“Am I alone…

in thinking…” as all letters to Beeb feedback style programmes seem to start. As exercised as I get by Beeb bias, lowering diction standards and sloppy teenage journalist reporting quality, that’s not what I bring to your attention.

The humble hawthorn berry is taking my attention at the moment and is far more important around here than elections won or lost. Not even a week ago they were huge and crimson, now they are multiple (Beeb journalist word of the year), munificent, magnificent and a deep dark red which is no doubt due to the chemical changes within.

The soundscape of life here is also changing with squeals and shrieks of delight coming from the trickle of immigrants that have located here. Early seasonal imports of Redwing and Fieldfare have just discovered the winter surviving store of goodies. The trickle will in due course become a flood and high-noon battles between them, the local Blackbirds and Thrushes who we have fed and watered through the year and their Continental cousins will become ear shattering.

The banks of the Wye are well stocked with the native Hawthorn as well as Holly but so far they seem not to have been as overloaded as the Hawthorn.