Silly season?

I LIKE green. I like living in a green and fertile land.

Unfortunately, this summer my top field is more reminiscent of one of Spain’s semi arid deserts than the verdant pasture it should be.

I couldn’t imagine living in a place like Spain with its sun-dried fields and incessant glare from the sun. No, give me this emerald isle which still has odd spots of green left down here in the industrial north. You know, all those low quality fields fit only for essential worker housing, where the grass still grows as it does in my two meadows.

If climate change means summers like this one will become commonplace, I will seriously have to think about renaming Old Farm as La Vieja Granja. I have already adopted the custom of a long postprandial siesta and all I need now is a donkey and a straw sombrero. Or I could listen to Deputy Murray and accept that it’s all a conspiracy theory and not worry about the climate changing in my lifetime. Lucky for us we have such fine scientific minds in our Assembly able to sift through the nonsense being put out by 97% of the world’s climate scientists on our behalf. He is a credit to the Guernsey Party.

And what about the goings on at the Little Chapel, eh?

As I write this the TLC (not Tender Loving Care) Foundation leadership is falling like apples off my apple tree. Even a guardian, none other than our dear chief minister, has felt the need to disassociate himself from the councillors.

I will say no more about this unfortunate event because by the time you read this a new council chair will be in place and I expect there will be a photo on the front page of this very publication showing the new chairman and the silversmith so friendly they put Brezhnev and Honecker to shame.

I do wonder if the ‘lawyer’s letter’ is now a spent force, likely to bounce back at the instigator. As an aside, I wondered if anyone had ever written anything witty about a lawyer’s letter which I could have claimed to be the author of, so I put ‘lawyer’s letter quotes’ into Google and the first hit was a local law firm closely connected with our chief minister. Anyway, it made me chuckle.

Now, because of social media, everyone has a voice. And as Martyn Guille has shown, he didn’t have to sit by himself in fear of the official-looking letter in his hand. No, he could share his worries and fears with just about the entire island in a single afternoon. And I’m sure, had the inappropriately acronymed TLC council kept on with their legal process, then social media would be a great platform to help him fund-source the money he would need to fight it.

I did say I would, to quote Monty Python, say no more about Littlechapelgate, but I lied.

The Little Chapel is as iconic to us as St Paul’s is to London. It has effectively been given to us on the premise that we will care for it. So please, dear reader, give a thought about stuffing a few pound notes into the TLC donations box the next time you visit the silversmith’s.

An update on my precarious mental health which, no matter how often I say ‘Pull yourself together, Horace’ (PYT being my usual response to all mental health sufferers), is not just going away.

I did bore you all some time ago with my not going out problem and now I will bore you a little more as it may give hope to others or prompt them to seek help.

Having self-identified as a bit La La, I reached out to my GP, the good Dr Gallagher. It has been slow and involves prescription medicine as well as support and comfort from friends and especially family, but I can report some improvement.

I’ve actually been out!

Doesn’t sound much because for you that would be one small step, but for me it was a giant leap.

Anyhow, imagine my disappointment – having done a few trial road runs at 5am with the mobility scooter to prove to myself I wouldn’t panic at the wheel, which at 8mph could be something to see – at coming down with some physical lurgy which prevented me from going to the Vintage Agricultural Show.

I had to savour it vicariously through photos posted on SM and a great spread in this paper.

Guernsey’s other national treasure, John Gollop, commented that watching the hay-making demonstration was a throwback to the 1950s and before. I know he is a politician, but just how wrong can he be? He was watching a late 1960s tractor using early 1970s equipment, working in a way that was still common throughout the 1980s.

It really makes you think to look at a way of life that was common here perhaps 40 or so years ago and yet bears no resemblance to the lifestyle we have now.

The people educated in the ’60s and ’70s to milk cows, pick tomatoes and serve in shops easily converted into finance workers in the blink of an eye.

I wonder, should the world change again, if the children coming out of our current educational system would be as prepared and ready to build our next incarnation.

I’ve been rambling on a bit more than usual this week because nothing in particular politically has outraged me. This is most unusual because, with 40 individuals doing their utmost to annoy me, content for my column is usually piled knee high.

I wonder what has happened?

Of course, they’ve all gone on holiday. August is the one month of the year when we are safe from their machinations. I say enjoy it while you can because, unfortunately, they will be back in September with more of their devilment.