Its mid March and the weather has turned a nasty and unexpected shade of Siberian. So other than reading Field Notes from a Hidden City I have made little head way into my to do list. I managed a cycle in the park on Sunday and a quick gathering of wild garlic there, but I almost fingers in getting there and back.
Short rambles to and from the nearest park are the order of the day. Today the park was completely deserted by the local Mums and Dads keeping an eye on their kids playing in the little playground in the center of the park. And no dog walkers. Instead there were starlings twittering in their strange language, two gulls stomping and squaking on the grass and a good mixture of thrushes, black birds and crows going about their buisness.
There is a eucalyptus beside the gates. A lot of its upper branches have been lobbed off at some stage which gives it a strange forlorn look. The trunk though is a real beauty
All sorts of colours, shapes and patterns emerging from the bark. I was doing a little poke around on google and found that in Israel genetically modified eucalyptus trees are being grown. They are extremely fast growing making them a good cash crop. Experimental groves could be planted over vast swathes of Brazil. Land reclaimed from the forrest now to be planted with mega crop from which paper, fuel pellets for power stations and pellets to fuel cars can all be made. Madness.