Marmite

“There'll always be an England While there's a country lane Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain”.

Tax. Immigration. EU. Sewage (or should that be the sewage that is the EU). Climate change. Kate or Meghan. Fish cutlery. Marmite. I’m prepared for disagreements with friends (and not-so-friends) on most things, but not what hit me between the eyes last Tuesday evening.

Hubby came home on Sunday after a fortnight cycling in Germany and Austria. He kept teasing me that most of the 21 other participants were women. I didn’t mind at all – the photos showed how dreadful they looked in Lycra. Apart from one, whom he photographed while riding behind her. This probably explained the expense of the souvenir gift he bought me.

… after I’ve first lit the touchpaper, of course.  Not too long ago, I dared to coin the phrase ‘ bashing bats and nuking newts ’, in helpful jest. I’m now going to up the ante and talk about swatting swifts. Ah, swifts. They do what they tweet on the tin – they fly swiftly. Furthermore their numbers are, sadly, swiftly declining in Britain, partly as a consequence of our new homes being more airtight, and our old ones being retro-plugged. Swifts live in drafty places like eaves and crevices, so the decline in drafty homes has led to a decline in the swift population, so much so that they’re now on the RSPCA red list of endangered species.

There’s a soundbite doing the rounds that’s been repeated so often that many believe it to be a simple, straightforward fact, akin to 1 + 1 = 2: ‘The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world’. Everyone seems to adhere to it, even those whom I greatly respect, but I respect my instincts even more.