Woodland snake

Another week of lockdown begins. Another regular Monday with a bit of a twist. The weather remains fine and dry with little prospect of rain until next month.

After Joe Wicks workout we walked in the countryside around Caring Lane as this is usually much quieter than the North Downs or Pilgrims Ways at weekends and bank holidays. And so it proved. Hardly anyone around once we were away from the local Woodland Trust. Which is where today’s blip of the painted stone snake was found. Although I do like the extra!

Spent some of the afternoon on the menus for coming week and the shopping list for first thing tomorrow morning.

A new computer arrived the other day so then worked on setting up email accounts, iTunes and printers on the new machine and a bit of housekeeping on the old one. For many years I’ve kept everything on external hard drives which makes moving to a new machine much easier. It’s just mopping up any stuff I’ve saved on the C drive.

I promised an update on the skylarks and footpaths incident from last week. Well, it turned out the farmer in question was keen to talk about our concerns. And a very amicable discussion it was too. He listened and appreciated what I said about our experiences and I listened to what he said about what he was trying to achieve.

The upshot was that i was much happier about his work and supportive of what he and his family were trying to do. They breed Romney Marsh sheep and Sussex pedigree cattle on a family farm and are doing many things to improve the natural environment on their land which was very encouraging indeed. This is the sort of farming this country needs to support, not organic but as sensitive to the natural environment as they can be.

He appreciated our concerns about disturbing nesting birds too. Fortunately we walked the route yesterday and skylarks were evident again in the mown fields. So they have come back and will have another chance.

He has plans to erect more information boards which have been scuppered by the lockdown. More talk and information people have the better, which is what the well known Lakeland farmer James Rebanks is always saying. And I also found out more about the ongoing bridle path issues too.

I was aghast at some of the challenges that he has to deal with. He was telling of how people were shooting hares pheasants on his land and also how two people with two dogs had climbed a gate to get into a field where he had some sheep. The dogs were off the lead. The mind boggles doesn’t it?