The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

30 Saturday December 4 2021 | the times

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Matthew Oates Nature Notebook

there is a strict rule of one drink

only. Either orange squash or milk.

There is no alcohol, obviously, do

you think we are mad? If people got

drunk, anything could happen. They

might close a window. Or take off

their hazmat suit.

And I just wanted to check your

age because we are not allowing

anyone in who is over 50, as the

consequences of contracting Covid

at that age are too serious to risk.

And we’re not letting anyone in who

is under 50, because they won’t have

had their booster jab. Great, thanks.

Now, it’s no kissing, no touching,

no singing and no talking, please,

because this is a safe party in a safe

space, and we want everyone to feel

safe. We don’t want anyone being

triggered by language that could

cause offence to anyone else, either

by current standards or by standards

as yet unknown, that may pertain at

some point in the future. And no

secretly checking the Ashes score,

please, or even thinking about the

cricket, because of that thing that

bloke said, or maybe didn’t say, more

than a decade ago.

Now, women will not be allowed to

walk home alone after 9pm, and nor

will men, because making gender-

based assumptions about attendees is

liable to cause a whole world of pain.

Although the question is academic,

as the party ends at 8pm because

three hours’ sleep before midnight is

proven to reduce heart disease.

And that’s in just seven minutes, so

stop wasting time out here talking.

Grab yourself a high-viz tabard from

Suzy over there and a pair of safety

goggles — don’t worry, they’ve all

been recently sanitised — get inside

and party!

Thursday, that will be tailored to

protect against any future variants,

should it ever be invented.

I’m also going to push this swab up

your nose and deep into your brain

for a quick lateral flow test. If you

pass that, we’ll allow you into the

PCR testing room where you will be

swabbed again and then made to

wait for up to 24 hours for the result.

We’ll also give you a full medical in

case there are underlying health

issues such as coronary heart disease

that could cause you to have a

cardiac arrest and fall on someone

and hurt them.

Great, thanks. Now, mask on

please, and also this two-metre

hooped skirt that will keep you at a

safe distance from your fellow guests,

no, not guests, that makes it sound

like a party, so let’s call them

“victims”. It’s always safest to be a

“victim” these days.

By the way, was that a bicycle I

saw you locking up outside? But no

helmet? I’ve a good mind to call your

mother. No drama, we have a

selection of helmets here for all our

guests, sorry, victims. In fact, could

you put it on now, please, and wear it

for the duration of the party. There

are all sorts of trip hazards here such

as carpets, chairs and the like, and

even a minor head injury can have

life-altering consequences.

Now, before the fun starts, we need

to know if you have any allergies; all

the food is nut-free, gluten-free,

vegan and there isn’t any. Because

we decided that would be the safest

thing. We initially liquidised all the

canapés to minimise choke hazards,

but if someone spilt some there was

a feeling it might cause a slip hazard,

so we composted it responsibly. And

administrative reasons, quite close to

the anniversary of the almost

certainly fictional birth of a

Palestinian homeless guy who may

or may not have been the son of God

(we are still waiting for official

government guidance on that and

Martha Kearney will keep asking

Alok Sharma about it until he gives

her a straight answer).

Now, before I take your coat —

What? You haven’t got a coat? In this

weather? That’s not very safe, we’ll

have to lend you one — could I

please see your vaccination passport?

Thanks. And confirmation that

you’ve had, or at least booked, your

booster jab. Good. And now, please, a

written declaration of your

willingness to have this fourth jab I

read about in The Times on

H

i! Hello, hello, helloooo...

I’m so glad you could

come to our little

Christmas party. Although

it isn’t actually a party,

obviously. Or is it? I don’t know.

Because I don’t know if Christmas

parties are allowed this year. Or, if

they are, exactly what one is. But it’s

doubly exciting this Christmas

because, of course, we didn’t have a

party last year. Or did we? If we did,

then I can confirm that it was fully

compliant with the rules in place at

the time, which stated very clearly

that parties were not allowed.

You may be surprised that we

haven’t cancelled this party, which

may prove not to have been a party,

depending on what people feel about

parties a year from now, but I will

absolutely declare, when the time

comes, that, if it was a party, it

complied with all the rules then in

place, which will be true, if I can find

out what they are.

I’ve been listening very carefully to

BBC radio in the hope of guidance,

where the likes of Justin Webb and

Sarah Montague have been asking

every government minister who

comes on — regardless of their brief

or what they were invited on to talk

about — whether they are allowed to

have a party, and have all been told

the same thing, time after time,

which is that it is up to individuals

and companies to decide whether or

not they want to have a party but, if

they do, to make it as safe as possible.

But I am only 52 years old. How

can I possibly be expected to decide

whether it is safe to have a party?

That is what governments are for.

Which is why I am so glad that they

keep shouting at ministers “BUT

CAN WE HAVE A PARTY OR

NOT?” just like my eight-year-old

son would do in their position. That

is what publicly funded news

broadcasting is for: to ask

government if we can throw parties

and, if so, whether people should

wear masks at them or not, or be

allowed to kiss under the mistletoe,

and whether it’s safer to serve

sausage rolls at such events, or mini

baked potatoes filled with Boursin,

and if prosecco is OK instead of

champagne, what with inflation and

the shortages and everything.

In the absence of official

government guidance, I have done

what Sajid Javid keeps saying we

should do and made this gathering

— which we will not call a “party”, in

order to have full deniability in the

future — as safe as possible. Because

there is a horrible disease out there

which we are all vaccinated against

and which, scarily, now kills almost

nobody. And, even more scarily,

there is a new variant at large which

is even less lethal and has so far

killed nobody at all.

So welcome to this super-safe, er,

coming together of adults that we

are throwing, purely for

We’ve a selection of

helmets here for all our

guests, sorry, victims

Giles

Coren

Santa might make a surprise visit, as

long as he has remembered his mask

of berry crops further north? It seems

I had been witnessing a purely

stochastic local event, and had been

fortunate, or even blessed. The birds

will move on as the berries vanish.

Bees cheating the chill

N

ature always provides an

escape, even from the traumas

of Christmas shopping in town

centres. The secret is to find a pocket

of shrubbery containing a patch of

flowering Mahonia aquifolium

(Oregon grape) or Lonicera

fragrantissima (winter-flowering

honeysuckle). Car parks and open

shopping centre seating areas often

hold such shrubs, walled in by concrete

and littered with cigarette ends,

empty cans, and worse; but never

mind that, nature gets everywhere.

The heavily scented flowers will be

tended by a winter generation of

buff-tailed bumblebees, active in just

about all weather providing the

temperature exceeds, I think, 7C —

and our urban centres are so

overheated that they are seldom

cooler by day. The escaped heat

enables these opportunistic insects to

produce a third brood and keep going

through all but the worst of the

winter weather, no matter how grey

the skies and the concrete.

@matthewoates76

being diametrically opposed and

irreconcilable; but the edge joins

them together, and does matter. We

spend too much time on opposed

sides, ignoring the edge, the cutting

edge, the joining edge, nature’s edge.

To Wordsworth, perhaps heavily

under the influence of Coleridge in

the following quote, Nature instills “a

presence that disturbs me with the

joy of elevated thoughts; a sense

sublime of something far more

deeply interfused, whose dwelling is

the light of setting suns” (from

Tintern Abbey). I saw and felt

precisely that in the setting of this

November’s sun, as the roseate forest

and its fallen amber leaves faded into

winter’s silent night.

Berry good fortune

T

he late arrival in my

neighbourhood of the fieldfare

and redwing hordes was no

cause for concern. They would arrive

in their own time, and would be

worth the wait. The grey pilgrim

fieldfares appeared on November 4:

“You’re late,” I muttered, “but doubly

welcome”, as the first posse scurried

high by. Four days later the redwings,

left, arrived, as if they too had never

been away, and with no sense of

hurry or tardiness.

For two weeks, before a rising

north wind began to carry them

elsewhere, they filled the skies above

my south country parish. One

morning, a veritable blizzard of these

zealots, maybe a thousand strong,

scurried past my study window. That

was too much for me: I behaved like

a football supporter and my day’s

writing was spirited away.

Although my local patch is good

fieldfare terrain it is essentially

mainstream arable land, and many a

well-berried hawthorn hedge has

been flail cut early, including

roadside hedges that could have

been left as wet weather work, after

the berries had been consumed.

I checked the naturalist grapevine

and travelled about, vigilant: were

these birds abundant everywhere, or

was this a mass invasion of the deep

south, perhaps stimulated by a failure

vertically, lay still in deep carpets,

dried, and started to shrivel. They

rustled and spoke, when walked

through with childlike intent. A

breeze would gather them up into

whirligigs and they threatened to

become, way ahead of their rightful

time, the joyful leaves of mad March

days that dance to celebrate the

ground drying out after the winter

rains. Seldom before have

November’s leaves rustled with such

foresight: as if to say, we’re getting

ready to dance the spring.

In mid-November, next summer’s

honeysuckle leaves greened

vibrantly among the underwood,

telling of midsummer days to come,

suggesting that nature doesn’t just

look ahead, but can see around

corners.

Flocks of chaffinch and

wood pigeon had been

feeding silently on beech

mast. Their footfall gentled

the lying leaves, summoning

the robin who had been

trilling unseen in the

undergrowth. At that moment,

the eventide sun broke through,

after a daylong

pall of cloud. In

places the forest was on

fire, as autumn flamed itself out.

There are two sides of every coin,

of every leaf, or season, but also an

edge. The sides scarcely matter,

T

his autumn I set out to love

November, for the first

time. Previously, I’d

regarded the month as

nature’s avenging angel, a

callous destroyer. It was a month I

respected and endured but could not

love. That now is changing,

thankfully.

I was fortunate, for until the

final week this was a remarkably

mild and dry November, often

with little differentiation

between day and night

temperatures. The first

frost down south occurred

bang on time, around

Bonfire Night,

but then mild

conditions returned,

and persisted until winter

suddenly stormed in during the

final week.

Leaf fall was gradual, not hastened

by gales. Consequently, the leaves fell

The amber

leaves fade

into winter’s

silent night

t

paces th

fi

Dry weather allowed walkers to enjoy

the colours and sound of fallen leaves

Hazmats on, it’s Christmas non-party time

There’s no snogging, no touching, no singing, no talking, no alcohol or solid food and, sadly, the fun has to stop at 8pm