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Outdoors Les Davies MBE

West Countryman’s diary

With LES DAVIES MBE

DREADit, love it or loathe it, you won’t stop the march of time and with it the New Year. Yes, 2023 is upon us and what does it hold in store over the next 12 months? Well, I can tell you a couple of things, but for the rest we are all just going to have to wait and see. January is named after the two-headed Roman God Janus being represented with two faces looking in

opposite directions.

Quite apt as we look back and forwards at this time of year. Looking back, I shouldn’t have got so excited with my Christmas column. There was no room for the monthly picture and the editor had to “crop” my new profile picture… I’m trying harder this time.

Also looking back, I don’t want Covid again thank you! The University of Georgia USA have promised me it won’t be on the tour itinerary for next year.

At the time of writing there is talk of snow. Just how right that is will be discovered as you read the January edition of Mendip Times. So far the winter has been kind, although the damp foggy conditions are not to be desired.

Country sayings abound about this “the blackest month of all the year”.

“If grass do grow in Janinveer it grows worse for it all the year.”

Over the past years I can’t say I have seen it stop growing as global warming no doubt makes itself felt. Primroses will again blossom in the hedge bottom and bank as if totally unaware of cold frosty days still to come.

In my full-time orchard days, I would indeed dread the month that is said to “freeze the pot upon the fire” – day after day in the orchard pruning trees, the work of which only involved a little movement. Cold feet and hands from picking up cider apples by hand on cold frosty days.

My pruning these days still involves using a saw and lopping shears, but the exertion is less with the powered pole saw and if needs-be the pneumatic shears. Time now to invoke the good will of the natural world and carry out the wassails.

In less enlightened times our ancestors would take out a pagan insurance policy against things going wrong in their agricultural world. For us these days the wassail is part of our heritage and homage to those who have gone before.

My diary is pretty full through January and the first part of February as I strive to get the wassails and pruning courses in. Prepare for a good crop and tell people how to look after the trees as well. Keep your eyes open for a celebration near you.

Jumping a bit further ahead and looking to next Easter, Sue Gearing and myself are working on a new walks book with a difference for the AONB. Entitled Secrets Of The Hill it will be 12 relatively short walks discovering some of the History, Mystery and Myth of Mendip.

Amongst the walks of discovery will be such things as the castle that was lost when a lesson from 1066 wasn’t learnt and the miracle that saved a Saxon King. There’s lots more to come, but I don’t want to excite you too much too soon.

From Sue and my perspective, we are having a great time preparing and researching the walks and stories that will go into this publication as we work closely with Dr Kelly Davies at the AONB.

For now, much of the countryside has gone to sleep and will hopefully wake up again next spring. Amongst those inhabitants are the hedgehogs and those who remember my uninvited house guest “Herbie” last year will no doubt be pleased to hear that he is still with me.

Not in the house, but tucked up in a grass-filled hibernation home at the bottom of my garden hedgerow. It appears he is not alone in this terrace of Victorian quarryman’s cottages where I live. Another “Herbie” was found in an outside shed and is being cared for by a local animal rescue centre as it was well under weight and would not have survived.

I still harbour the hope that it will return to its adopted home when strong enough in the spring. This story also gives me hope that with a little bit of care we can all make a difference to wildlife in our gardens.

It won’t always be so spectacular as a hedgehog, even a small bug hotel can make the difference. The story of “Herbie” is being remembered and a Christmas card was addressed to me by a neighbour as being “The Hedgehog Dad” and signed off inside with the words: “Sending lots of Hedge-hugs your way.” Brilliant!

Here’s hoping I have left enough room for this month’s picture. So just in case it does snow or has snowed here is a festive snowman and if it didn’t, well here’s a festive snowman anyway!

Let’s hope this will be a good year ahead. This last one saw the easing of Covid restrictions, although I doubt the virus is finished with us yet. We also saw the death of a Queen who we all thought would live forever.

God Save the King and a Happy New Year to you all.

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