Control

The weather remains something that can't be controlled. Fortunately. You don’t really know a place and understand its character if you only visit when the sun’s shining. Places have secrets that can be reserved for certain conditions.

Today the familiar paths were unfamiliar, transformed into streams and needing respect. Trees you thought you knew have a changed appearance. We expect that with snow but that’s only the most dramatic of makeovers. Mist and rain work their magic with less contrast and more subtlety.

Hence my contempt for the practice of the local conservation industry whose publicity is always accompanied by photos taken of their managed sites when heather is in full bloom. That is not just symbolic. It’s well known here that certain managers and officers are prone to emerge from their offices on a lovely day. I remember walking once with a senior manager of Sheffield’s Countryside service. It had never occurred that places might be left unmanaged. He pointed to some bramble and ferns at the side. People don’t want to walk there – he said, appalled. I pointed out that there was a path nearby so they didn’t have to. Not the only Council officer with such views. At the Icarus consultation six years ago I had one of those moments when two people fail to understand each other utterly. Sheffield’s Ecology officer was talking about developing this and enhancing that and creating habitats here and there. I said “You want to control everything”. “Yes I do” was the reply. As I said in a previous post once the management bug has bitten there’s really no stopping them. Maybe the wind and rain are next on the list.