HAPPY STORIES

[dodger]

Don't have a particular story, but I'm fed up with the doom and gloom. I know the Government is keeping the fear factor high to ensure people comply with restrictions, but it's debilitating after a while. I wonder, too, if people will become so accustomed that the effect will gradually reduce.
Anyway, back to nice things. - Watched 3 deer wander through the garden today and a strutting male pheasant with his harem of 3.
And, it's great to sit and watch all the birds congregating at the feeders. The nuthatch is back and the woodpecker pops in now and again. Even had a couple of jays sit on the bird table, although they are very shy. Loads of blue tits, great tits and long tailed tits, finches and sparrows -well, it is all fields around here.
Last year the first swallows I spotted were at Rame Head on 31st March. None here yet, but I look forward to their arrival. It seems like Spring has really made it when they start zooming around.
The lanes are covered with primroses, celandines and violets, with wild garlic and bluebells just appearing.
Overall it's lovely out walking and cycling, especially with very few vehicles.
Oh yes, all the neighbours speak (at a distance) when I'm out and about.
Any other happy things to share out there???

[Oldjohnw]

I doubt the government need to keep the fear factor up. With deaths doubling every few days, affecting all ages with or without prior health issues, events are enough to keep us concerned. Those of us who have already lost a relative to this disease know that it isn't media hype or government induced fear but stark, unmitigated horror.

[pwa]

I doubt the government need to keep the fear factor up. With deaths doubling every few days, affecting all ages with or without prior health issues, events are enough to keep us concerned. Those of us who have already lost a relative to this disease know that it isn't media hype or government induced fear but stark, unmitigated horror.

I don't think dodger was implying the threat isn't real, just that we sometimes need happy thoughts to keep us sane.

I was listening to a snippet of Dylan Thomas's Fern Hill on the radio this morning and it inspired me to look the poem up again. It is Thomas recounting the joy and carefree existence of playing around the farm of some relatives when he was a boy, told with a kind of yearning for something lost. And at the end is a recognition that even as he was living that happy existence his life was limited by time. The joy of youth tainted by the inevitability of mortality.

[peetee]

Yes it’s great down here isn’t it? Extensive fields of daffs plus gorse, celandines make it golden even when the sun doesn’t shine. I have a front and rear garden to plant up and a bank at the back which I have just cleared. It will be home to ferns, foxglove, wild garlic and whatever else I can grow from the extensive range of seeds I have collected over the years. Lots haven’t shown yet even after 3 weeks but the flax has which I am really pleased about as its one if my favourites. Other seedlings showing are delphinium, aquilegia, allium and purple verbena.
Our feeders are alive with sparrows, some of which are nesting in the eaves. Blue and long tail tits also visit, And I am hoping the bullfinch I saw a couple of hundred yards up the valley makes an appearance too.

[dodger]

Excellent Peetee.
Cornwall is the place to be - if you are a normal resident! (Tourists welcome when it's safe!)
My garden has never been so well tended, but my back is suffering. Time for a good book in the conservatory and a cuppa. And maybe a small slice of cake.