Miles to Go - Day Six
Tuesday morning
was alternately sunny and wet, and I assumed that this would be a rest day, and
a day for doing domestic things. In the
morning, in between angsting about my worries, I did some long overdue housework. To save water, and because a household of two
people doesn’t really generate all that much washing-up per day, I usually wash
up only about every three days, and because I’m lazy, I sweep up only when I
can’t stand the dust any more. Also,
many of my favourite recipes make about four portions’ worth of food, so I put aside
half for reheating.
When I’m busy
with something like a sponsored walk, I do even less housework than usual,
assuming that I can live on sandwiches while I’m out on a walk, and PDB11 can
cook for himself. But today, since I was
in, I made toad-in-the-hole with vegetarian sausages, sliced apple, chopped
onions and rosemary in wholemeal batter.
I had an email
from my father, who was concerned about rumours that TreeAid was closing
down. As an alternative, he told me
about another conservation charity, Moor Trees, who work in Dartmoor, planting
local Dartmoor trees appropriate to the terrain. He offered:
‘If you are willing, and if you complete the 200 miles, that
I should buy you a life time membership to 'Moor Trees'. This may result, hopefully, in your wasting some of your
weekends collecting hazel nuts and acorns, making tea and cakes for volunteers
at the nurseries, digging planting pits in sleet and snow, and generally
getting either cold and wet or hot, sweaty and severely midged out on the Moor.’
I agreed happily
to his donating to Moor Trees. After all,
our family has many happy memories of camping holidays on Dartmoor. I think it may be where my father did some of
his military training, and it is where my parents spent their honeymoon, where
we took most of our holidays when I was a child, where I did my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expeditions, and where I went for many walks while
studying in Exeter. So it seems only
fair to give something in return.
I warned that I
don't know how active in volunteering on Dartmoor I would actually be. If I were to get involved with local
conservation efforts, then it would probably save travel time to work for a
Somerset-based conservation charity like Somerset Wildlife Trust,
who, amongst other things, are responsible for Harridge Wood. But if we
want to spend some of our holidays in Devon anyway (and who wouldn't?), or I
just want to make my way to Devon for a weekend of volunteering now and then,
it seems worth joining Moor Trees as well.
PDB11 points out
(obviously, we'd first contact Moor Trees and ask them about this) that one
thing we might usefully do would be to collect seeds from local Somerset trees
and send them to Moor Trees. As he says, seeds coming from native British
trees in Somerset would be local enough that they've got a fair chance of
surviving in Devon, but still bring in a bit more genetic diversity than just
the Dartmoor populations could provide.
Apart from
anything else, we have noticed surprising quantities of elm-seed in the nearby
woods in the past year, suggesting that enough of the Somerset elms are proving
resistant to Dutch elm disease for long enough to survive to maturity and
breed. Admittedly, if local isolated groups of elm trees just happen to
be free from disease, then re-populating the whole country with elms could
simply spread it again - but planting other isolated groups of elms around the
country could offer more back-up, especially if these elms seem to be
resistant.
So, dear readers,
if you want to donate to a charity other than the two I’ve nominated, then
please go ahead. It won’t show up on my
JustGiving pages and won’t stroke my ego, but most charities can do something
more useful with our spare money than you or I would be likely to do with it,
and that’s the important thing.
I checked the
internet to see whether there was any truth in the rumours that TreeAid is closing down. As I had thought, the Future Forest Appeal
specifically (focused on the Metema Forest in Ethiopia) is running until 11th
July (since the British government has offered to match all charitable
donations made until this date), but that TreeAid overall is still
functioning. The only other sites I
found related to TreeAid and closing dates were job adverts with closing dates
in June or July this year for job applications, for jobs with terms of
employment of three or six years.
By half past
three, I was frustrated with myself at having stayed indoors on what turned out
to be a mostly sunny day. I decided to see
how far I could get in four hours.
Considering how damp the fields were likely to be, I would be keeping to
roads, and I knew I was quicker on roads and less likely to get lost, so maybe
I could make eight miles or so, heading out through Harridge Wood and
Hurdlestone Wood as far as Leigh Upon Mendip, and back via Stoke St Michael and
Oakhill?
By five o’clock,
I was nearly halfway round my intended route, so I decided to stretch it a bit
further, going out round Halecombe Quarry and back past Knap Hill. I came into Leigh Upon Mendip as intended,
and paused to admire the church and pray for help with my overwhelming angst. I also browsed the local telephone-box bookstall,
and I selected a memoir about a family caring for a son suffering amnesia from
a head injury, as a reminder that some people have real problems instead of
imaginary ones like mine.
At any rate, my
imaginary problems were put on hold by having something practical to focus on,
and I was in a much better mood by the time I arrived home. The evening went cheerfully, and I slept well
– which was just as well, because if I went out for a walk on Wednesday, it
would have to be in the morning.
Total miles so
far: 58
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