Wildflower appreciation
SARK is in the middle of its annual Wildflower Fortnight and despite some unseasonal weather in March with unusually high temperatures bringing an abundance of early growth, the bluebells are still out and looking great and there are some lovely displays of what's really nice about this place all over the island.
SARK is in the middle of its annual Wildflower Fortnight and despite some unseasonal weather in March with unusually high temperatures bringing an abundance of early growth, the bluebells are still out and looking great and there are some lovely displays of what's really nice about this place all over the island.
The fortnight began last Saturday and although it's been far from perfect weather I have seen quite a few visitors – albeit clothed appropriately – enjoying the tranquillity Sark offers, particularly at this time of the year.
The Tourism Committee's Visitor Centre is organising wildflower walks to many parts of the island. For example, tomorrow Derrible headland is the location, followed on Sunday by Little Sark.
On Monday it's La Ville Roussel and Wednesday – Guernsey's Liberation Day but not Sark's, which is on the 10th – the walkers will head north to the Eperquerie Common.
All the walks except that in Little Sark start at 2pm from the Visitor Centre, from where tickets and further information can be obtained.
The Little Sark walk starts at La Sablonnerie, again at 2pm, which sounds to me like a shrewd bit of luncheon marketing by Elizabeth Perree.
Additionally, for those who need sustenance after their walk, HSBC Bank in Sark is offering boxes of chocolates as prizes for a topical Identify the Wild Flowers competition.
There are more than 50 photographs of the island's
wild flowers on display at the bank and all entrants have to do to put on the pounds they've shed on their walk is identify the flowers displayed.
Apart from wild flowers, the one thing Sark isn't short of is cats – both domestic pets and the feral variety – and I learned the other day of the steps being taken to minimise an increase in the feral population while chatting to Gel Major.
She and a number of other animal lovers have embarked on a programme of humanely trapping feral cats and, with the co-operation of fellow animal lovers in Guernsey, having them spayed or neutered and then brought back to Sark.
Gel currently has four such animals, all of which have made a home under her veranda, and she told me that while she and others in Sark and Guernsey are doing as much as they can, spaying and neutering is an expensive business and they rely on goodwill and donations to carry on the work.
'We are making progress and have all the cats returned to Sark once they have had surgery,' she said. 'This has benefits for Sark because when they return they help keep the vermin in check. It costs about £85 to neuter a male cat and over £100 for a female, and we arrange all this with the help of people like Sue Vidamour and organisations like Animal Aid.'
The cats actually give an awful lot of pleasure to many people in Sark and the programme being carried out seems to me to be an eminently sensible and humane way of dealing with what, if it were allowed to get out of hand, could be a problem for the island.
If anyone does feel able to help or wants further information, they should contact Gel on 07781 192 542.
Just a word before I close about last week's presentation to Pam Cocksedge of her MBE insignia. As I walked home from what was a lovely occasion for a lovely and quite remarkable lady, I reflected on the possibility of her grandson, dressage rider Carl Hester, 'doing the double' by getting selected for the Olympics and bringing a medal home to Sark.
* The email address for comment is fallesark@ sark.net and for tickets and details about the wildflower walks call 832345 or email office@sark.co.uk
