Talking Point with Vicky Turrell: 'Nothing is as it used to be these days'
“Some are, some aren’t.” “What do you mean?” “Some are modern and some are not.” We were buying a replacement plant pot for a shrub we had. The diameter was 30 centimetres. And the plant was quickly outgrowing the container with its roots showing through the holes in the bottom. We (foolishly) had not taken anything to make a measurement. The new pot was measured in old fashioned inches. It was 15 inches. Is that more or less than 30 centimetres? Nothing is as it used to be these days.
The poor old elm trees must think that too. A friend of mine was telling me that in her overgrown hedge she gets sapling elms growing, but when they get to a certain height they die off. Her gardener said that it was because the beetles fly at a certain height, so young elm trees can thrive until they reach the height of the beetles’ flight. I am not sure about that, but I know that it is not the beetle that kills the elm, it is the fungus that it unwittingly carries. The same is happening to our ash trees but without a beetle the spores of the ash die-back travel on the wind. Our ash trees are going the way of the elms and there is nothing we can do to help.
Small builders do not seem to have to help wildlife in the same way now. To support the building of much needed homes the government is reviewing the original rules ensuring the care of wildlife if their environment is disturbed. So, we are trying to see what we can do to encourage wildlife in our garden. We are making a pond and already birds are coming to take a drink and we have seen a bat flying over in the night. But the numbers and variety of birds are dwindling, nothing is the same.
I was talking to my hairdresser about Covid, which seems so long ago now but life after the pandemic is not the same either. Things have changed. Even though it seems to be all over we still remember.
“I had to wear a mask and a visor as well as gloves all the time,” she said, “It was almost impossible to do any colouring work with gloves on.”
I did not think that people would be having their hair coloured whilst there was a chance of getting Covid. I remember going for an essential blood test with a mask on, a visor and an emergency cape and hood. Imagine that, going to the nurse wearing the equivalent of a huge plastic bag.
Thank goodness nothing is as it used to be.
