Everything

The 593 bus rattles by, as the fog that never fully burned off all day begins to reassemble for another chilly night. A hard frost this morning. March coming in like neither lamb nor lion, more like a wolf. It is light now until between six o'clock and half past, light by seven in the morning and I feel the stealthy approach of the Spring Equinox. It feels not so long ago I was last writing here about days and nights of equal length, though clearly it was six months ago.

Today we went to Lidl's 'Gardening Event', and aquired a rake, a poly-tunnel and some plants including centaury and lily of the valley. We have spent a couple of afternoons already on the allotment, digging and preparing the soil, clearing and cutting back old growth, and just gazing into the valley. I am not able to feel depressed when I am there, digging big clods of earth with my fork, and pulling weeds and old roots out of the cool damp soil. The waiting plots begin to look ready for vegetables to grow in, and we have planted broad beans in pots at home.

I have been enjoying Human Planet on the i-Player, witnessing extraordinary scenes of life as it is lived in the deserts, mountains, jungle and Arctic, the skill and single-mindedness required for people to survive in challenging physical and climactic conditions. The Buddhist 'sky burial' was a chastening thing to see, or not quite see - discretion dictated the camera turned away from the actual hacking of human flesh, though we saw the undertaker approach with his little axe, the vultures circling, then pecking at unidentified morsels. I have to say though, that I watch all of these scenes with a mixture of awe, and some sort of shame (is it?) at the way in which nothing now remains hidden. We are able to see everything, to learn of mysteries and marvels, suffering and triumphs that we could only discover in books before, if that. Now production teams spend months, maybe years researching and fixing, television crews spend weeks immersing themselves in the worlds of these remote communities, and showing us everything, or so we feel. We feel we have seen everything, we can know about everything, and this is both wonderful, and somehow strangely wrong.