A sceptic's take on being human – or should that be virtuous?
I should be more careful
Inside the polytunnel – as seen by Rousseau – the plants on the right are not Cannabis as our neighbour thought, but African Marigolds (Tagetes erecta) to deter whiteflies.
Completely fake AI generated photo of Ghost Orchid on the pavement – made by Google Gemini. That’s why it’s dangerous!
In my last post I was extolling the virtues of exploring the local plants before setting off to search the country after the rarities, and I cracked a poorly judged joke about not going to see even a Ghost Orchid unless it was growing in a crack in the pavement outside the flat. I must have thought I was on safe ground because no-one has seen a Ghost orchid in the UK since 2009. Then, suddenly today, an emailed newsletter from the BSBI announced that it had been seen once more at what will remain an undisclosed location. You’d think that rogue hunters would leave such a rarity alone but sadly not. Back in my home parish of Littleton, someone dug up a whole group of much more common orchids and spirited them away. Just for the record, orchids rely on a highly specific relationship with particular fungal networks and so digging them up is a lost cause. Anyway – lest I sound more pompous than I (hope I) really am, I’m not the trainspotter type and although I’m very happy that the discovery has been made, and even happier for the lucky finder who’s obviously put many search hours in; I’m quite satisfied with a photo.
I should also admit that I break my own rules all the time because we spend many weeks camping in Cornwall, West Wales, North and Central Wales as well as here in Bath and on Mendip. We’ve been going to all those places for so long that while we’re there they all feel like home and I’ve got long lists of plants for all of them.
Yesterday, to add even more unwanted texture to a difficult week, one of my teeth dropped out as a kind of tribute to National Health dentistry. I watch the news and read the papers and I detect a kind of Panglossian optimism in the air now we’ve got a Labour government. I’m afraid I don’t buy it.
I've spent my life doing a lot of things, all of them interesting and many of them great fun.
When most people see my CV they probably think I'm making things up because it includes being a rather bad welder and engineering dogsbody, a potter, a groundsman and bus driver. I taught in a prison and in one of those ghastly old mental institutions as an art therapist and I spent ten years as a community artist. I was one of the founding members of Spike Island, which began life as Artspace Bristol. ! wrote a column for Bristol Evening Post (I got sacked three times, in which I take some pride) and I worked in local and network radio and then finally became an Anglican parish priest for 25 years, retiring at 68 when I realised that the institutional church and me were on different paths.
What interests me? It would be easier to list what doesn't, but I love cooking and baking with our home grown ingredients. I'm fascinated by botany and wildlife in general, and botanical illustration. We have a camper van that takes us to the wild places, we love walking, especially in the hills, and we take too many photographs.
But what really animates me is the question "what does it mean to be human?". I've spent my life exploring it in every possible way and the answer is ..... well, today it's sitting in the van in the rain and looking across Ramsey Sound towards Ramsey Island. But it might as easily be digging potatoes or making pickle, singing or finding an orchid or just sitting. But it sure as hell doesn't mean getting a promotion, beasting your co-workers or being obsequious to power, which ensured that my rise to greatness in the Church of England flatlined 30 years ago after about 2 days. But I'm still here and still searching for that elusive sweet spot, and I don't have to please anyone any more.
Over the last 50 or so years we've had a succession of gardens, some more like wildernesses when we were both working full-time, but now we're back in the game with our two allotments in Bath.
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