Restoration

Time to restore engagement with the blog, a restoration coming after a month. The restorative powers of nature benefit us all. Our contact with wildlife should be a daily requirement for those who query the arrogance of total human hegemony. Wildlife should never be seen to be there for our benefit alone; but it does serve us well if it helps us to greater humility and an understanding that we share the natural world as just one part of creation.

There are some advantages to being laid up post-operative. Unable to indulge compulsive restlessness means that you can catch up on some reading. Over the month mine has been mostly fiction, indulgent returns to old favourites and huge Victorian narratives. Then I was at a loose end waiting for delivery of an online order so explored the children's bookcase. I came upon The Secret Garden which  I had never read, surprisingly considering it's a classic and I had once thought myself very well informed on children's literature. I suppose that at the age when I should have read it I had dismissed it as that untouchable thing, a girl's book.

Coming fresh to this 103 year old classic when myself beyond the three score and ten mark I got through it while cringing at the sentimentality.The Yorkshire accents are excruciating as are the gradely Yorkshire folk with hearts more burnished than gold. Worst is the 12 year old 'child of the moors' Dickon, whose ability to make friends with foxes blackbirds and every other kind of wildlife nearly had me throwing the book away when only half way through. None of this was quite as laughable as the description of 'the moor' as teeming with flowers etc. Hodgson Burnett spent her early years in Manchester before emigrating to America so perhaps had forgotten or romanticised her memories of these devastated places.

Despite these very serious reservations we shouldn't miss the qualities of The Secret Garden. They are are all about the restorative powers of nature. Two very different children recover from serious problems and illness through daily contact with plants and animals. They love the mystery and magic of secret places. I hardly dare to ask what would be done with them today: give them an iPad and leave them to it?

Deer have now restored themselves to Blacka after a lengthy mild late summer and autumn higher up spent on the breezier heights. They also seem to appreciate the removal of cattle. Is it possible anyone could prefer farm animals to a primeval giant like this?

Deer could play their part in ecological restoration as could other wild animals persecuted in previous years. Cows and sheep achieve nothing in this being there only to bring in funds in the form of agricultural grants. In fact they do worse because of their habit of eating wild flowers before they even become commonly recognisable.