively dry Winter/Spring followed by a scorcher of s Summer. The weather over the last few years has been a strange and unpredictable mix, often jumbled up, you know, not what you'd expect from the season you're in. For a long time now, I've felt the seasons are changing, shifting. Summer comes earlier in May, and is shorter, Autumn appears in August, and lasts longer, Winter, again, is shorter, and Spring comes early and like Autumn lasts longer. I don't mind that, so much, at least the seasons remain definable, although I must admit to concerns as to how these shifts will affect our native flora and fauna, and their finely meshed interactions. Of course, the overriding concern is whether these changes represent natural fluctuations in seasonal cycles (which is cool), or more worryingly, that we're seeing the tangible effects of climate change, which could lead to all sorts of wrongs as natures pieces become jumbled and out of sync. What can I do if is climate change? Nothing, I suppose. That's what. I have no power or agency to change anything beyond my own behaviour and my own little piece of world, and even the latter has restrictions. I imagine t+hat's all any of us can do. Tea with a Druid (specifically Philip Carr Gomm) this week had a simple and realistic approach to worry; two circles, one containing all our concerns, and within it a smaller circle containing those things in the bigger circle which we can actually affect, a Venn diagram of sorts. It basic principles are spot on, we have to put to one side those things we can't change, for me the big problems, and focus on those thing which we can change. Simple and obvious, really, something we all already know, though something we easily to loose sight of.