The change of seasons has brought thick frosts which burn the tender plants notwithstanding the protection of mesh. They will survive but look sick. The Canna lilies - which are very robust - have shrunk and turned brown under the frost onslaught. They too will survive.
I’ve been sick with a long lasting cold which has hit most of my co-workers. We’ll probably all survive and meanwhile the Gulf of Mexico pours oil on troubled waters, dying food chains and the land itself. If the methane contained within the undersea chamber - all at a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch - were to explode through the existing well - designed to withstand all of 2000 pounds per square inch - we have a dreadful scenario which will impact the whole of the world. This information isn’t hard to find but doesn’t make our local news except with superficial comment.
Then to Greece, Spain, Italy and as their economies crumple and the effects ripple across Europe, now is not a good time to be a tourist.
While sick I watched a program about Krakatoa. Again a dreadful disaster building through the ‘Son of Krakatoa’ which started rising from the sea in 1930. This isn’t an ordinary volcano ( if there be such a thing ). The ring of fire which marks the boundary at which the north moving Australian tectonic plate dips under the tectonic plate on which Indonesia sits, has a kink - a v-shaped distortion which lies beneath ‘Son of Krakatoa’. This is becoming, again, a gigantic volcano fed by molten rock from two tectonic plates and already belching and rumbling for all to see.
Enough of disaster. I now have a rain water tank and a light drizzle sends a quiet trickle off the roof ...yippee. The Daffodils, Hyacinth and unknown bulbs are already showing new life notwithstanding the frosts. The slow growing tree-ferns are tough and appear unconcerned and unmarked. The fast growing variety are browned off but o.k. There’s something valuable about slow and steady growth.
Music has been far from my life for awhile but as we’re past the shortest day I expect my interest to pick up - just because the processes of growth which apply to nature apply to me in equal measure. There’s hope for all of us and it’s just as it ever was - no certainty.