• Maasheggenvlechten: Hedge Weaving in the Netherlands

          “This is THE hedge-laying competition!” exclaimed John French as he presented the John French Prize for Best Cutting at the Maasheggenvlechten (literally ‘Meuse Hedge Weaving) last weekend, and indeed it is a hedge-laying competition like no other. Why do thousands of Dutch people flock to fields in the Netherlands to watch a…

  • Very happy Venus is following me to my new lodgings in the Surrey Hills

    Very happy Venus is following me to my new lodgings in the Surrey Hills

    As I arrived with a second car load of stuff at my new lodgings near Dorking in Surrey, I looked up and caught site of a wonderful thumbnail moon and there, hanging like a full stop on a moonbeam sentence was Venus.  Its extraordinary how such a sight can move your scientific reason and poetic soul…

  • Winter Solstice on Gibbet Hill

    It wasn’t the most picturesque winter solstice up on Gibbet Hill, Hindhead, Surrey…..     but in my mind it was all….   Happy Winter Solstice!

  • Surrey Wildlife Trust’s “Hedgerow Heroes” goes on a test drive

    Today Surrey Wildlife Trust’s new Citizen Science Project ‘Hedgerow Heroes’ took a step closer to realisation as I delivered a taster session for our People and Wildlife Department directed  by the awesome Aimee Clarke     As regular followers of this blog will know hedgerows are a passion of mine having created and steered the Hedgerows…

  • Go with the flow: PeoplePower turns up trumps

    Turning a frown into a smile amongst ordinary people working to improve their environment Today started badly there is no doubt about that. The US became even more of a theme park than usual and an Orange Man who hates almost everyone but himself had become President. Yet haven’t most of us known for some time that 21st…