LESBIAN ALBATROSSES, NAZI TSARS AND WOODLAND CREATURES

One of the prettiest: Trillium erectum.

Two newspaper articles amused me, this week. The first, which you'll find here, describes how a pair of Royal Albatross, Diomedea epomophora, have reared a chick in a breeding colony in southern New Zealand. No news there, I hear you cry - but the 'man bites dog' angle, in this story is that they are both female. Hence the headline:

Lesbian albatrosses to raise their chick.

This is a ridiculous heap of anthropomorphic twaddle. You can impose all sorts of boundaries and codes of sexual conduct on humans, if you must. Religions, social customs and conventions usually decide what's 'right' and 'wrong' - though 'good' and the 'bad' or 'normal' and 'deviant' are quite different in different societies.

But in the animal world, such definitions make no sense. Albatrosses, like Mute Swans, bond. It's their nature. And sometimes the life-long relationship is between two members of the same sex. So what? You can't apply the word 'Lesbian' to that, can you?

Male Bonobos (aka Pygmy Chimpanzees) play extremely rude games together, but you couldn't really call them 'gay' or 'perverted.' It's just what Bonobos do, the horny little devils! And they're the closest thing, in the animal world, to us 'umans.

The other hilarity is that we have a new School Meals Tsar. (I didn't even know there was an old School Meals Tsar.) He's a chef - not a nutritionist, you'll note - called Robert Rees who trained at La Gavroche. Well, apparently he wants to lock school kids in, at lunch time, to make sure they eat good, nourishing food instead of nipping out to the local chippy for something hot, fatty, bad and delicious. No coercion there, then!

If I was a kid, the very act of locking me in would make me want to rebel - even though otherwise, I'd probably have gone happily for the wholesome, Tsar-approved tucker.

In future, it won't be just a quick fag, or a bit of furtive Bonobo behaviour behind the bike sheds, oh no! Instead, the kids will be sneakily porking smuggled chips and cheeseburgers, or perhaps even Pukka pies - whatever they are - to supplement their rocket and yak's milk yoghourt lunches. (I've never seen a Pukka, but assume it to be some kind of game bird.)

As for gardening - well, the weather's put the boot in. Again. I tried, at the week end, to cut back perennials and remove leaves from the epimediums, but it was so cold, claggy and wet, that I gave up with the job barely half done. Meanwhile, the kitchen stove glowed invitingly, so I sat, gently steaming while finishing The Old Curiosity Shop.

And later, when Little Nell was finally, properly dead - good riddance to such nauseating angelicness - and when the good (apart from Nell) had all ended happily and the bad unhappily - my thoughts turned to ponder another list.

Ypsilandra thibetica an early woodlander.

So without more ado, here's is my list of fifty little woodlanders. These are the plants that Little Nell might shed a motherly little tear over, for their sheer, peerless beauty. And which. . . oh, do get on with it, Colborn, for heaven's sake! I mean really!!!!!!!!!!!!

At random, then in order of their coming into the bonce:

1. Anemone nemorosa - all varieties that are not freaks.

2. Primula elatior - the true wild oxlip.

3. Primula vulgaris.

4. P. vulg. var sibthorpii - for the lilac petals.

5. Convallaria majalis

6. Ypsilandra thibetica - blue stamens - amazing - see piccy above.

7. Hacquetia epipactis - see last week's post

8. Viola odorata - all good varieties.

9. Viola sororia 'Freckles'

10. Galanthus nivalis - no colletors' varieties though!

11. Narcissus pseudonarcissus, only the true, wild, Wordsworth jobs.

12. Hyacinthoides non-scripta -yer actual genuine bluebell (NOT H. hispanica.)

13. Scilla hyacinthoides.

14. Epimedium 'Amber Queen' plus sundry epimediums but not those coarse things with cloth leaves.

15. Polygonatum glaberrimum see piccy below.- also P. odoratum

16. Speirantha convallarioides. Better than your actual Lily of the valley, possibly.

17. Ranunculus ficaria - preferably plain, wild celandines.

18. Cardamine pentaphyllos

19. Cardamine enniophyllos

20. Cyclamen hederifolium

21. Cyclamen repandum

22. Eranthis hyemalis

23. Erythronium tuolumnense

24. Erythronium revolutum

25. Luzula nivea

26. Luzula sylvatica

27. Anthericum liliago

28. Iris foetidissima

29. Trillium erectum

30. Trillium grandiflorum

31. Aquilegia alpina

32. Aquilegia formosa

33. Anemone prattii

34. Epipactis gigantea best garden orchid going, and a doddle to grow.

35. Polypodium vulgare

36. Blechnum spicant

37. Pellaea rotundifolia

38. Stellaria holostea - stitchwort - essential with bluebells.

39. Silene dioica - red campion, pink and lovely with bluebells and stitchwort.

40. Lychnis flos-cuculi - ragged robin. White form also acceptable.

41. Ajuga 'Catlin's Giant'

42. Leucojum vernum

43. Leucojum aestivum 'Gravetye Giant'

44. Omphalodes verna

45. Omphalodes cappadocica (NOT starry eyes. - seem to remember this from other list?)

46. Chrysoplenum davidianum

47. Corydalis flexuosa

48. Corydalis solida

49. Arum italicum

50. Paris quadrifolia

Er -that's it.

Polygonatum glaberrimum

I'm listening to Mahler's 5th Symphony.

I'm reading David Attenborough's Life on Air, about his life as a broadcaster.

This day in 2007 I calibrated the colour on my computer, using a Spyder Pro calibrator, rather than guesswork and prayer. I also recorded a large flock of Long Tailed Tits in trees by the River Glen and a barn owl.

This week's film was Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Surely Jacques Tati's greatest. The clowning is so easy to write off, unless one observes the entire frame closely. So many tiny details, all riddled with humour. And always more to see, even when one has watched the film scads of times. BUT, there will be those who hate it, and I respect that!

Well there we are. If you've read this far, I love you! Good bye!!!