Marie invited me round for Sunday lunch. Although the weather wasn't great (it was very overcast and looked like rain) I suggested a quick walk to Bluebell Beck. It's a wild area not far from where we live. It has lots of wild flowers and meadows, adjoining a beck that winds through it. It's a good wildlife area. Only 10 minutes from Marie's doorstep but she had never been there.
My friend Marie is a kind person, but not well educated. I suggested she put on an anorak but she insisted on just her ordinary jacket (in fact we were lucky and we only had a spot of rain). She insisted on wearing flipflops - we were going along paths that were possibly going to be muddy. I wasn't wearing boots but my shoes were flat and okay for this level of walk. Marie has trainers that would have been much better than flipflops. In the event we had to navigate around several puddles.
Although the area wasn't quite as pretty as earlier in the spring (bluebells and early spring flowers have finished) there were still wild flowers growing in the meadows. In particular meadow cranesbills and field scabious. Marie was very taken with the scabious and proceeded to pick some. I looked on disapprovingly. I don't pick wild flowers. If we all picked them they would die out. Eventually I came right out with it and asked her not to pick any more. She was a bit indignant - "It's not like I'm picking them from someone's garden!" she said. Anyway, she stopped and said she wouldn't pick any more.
Marie has low self-confidence. I thought she'd enjoy coming here - but she said she wouldn't come on her own. She was worried about safety. In fact it's pretty safe - a lot safer than most of our town roads I'd say.
I thought she might like to bring her grandsons here - there's open spaces for them to run about in. Kick a ball, play hide and seek, build a den and generally mess around. But no, she said they'd be bored with not enough to do. Marie herself has a very low boredom count - she has difficulty entertaining herself.
This is a popular local walking area. I had hoped she might enjoy coming here in the spring and looking at the snowdrops, daffodils, hawthorn, wild roses etc. but she was worried about getting lost. I'd given her a spare copy of a pamphlet about the area - with a very nice map on it.
Sigh.
Do you pick wild flowers?
Here's the Wildlife and countryside act 1981, section 13 deals with plants.
I never pick wildflowers, the countryside is everybodies to enjoy :)
Thank you Baa. Marie is a townie with no understanding or real appreciation of the countryside. I'm a suburbanite rather than a townie - I grew up in a suburb right on the edge of the town and I spent much of my spare-time as a child playing in the woods and meadows near my home.
I found websites about the Countryside Act. Marie was not breaking the law. The field scabious is not an endangered species. But this particular area DOES contain our native bluebells. And THEY are protected. I suspect that Marie would probably want to pick them.
It doesn't look like Marie would come here on her own anyway. Such a shame to have a lovely area to walk in near your doorstep and not take advantage of it.
Ahhh I see I didn't include the link, my apologies http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/citesbird/act.htm#plants this is the DEFRA site.
I'm a townie, I was born into a very industrialised area with no open spaces, when we moved south we lived in the city. We took trips by bus and later car into the countryside and had the old Leave nothing but footprints etc drummed into us.
Here we have the beaches just short drive away and yet I know very few people who live here utilise them. As the years have gone on our own use of the beaches has dropped too.
Marie seems to be quite scared of walking there on her own. She is scared of having her handbag grabbed, for instance. It probably does feel slightly isolated to her.
Her own suburb, Whinney Banks, has some scarey parts where I make sure that my own handbag is very secure. Whinney Banks is in the process of being demolished and being rebuilt. A small lake in Whinney Banks, for instance, is the scene for someone being attacked lately.
But Bluebell Beck is in a different suburb. It has some yobbo elements where there is some litter lying and some vandalism. But I would say it is reasonably safe. On a sunny day there are people going around walking, cycling, playing with footballs etc. I would probably advise against walking there after dark, but that would be a sensible precaution for just about any woman on her own in an isolated area.
I'm disappointed that she won't be going there. She's keen on her garden, but apparently not on the coutnryside. She lives on her own, with all the time in the world, but is so lacking in confidence that she won't venture beyond the two main shopping precincts that she already knows.
The countryside is like a foreign land to many townies. Of course, our lives are every busy. "What is this life, but full of care..." etc etc. We are the losers from our busy lives.
Hmmmmmm, this is a controversial subject where I am concerned Northerner. I have seen it from both sides and although I don't agree with picking any wild flower consider this...
I was brought up in East Anglia and as a child we could wander meadows and roadsides and woodlands that were filled with the most exquisite wild flowers. We had English Bluebells, Cowslips, Primroses, sweet smelling Violets ( both white and purple), Celandines, Clover, Honeysuckle, Dogrose and many, many more. When I was a very small child I would delight in picking armsful of these beautiful flowers and taking them home to my Mother. As I grew older I was taught that this was wrong and being, by then, old enough to understand, I stopped picking them and would go on long walks with my sister and friends and it was all idylic, woods full of beautiful Bluebells and one field absolutely full of Cowslips, Ladies Smock, Primroses and Violets. During the Summer months we'd see hundreds of butterflies of different kinds and we honestly didn't give a thought to what tomorrow would bring. Then I married and moved 300 miles north and sadly my own children were never able to experience the same things. Although we used to take the children out into the countryside they never saw the wonderful things I saw as a child. They never experienced the thrill of seeing a family of lizards basking in the sun on the wall of an old building, they never saw Sand Martins nesting in the side of a quarry (hundreds of them) and they never saw the clouds of beautiful butterflies. Now if we see two butterflies fluttering around in our garden we deem ourselves very fortunate indeed and hope that we are doing something right to encourage them. In those days during the 50's and 60's we took the countryside for granted.
Then my sister who still visits the area where we grew up called to tell me a road widening scheme had been approved and where all those beautiful, and rare, flowers grew there are now 3 lanes of dual carriageway. We had it drummed into us never to pick the flowers and to leave them for future generations...only to see the entire area razed by bulldozers 20 years later :( I must admit that I cried with shock when I saw what had happened to those beautiful fields, roadsides and hedgerows. Makes me wonder if it really is 'All in the name of progress'.
Another thing that was brought to my attention happened when a friend moved to a place in Wales where there was a small ancient woodland at the back of her house. She actually confronted people several times, who came armed with trowels and boxes so as to dig up clumps of wild Primroses growing in the woods. Now I ask myself is it more damaging to pick the flowers (the plant still survives despite the flowers being picked) or to allow the bulldozers to pick them for us. Food for thought indeed!!
Terri1948
Well, if the flower is picked there is a possibility that the plant won't be able to set seed and reproduce itself. And will eventually die out if eveybody who stops by to admire bends down and picks its blooms.
I have been tempted to pick a few blooms recently to take a sample bloom home with me to help me identify it. I doubt if any of these blooms were rare. I do try to take photographs but sometimes they aren't good enough. My flower books are heavy for lugging with me everywhere.
I knw what you mean about the bulldozers. Earlier this year I noticed a long piece of grass at the back of a shopping precinct in a neighbouring suburb. In it were growing masses of cowslips. I came by later in the spring to find the bulldozers busy preparing the site for a hypermarket. The cowslips had finished blooming by then. I think I have lost this little stretch of cowslips.
We need new roads, houses, schools, shops etc. But we lose our wildlife habitats. Of course, anything rare would be protected (hopefully) but it means there is less and less space for our wildlife to grow in.
I'm sorry about you lost wild flowers. I have enjoyed the wild flowers this spring. Snowdrops, wood anemones, primroses, cowslips, violets, bluebells, dog roses, all so beautiful. Now I try to take photos of them to help me remember them. It's possible that one day, all we will have of bluebells are our photos and our memories.
Northener, I hope you read today's quote !!!!
Today's quote? No, that was yesterday. Missed it. :(
This was the quote:
"I will be the gladdest thing under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one"
Edna St. Vincent Millay--American Poet
I thought you 'd appreciate it.
Thank you Aria! Yes, that's a really good quote! Touching flowers is good!
it's nice that popular gardening mags and programes are banging on about bringing wild-life habitats back to the gardens.
.
A bit late I know, but better that than nothing.
I just hope that it's not a phase, and that people will always be aware of our need to conserve what we have left before it's too late altogether.
It's hard sometimes to understand why some people don't get the same buzz out of the flowers and country side like we do .
But then I guess I wouldn't get much of a buzz out of standing on a station and watching trains roll in and out, like my brother does!!...:-)
Hi Sueone, just recently on BBC America the interviewer on the program was mentioning that there is a greater effort being made by many of the farmers in the UK not to cut all the long grasses and to leave some exposed for the wild life and wild flowers...that was poetry to my ears...someone is finally wakening up to much needed habitats for the wildlife and the plants, otherwise all will be lost and too much is gone already....