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Bill's Blog - October 5th
NEWS OF THE WILD |
GHASTLY
Sorry, but I am going to have to have a whinge. Several weeks ago my
office ceiling fell down. A couple of tons of rubble - known as
"plaster and lath" in the trade - collapsed slap bang onto my desk, my
computer and my chair. Fortunately, I wasn't in it. It happened in
the middle of the night. I didn't hear a thing. The aftermath was
ghastly. The whole house was coated in powdery dust. I had to
evacuate my room entirely for nearly a month, after - and this was the
worst bit - moving every single object out of it. My whole life was
scattered around wherever there was space. The walls had to be
cleared completely. Family photos, Goodies' posters, silver discs, and
a large number of paintings and drawings. Frankly, it was only then
that I realized I had walls. For years I'd lived within a giant four
sided collage.
STUFFED
Not surprisingly, a very large percentage of stuff was wildlife
related, especially birds. Stuffed birds (very old and moth eaten),
porcelein birds, wooden birds, and a huge collection of those fluffy
birds that you squeeze and they emit an authentic song or call
(available from the RSPB and other eco outlets.) There were also
bird books. Hundreds of them. Any birders reading this - especially
if you've done a fair bit of traveling - let me ask you: "How many bird
books do you have? And how often do you look at them? Or, to put it
another way, how many of them have you not looked at for months, or
indeed years, or maybe not ever!?" Oh come on, it can't be just me.
IS IT JUST ME?
What happens is this. Every time I am planning to go to a different
country - or even if I am just considering it, I buy a relevant field
guide, maybe two. I use them when I'm away, and I might use them
again if I go back (though usually there is a new better book out by
then, so I buy that). Most of them simply stay on the shelves, which
are beginning to bend with the ever increasing weight. Thus, over the
years, I have accumulated guides to the birds of Britain and Europe
(at least a dozen) North America (half a dozen), Mexico, Guatemala,
Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama,Equador, the Galapagos,
Brazil, Argentina, the West Indies, and the Antarctic. Africa (East,West, North and South), Kenya, Gambia, the Middle East, India, the
Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, New Guinea,
New Zealand, Australia, and of course Hawaii. Plus "Where to watch"
books for most of those countries, and for a number of British
counties and at least twenty North American states. Not to mention
weighty tomes on particular families, such as gulls, warblers,
buntings and sparrows, swallows and martins, and kingfishers, bee
eaters and rollers, oh my!
They all feature some lovely illustrations
but, own up, I haven't opened any of them since the day I bought
them. Maybe it is just me.
REJECTION
Anyway, so there I was faced with having to remove maybe a couple of
hundred bird books, temporarily relocate them, and then put them all
back. There was only one way I could make the task less arduous, I
threw half of them away! Once panic subsides, there is nothing like a
collapsing ceiling for focusing your powers of rejection.
Basically,
anything I didn't use or need went. Piles of books were followed by
bags of baseball caps, and T shirts, most of them bearing the logo
of a nature reserve or conservation organization, and most of them
now far too small for me to get into. All pre digital camera gear was
evicted, as were two musty sleeping bags, four broken tripods, and a tent.
TASTEFUL
Meanwhile, the builders plastered and painted and transformed my
office into something resembling an operating theatre or a prison
cell. Once they'd gone, I took back my diminished belongings and
redeployed them on walls and shelves, in a style so tidy and tasteful
that it may be evidence that I am finally becoming an adult.
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