Green and Golden Bell Frog (Litoria aurea) Photo By Bernard Spragg. NZ – https://www.flickr.com/photos/volvob12b/15254781805/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79218054

Dear Readers, nothing cheers me up more than hearing that a simple and cheap way to help an endangered species has been found, and when the animal concerned is a frog that lifts my heart even more. Frogs and other amphibians have seen their populations plummet for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to chytridiomycosis, a deadly fungal disease that has killed off more than 100 species of frogs, toads and salamanders worldwide.

The Green and Golden Bell Frog (Litoria aurea) was once a common Australian species, but is now limited to a small area in the south-east of the country. It is described as a ‘large, stocky frog’, and although technically a tree frog it actually spends most of its time on the ground. It is often found on golf courses, in gravel pits and brownfield sites, and a population was discovered on the site for the tennis courts that were due to be built for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Fortunately, the decision was made to build the tennis courts elsewhere (well done, Sydney!) The frog is still common in New Zealand, but could easily disappear altogether from Australia.

Chytrid disease seems to be most liable to infect frogs in cold conditions: temperatures above 28 degrees centigrade inhibit the growth of the spores, but it’s unusual for it to be this warm in winter, even in Australia. Scientist Anthony Waddle placed captive Green and Golden Bell Frogs, who were infected with chytrid, in greenhouses which contained brick shelters with holes in them. One of the greenhouses was in the sun, and temperature rose to over 40 degrees. The other greenhouse was in the shade, and temperatures didn’t go above 35 degrees.

The differences were astonishing. The frogs in the hotter greenhouse had 100 fold less chytrid fungus on their skins than the frogs in the colder greenhouse, and the heat also seemed to activate the frogs’ immune systems – Waddle observes that the frogs who have been ‘heat-treated’ have a 22 times greater chance of surviving a subsequent infection, even in cold conditions.

The bricks that make up the frog ‘sauna’ can be bought for as little as 60/70 Australian dollars, and Waddle is hopeful that people all over Australia will give it a go – he says that he can think of at least six species of frog in the country who could benefit from some winter heat. This will be an interesting project to watch!

You can read the whole article here and the link to the article in Nature is here.

Frogs in their ‘sauna’ – Photo by Anthony Waddle via New Scientist

Well, Readers, I suppose I should have remembered how after the initial grief of a bereavement, be it a person or an animal, there’s a strange, wiped-out, exhausted period, when everything feels like too much effort. But, as usual, I turn to poetry, and it’s astonishing what solace it can bring.

Mark Doty is one of my favourite American poets – in his collection ‘Atlantis’ he writes about the loss of his partner Wally to AIDS, and of his love for his retriever, Arden. I find the poem below intensely moving.

Atlantis
by Mark Doty

I’ve been having these
awful dreams, each a little different,
though the core’s the same –
we’re walking in a field,
Wally and Arden and I, a stretch of grass
with a highway running beside it,
or a path in the woods that opens
onto a road. Everything’s fine,
then the dog sprints ahead of us,
excited; we’re calling but
he’s racing down a scent and doesn’t hear us,
and that’s when he goes
onto the highway. I don’t want to describe it.
Sometimes it’s brutal and over,
and others he’s struck and takes off
so we don’t know where he is
or how bad. This wakes me
every night now, and I stay awake;
I’m afraid if I sleep I’ll go back
into the dream. It’s been six months,
almost exactly, since the doctor wrote
not even a real word
but an acronym, a vacant
four-letter cipher
that draws meanings into itself,
reconstitutes the world.
We tried to say it was just
a word; we tried to admit
it had power and thus to nullify it
by means of our acknowledgement.
I know the current wisdom:
bright hope, the power of wishing you’re well.
He’s just so tired, though nothing
shows in any tests, Nothing,
the doctor says, detectable;
the doctor doesn’t hear what I do,
that trickling, steadily rising nothing
that makes him sleep all day,
vanish into fever’s tranced afternoons,
and I swear sometimes
when I put my head to his chest
I can hear the virus humming
like a refrigerator.
Which is what makes me think
you can take your positive attitude
and go straight to hell.
We don’t have a future,
we have a dog.
Who is he?
Soul without speech,
sheer, tireless faith,
he is that-which-goes-forward,
black muzzle, black paws
scouting what’s ahead;
he is where we’ll be hit first,
he’s the part of us
that’s going to get it.
I’m hardly awake on our morning walk
– always just me and Arden now –
and sometimes I am still
in the thrall of the dream,
which is why, when he took a step onto Commercial
before I’d looked both ways,
I screamed his name and grabbed his collar.
And there I was on my knees,
both arms around his neck
and nothing coming,
and when I looked into that bewildered face
I realised I didn’t know what it was
I was shouting at,
I didn’t know who I was trying to protect.’

And my goodness, how about this one, also by Mark Doty?

Brilliance

Maggie’s taking care of a man
who’s dying; he’s attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,

paid off his credit card.
She says Why don’t you just
run it up to the limit?

but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets

he’s already found a home for
— he can’t be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,

I can’t have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn’t want to start

with anything and then describes
the kind he’d maybe like,
how their tails would fan

to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe

they’ll go pick some out
though he can’t go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can’t love

anything I can’t finish.
He says it like he’s had enough
of the whole scintillant world,

though what he means is
he’ll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,

a kind of severe rehearsal.
That’s where they leave it,
him looking out the window,

her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:

Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,

a Zen master who’d perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,

a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn

in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie’s friend —
Is he going out

Into the last loved object
Of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence

Of an opulent tail,
Undulant in some uncapturable curve
Is he bronze chrysanthemums,

Copper leaf, hurried darting,
Doubloons, icon-colored fins
Troubling the water?

If you like these poems as much as I do, you might enjoy Doty’s memoir ‘Dog Years‘, highly recommended.

My old favourite Mary Oliver wrote this poem in the voice of her little dog, Percy.

I ASK PERCY HOW I SHOULD LIVE MY LIFE

Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

~ from Redbird: Poems (Beacon Press, 2009)

But where are the cat poems? Billy Collins is almost too painful to read – accurate but aware of the absurdity of these situations.

Putting Down The Cat

Billy Collins

The assistant holds her on the table,
the fur hanging limp from her tiny skeleton,
and the veterinarian raises the needle of fluid
which will put the line through her ninth life.

‘Painless,’ he reassures me, ‘like counting
backwards from a hundred,’ but I want to tell him
that our poor cat cannot count at all,
much less to a hundred, much less backwards.

And Jane Kenyon – she nails it too. There are griefs keener than this, for sure, but I too have worked,ate, stared, and slept.

The Blue Bowl
BY JANE KENYON

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole. It fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
that grew between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows much keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

And finally, this one by Hal Summers – I’ve written about it before (in fact, it reminds me rather of my Dad’s defiant death), but the tone is very different from most pet-death poems.

My Old Cat – Hal Summers 1911 –

My old cat is dead,
Who would butt me with his head.
He had the sleekest fur.
He had the blackest purr.
Always gentle with us
Was this black puss,
But when I found him today
Stiff and cold where he lay
His look was like a lion’s,
Full of rage, defiance:
Oh, he would not pretend
That what came was a friend
But met it in pure hate.
Well died my old cat.

So Readers, what poems have I missed? What’s given you solace on the death of a beloved animal? Do share?

Dear Readers, last night at 9.30 p.m. I got the call from the vet that I’d been expecting and dreading. Regular readers might remember that our cat Willow was at the animal hospital with suspected Feline Infectious Peritonitis, and has been on a drug to try to combat the virus that causes it since about Wednesday. Yesterday morning, the vet told us that the cat had had seizures overnight, and was now unsteady on her feet and had displaced her feeding tube, so she would no longer be able to be fed. As she had had a good feed before this happened, we decided to keep giving her the FIP medication just in case she rallied. When the vet called last night, she explained that Willow could no longer swallow, and we took the decision to put her to sleep as soon as the vet was able to, to prevent any further suffering. Poor little cat. The vet was upset too, but we agreed that the time was right. The hard part is not being with her when the time came, but we didn’t want to put her through hours more suffering while we tried to find a way to get to the hospital in the middle of he night without a car and we weren’t sure that she would know us any more anyway. But we will have to find a way to say goodbye to her, otherwise it’s as if she’s just disappeared. I shall give it some thought.

Willow really was the perfect cat. She could have gone outside but apart from occasionally exploring the patio she was perfectly happy sitting in a sunbeam at home. She’d pursue the sun around the house in the morning and then retire to the loft, where she slept, perfectly disguised, on our mostly-black duvet cover. In the days when I used to work, I’d finish at about 4.30 p.m. and as soon as I was downstairs sitting on the sofa and ready to do some knitting, she’d jump up beside me and demand to be groomed. If I was eating fish and chips she’d wait until i’d finished and, when I put my plate down, she’d lick any remaining butter off of the roll, ignoring any fish.

But bedtime was her favourite. If I was dallying past about 9.30 p.m. she’d jump up and miaow at me until I went upstairs. Once in bed, she’d settle down happily on my lap, purring away. I’d read my Kindle, and occasionally drop it on her if I fell asleep, startling the pair of us. But as soon as I turned off the light she’d jump down and head off to one of her other sleeping spots – my office chair, for example (she was perfectly disguised on that as well, the seat being black, and I nearly sat on her more than once).

She wasn’t a saint: she took to peeing on the kitchen mat, she would occasionally do a protest crap in the office if we were away, and when we returned from a trip she’d spend the first few nights singing the song of her people every hour, just to let us know how badly we’d behaved. But she was the sweetest, most tolerant little cat, and the vets loved her – one of the nurses at our usual practice said that she wished every cat could be like Willow. She loved all our visitors (so long as they were sitting down, she did hate to be loomed over) and would do anything for a brush or a stroke. She was always her own cat, but she entwined her life with ours, and even now I expect to see her popping her head around the door to see if her space on the sofa is free.

Sllgatsby, a regular reader and a poetry lover like myself, sent me this poem a few days ago. I share it now because it encapsulates what Willow was like, small and delicate and frail as she was. Go well, little cat.

Plentitude

by Ann Iverson

Even near the very end

the frail cat of many years
came to sit with me
among the glitter of bulb and glow
tried to the very last to drink water
and love her small world
would not give up on her curious self.
And though she staggered — shriveled and weak
still she poked her nose through ribbon and wrap
and her peace and her sweetness were of such
that when I held my ear to her heart
I could hear the sea.

–from Mouth of Summer

Willow, 16 years young…

Well, Readers, last night I stayed up to watch the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony. I am torn between describing it as ‘amazing’ and ‘shambolic’ with a little bit of ‘unintelligible’ thrown in. You have to admire the ambition though – athletes from 205 countries travelling down the Seine in boats of various sizes (in the pouring rain as it turned out), 12 ‘artistic tableaux’ depicting everything from the French Revolution to the role of women in French history, Lady Gaga in 6 inch stilettos performing in French on a dodgy staircase, and lots more. Here are a few thoughts, I’d love to hear yours!

• I always love seeing all the athletes from the different countries (and had a big lump in my throat for the Refugee team in particular, plus all the small countries where their hopes rested on the shoulders of a handful of athletes). I love all the different outfits (Mongolia seems to have been a particular favourite this year, with each athlete’s tabard being hand-embroidered). I love the way that the poor old commentators have exactly ten seconds to tell us who the flag-carriers are, and, in the UK at least, throw in some arcane geographical fact (‘Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world”! Senegal is the furthest west of all African countries! Carthage is in Tunisia!)
• The way that the coverage went from the boats to some bizarre goings-on elsewhere was pretty confusing, though in the end I just relaxed and went with the flow. So, now we have a menage a trois with three people dressed as harlequin in a library? Fine!)
• Who was the masked guy/woman with the torch doing parkour over most of Paris?
• Not sure I liked all the beheaded people with a heavy metal band performing in front of them.
• People dressed as Louis XIV were doing break-dancing and riding BMX bikes on floating pontoons designed to resemble the gardens at Versailles. Health and Safety, people! It was absolutely chucking it down, surely it was all mega slippery.
• Kudos to the various singers/dancers/pianists who did their best while the raindrops were literally bouncing off their bonces.
• There was a metallic silver horse and rider that galloped the whole way down the Seine, to be replaced by someone on a real horse who delivered the Olympic flag. Some pedants have noticed that it was then hung upside down. I feel so sorry for the people who must have rehearsed day after day to get it right.
• I loved the range of singers and dancers – French-Malian Aya Nakamura was accompanied by the military band of the Republican Guard. It was a bit of a poke in the eye for the far right, who would also have been mightily outraged by the parade of drag queens, non-binary folk and other beautiful people parading on the cat walk in another sequence.
• The song ‘Imagine’ has become a feature of the Olympic opening ceremony, and this was a beautiful performance by soloist Juliette Armanet and pianist Sofiane Pamart, on a boat that appeared to be burning. Of course, singing ‘imagine there’s no countries’ after a parade of 205 of them, all intent on outdoing one another, always rings a little hollow, but it’s a splendid dream anyway.
• Poor old Carl Lewis, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Nadia Comāneci carrying the torch to the Tuilerie Gardens via an extremely rough and wet River Seine. At one point I thought that Serena Williams might be getting seasick and Carl Lewis wore the rictus smile of someone who is going to get through this no matter what. At least Nadia Comāneci managed to keep her balance. Why did none of the commentators seem to know who she was, I wonder? Maybe they’re all too young to remember her gold medals at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
• The lighting of the cauldron was really something, and completely unexpected. How do you top a hot air balloon rising into the air in a blaze of golden fire?

• Celine Dion! Not one of my favourite singers, but after learning of her health challenges (she hasn’t performed live since 2020) I was moved to see her, and she absolutely knocked it out of the park. You can have a listen here.

Well Readers, if you watched the Opening Ceremony, what did you think? I’m especially intrigued to know what any North American readers made of it all – a lot of it was inexplicable even here in the UK, and we’re only 26 miles away. I think it was too long (as these things always are), sometimes overblown, sometimes tasteless, sometimes joyous, sometimes magical, and occasionally deeply moving. But maybe it was ever thus.

Cat Update: Bad news overnight – Willow has had a couple of seizures, which might mean that her Feline Infectious Peritonitis has progressed. We are waiting for a neurologist to have a look, but my gut feeling is that the disease is outrunning the treatment that she’s having. She is apparently settled and being kept comfortable today, but I suspect that we will soon be having to do the kindest thing, which will be to put her to sleep. Will keep you all posted.

Flower crab spider (Misumena vatia)

Dear Readers, since I have been mobility-challenged for the past month I have found myself even more interested than usual in some of the more arcane magazines that I subscribe to, and none more than the newsletter of the British Arachnological Society. This has provided me with some great stories in the past – there’s the tale of the garden centre spider, and the lady who was rescuing spiders from her swimming pool. However, I had never come across a musical celebration of the arachnid before, so when I read that a piece had been created for a distinguished British soprano who died in 2021, I was intrigued.

Jane Manning OBE (1938 – 2021) was a specialist in contemporary classical music – indeed, she was described by one critic as”the irrepressible, incomparable, unstoppable Ms. Manning – life and soul of British contemporary music”. She was renowned for her performances of works by Schoenberg, Judith Weir, Harrison Birtwistle and many others, including pieces by her composer husband Anthony Payne. She formed her own virtuoso ensemble, called Jane’s Minstrels, which nurtured many young musicians.

Manning is perhaps most famous for her interpretation of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and you can listen to the piece here. It’s a little too eccentric for my taste, but it is very interesting.

However, what was less known about Manning was her fondness for spiders. Anyone who is fond of spiders is usually a hit with me, so I was fascinated to hear that, in her honour, composer Stephan Barchan had created a short piece, based on the nursery rhymes ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, and ‘Little Miss Muffet’. It’s not the way that I remember them from school, but you can have a listen here.

What I don’t know is why in particular Manning liked spiders. I can think of many reasons why you might – they are fascinating creatures, they are relatively easy to observe and, as we know, they often pay us visits in our houses – but what attracted Manning to them I have no idea. Still, she was clearly my sister in arachnology, if nothing else, and while some animals, (larks, nightingales, thrushes, geese) have endless pieces of music inspired by them, I am struggling to think of many works in honour of invertebrates. If you can think of any, let me know! Surely there’s a slug symphony or a beetle adagio out there somewhere?

Fencepost jumping spider (Marpissa muscosa)

Cat Update: Willow is stable, and we’re going to give her a few more days on her Feline Infectious Peritonitis drugs to see if she turns the corner. Big decisions to be made on Monday, so fingers crossed….

Jersey Tiger (Euplagia quadripunctata)

Dear Readers, I was sitting in the garden yesterday when there was a tomato-red flurry of wings next to me, and a Jersey Tiger moth settled happily in the honeysuckle. What a startling moth this is! The underside has a rosy glow, and the wings take on the quality of stained glass when viewed from below.

I am getting reports of Jersey Tigers from all over the south west, south east and even further north than East Finchley, so I thought I’d have a look at the reported sightings and see how far this delta-winged moth had managed to travel. I was amazed.

Goodness! The furthest north that a moth has reached is just a little bit north of Moffat in Scotland, with one unconfirmed record in the Western Isles. The biggest clusters are still around London, the south east and south west, but clearly a few pioneers are heading to uncharted territory in Leeds and north Wales. The vast majority of sightings are in high summer, with numbers peaking in August, so there’s still plenty of time to spot them, and do let me know if you’re in the Midlands, North of England, Wales or Scotland and spot one!

In 2000, only 109 Jersey Tigers were reported from the whole country, but in the peak year so far, 2019, over 1862 sightings were reported. These will, of course, be a fraction of the total moths that are about – most people (including me at the moment) simply admire the moths and go about our day. This is a spectacular increase, though – most entomologists believe that the moths aren’t simply crossing the channel these days, but are breeding here. This is probably due to the milder winters that we’re having following climate change, and I can’t help thinking that the range of plants that the caterpillars feed on (everything from green alkanet and nettles to brambles and plantain) helps them to thrive. All in all, I think they’re a spectacular addition to our native fauna, without apparently causing any harm to any species that are already here, and the fact that they’re day-flying means that they’re a great introduction to moths, who usually go unnoticed (unless they come indoors on a warm night).  Global warming will change things in a variety of unpredictable and unexpected ways, and it will be interesting to see who else crosses the Channel and makes themselves at home. Praying mantises? Antlions? All sorts of beetles? Let’s see.

Cat Update: Willow is basically stable at the moment – she is on treatment for Feline Infectious Peritonitis and doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, but also isn’t really getting any better. We’re going to give the treatment for a few more days (the vet is confident that she isn’t in any pain) and see if she can turn a corner. If not, we’ll be making some difficult decisions in the next couple of days. Thanks to everyone for your support! I’m so grateful.

Scenic Railway at Luna Park, Melbourne

Well Readers, yesterday I had more or less given up hope concerning my poor little cat, but animals will always surprise you – today, the vet told me that she was looking quite a lot brighter, though she still has fluid on her stomach. It might just be that she’s rallied temporarily, it might be that the drug is actually the right one to treat her FIP, who knows. I have to reach some state of equanimity, where I accept whatever happens, but that pesky Hope keeps raising her little head and whispering ‘maybe the cat will get well enough to bring her home and let her have a few more months/years of quality life’. Away with you! I just have to ride the ups and the downs, and fortunately I have excellent friends, both in ‘real life’ and in the ‘real life’ which is the community of this blog. So thank you, everybody, for riding the vicissitudes of this past few weeks with me.

Strangely enough, ever since I watched one rider’s-eye view Facebook video of someone on a rollercoaster I’ve been absolutely inundated with them. There is nothing more relaxing when you can’t sleep than watching someone trundle up several hundred feet of flimsy track, only to be catapulted down the other side at face-wobbling G force. I’ve seen rollercoasters that take you past velociraptors, rides that drop you from the top of a pylon, rides that take you through water, and rides that turn you upside down so many times that I’m surprised everyone isn’t sick. It feels as if every theme park is trying to outdo their competitors with the height, speed and novelty of their rides. Every so often, of course, it goes horribly wrong (I’m thinking of the Alton Towers incident in 2015 when eleven people were injured, with two requiring amputation). However, people still queue up to ride these monsters.

The Smiler at Alton Park – a crash here injured eleven people (Photo By BenBowser – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41795634)

I used to absolutely love rollercoasters – for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, when I was 17, a group of us went to Dreamland in Margate, and rode the ‘scenic railway’ there 25 times in honour of Her Majesty. To start off with it was white knuckles and screaming, but by the end it was ‘can. you ride it with your eyes closed’ and ‘can you ride it without holding on’. It’s astonishing how quickly the human body can get used to any degree of falling, buffeting and sheer terror. It is actually a little bit scarier than it looks in the photo but, as this is the oldest rollercoaster in England (opening in 1920) it has a vintage vibe all of its own. Furthermore, it actually requires a real human being to ride in the central carriage as brakeman/woman, to control the speed of the cars. The Scenic Railway was subjected to an arson attack in 2008, but by then the ride was Grade II listed as a result of its historic importance, not only in the UK but internationally – there are very few existing rollercoasters as old as this one. It was restored once funds were raised, and has been running again since 2015. I’m pleased – there are scarier, more technically-advanced rollercoasters to be ridden, but few have the charm of this one.

The Scenic Railway at Margate (Photo By Peet13 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48152506)

Nowadays, I find that many of the rides that I used to enjoy are out of bounds – the dodgem cars jolt my back in a most alarming way, the Waltzer makes me sick, and I was never any good at the coconut shy. But a relatively low-key rollercoaster? Well, once I’m back in full operational order that might still be enough to tempt me. How about you, Readers? Do you love a scary rollercoaster, or do you loathe them? Do you have a favourite ride? Any tales to tell? Do share…

And if anyone wants some Youtube Rollercoaster action, here are a few:

Knoebels Amusement Park 

This one is the Goliath, said to have the biggest drop of any rollercoaster in the world. Yikes. 

This is the UK’s tallest rollercoaster, the imaginatively-named ‘Big One’ at Blackpool.

Dear Readers, I was absolutely delighted to get the results of my most recent Open University module yesterday – Distinction! I will spend the next 24 hours being insufferably pleased with myself. This is a Level 2 module (I got a 2:1 for my modules last year, and was insufferably pleased with that too), so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that if I work hard and keep the brain in working order, I could do well in the level 3 modules over the next two years. But let’s see. Next year features a whole lot of microbiology and genetics, which I love but which can be quite testing. I shall let. you know how I get on.

And it was great to get some good news, because it’s been a tough few weeks, and the situation with my poor little cat continues to be worrying. The dilated pupil turned out to be a little bit of ulceration, which she’s being treated for. We had more or less decided that we were going to go for surgery today – in addition to the liver and lymph node swelling there’s what looks like a blockage in her small intestine, which we won’t be able to either treat or diagnose without going in. But today the vet is worried about her heart rate and thinks there’s some fluid on her lungs and her abdomen is swollen. The worry is that it’s an infection called Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) – apparently the test for it takes three weeks to come back, and we clearly don’t have that time, so we’re going to treat for FIP and see if she improves. The vet has mentioned euthanasia for the first time, if this doesn’t work, and has also asked me if I’d want her revived if her heart stops (answer = no). So this is our absolute last throw of the dice. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. Poor little cat.

Highland Midge (Culicoides impunctatus) Photo byBy Dunpharlain – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79829802

Dear Readers, I am one of those people who attract insects (well, I am Bugwoman I suppose).  I was parasitised by a tumbu fly when I was in Cameroon, which laid an egg in my leg (gee thanks). I went for a night walk in Madagascar wearing a head torch, and ended up so covered in gigantic insects that my fellow holidaymakers had to help me pull them off. But I promise that I have never been so badly bitten, so frequently, as when on holiday in the Highlands of Scotland, one of the most beautiful places that I know. They are tiny, determined, and capable of getting through the smallest of openings in clothing – on the last occasion I was clad pretty much head to foot, but they got in just under my neckerchief and gave me a lovely necklace of little pink blisters.

So it was with some interest that I read in The Guardian that midges are positively thriving this year. Scotland had its wettest April on record this year, and midges love damp, humid conditions, so there was a massive hatching of the little devils in May. A second peak is expected in August, and there could even be a third peak, as there was in 2015. On a ‘Midge Scale’ of one to five, this week saw a predicted score of four to five.

Midges are small members of the fly family, and there are over 5000 species – my Dad used to complain about the ‘No-see-ums’ that would bite him when he worked in Jamaica. Like most midges, the Highland Midge evolved to feed on deer and other wild mammals rather than humans. It’s only the females that bite: they need a single blood meal in order for their eggs to develop. Alas, multiply this single blood meal by literally millions of midges and you have the current situation in places like Ullapool and Fort William.

When I first saw people wearing midge protection (usually a large brimmed hat with a mosquito net over it, well tucked down into a long-sleeved top) I laughed, but not for long. On my first encounter, we were cycling and camping. I note that midges do not generally enter houses, but will enter tents. After a few days I looked like the elephant woman, and the itching is infernal. The midges are attracted by the carbon dioxide that we breathe out, and our sweat – someone once said that the more you resemble a large over-heated cow, the more bites you’ll get. Gee, thanks.

But what to do? Midges are most active on drizzly, dreich days – they don’t like wind, or sunshine. They are most active at dawn and dusk. You could smother yourself in DEET, though I am always a little alarmed at its carcinogenic reputation and habit of eating through plastic. Apparently, soldiers on manoeuvres in the Highlands used to use Avon’s ‘Skin So Soft’ skin cream, and I know several people who swear by it. Other kinds of insect repellent may work, though I’ve never found the more nature-friendly types, such as citronella, to provide much of a deterrent to the little devils. Do let me know if you’ve had more luck!

And of course, midges are part of the ecosystem of the Highlands – they provide food for bats, birds, and lots of other smaller predators. Interestingly, the exceptionally cold winter of of 2010 in Scotland was expected to reduce the midge population, but in fact it did the opposite – the weather killed off many of the midge predators instead, so 2011 was a peak year for the insects. And the other benefit that they provide, strangely enough, is to limit development in the area – a combination of endless bogs and biting insects seems to have made it too expensive and risky to build on a large part of the area. There’s good reason to claim that the bogs and lochs of North Western Scotland form the last true wilderness in the UK, and it’s partially thanks to the midges.

Do not let the midges put you off visiting this most beautiful of areas, but do be prepared. And if the worst comes to the worst, I’m sure someone will sell you a midge hat.

Midge Hat from Craghoppers https://www.craghoppers.com/nosilife-ultimate-hat-ii-woodland-green/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwhvi0BhA4EiwAX25uj5OYIG6APNJsziQdW6-NTbBayLpCbE7PISBvBep_7gxXQKponA0hEBoCwegQAvD_BwE

Cat Update: Willow has been in the animal hospital over the weekend, without much change – she is being fed through the feeding tube but shows little interest in feeding herself. Today, I got a phone call that one of her eyes has dilated pupils, which is clearly not a good sign. I’ll keep you posted.

‘Wobble Board’ (Photo by Pierre.hamelin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, any of you who have been following the blog for a while know that I have a habit of falling over. Sometimes I write about it – here and here and here and indeed here. Usually it’s just a bit of bruising or a sprain, but this time I really did it properly, as we know. And so, I was very interested when one of my readers used a word that I’d heard, but didn’t really understand – proprioception. The term comes from the Latin word ‘proprius‘, meaning ‘one’s own’ and capere, meaning ‘to grasp’ – taken together, proprioception means ‘to grasp one’s own position in space’.

Proprioception is a complicated system, involving sensory neurons that can ‘read’ the speed and pressure on individual parts of a muscle, and which can also detect the degree of movement of a joint. These neurons help to control movement in a myriad different ways. I’m touch typing at the moment, and this is an example of how the neurons activate muscles without me having to use my eyes to see which key I’m pressing. Walking, voice modulation, and all the complicated things that we do with our bodies are governed by the proprioception process, and for the most part it carries on unconsciously. Indeed, sometimes it helps if we don’t think about it, as when we run downstairs or vault athletically over a five-barred gate (well, if you vault athletically over a five-barred gate, my vaulting days being largely over). We can see proprioception at work when we’re running or walking over rough terrain, or steadying ourself on a boat at sea – our muscles, eyes and inner ear all work together to keep us upright and stable. Or at least, they normally do.

Interestingly, in my case at least, there is a link between joint hypermobility and poor proprioception. I have always been extremely flexible, and I am wondering now if the price of this has been my dodgy feeling for where my body is in space. Some conditions, such as MS and Parkinson’s disease, can cause falls, and once I’m off my crutches (hopefully in about three weeks) I will talk to my GP, but regardless of the outcome, I’m pleased that there are various things that I can do myself to improve the situation, once my leg is better.

• I’ll talk to my pilates teacher and get some more balance exercises into my regular routine (hopefully some that I can also do at home). There are some very simple ones, like walking heel to toe, standing on one leg and balancing on a ‘wobble board’ like the one in the photo above ( which in French is called a ‘Plateau de proprioception’ which sounds rather more romantic I think). I’ve been doing pilates for nearly fifteen years, and the osteopathy team at the Whittington were quite impressed by my core strength, so maybe it’s just time to slightly change the emphasis.
• I shall find a beginners tai chi course, and go along with my other half – I think the combination of slow, mindful movement and gentle exercise could be just the ticket to help me recover from my fracture once I’m allowed.
• I shall keep up with my physiotherapy, and shall actually ask the physio if there are any additional exercises I can do to improve balance.

In this recent article in The Guardian, it was suggested that parkour could be a good way of improving proprioception, though this seems a leap too far at the moment. Worth thinking about for any of you young folk out there though! I used to be full of admiration when I saw people doing parkour on the South Bank, leaping over railings and somersaulting between buildings. There’s something rather appealing about using the built space that surrounds us as a kind of outdoor gym.

Anyhow, I am taking this fall, pain in the butt (or rather the tibia) that it is, as an opportunity and possibly a warning. If you’re going to get a spiral fracture of the tibia, better that it happens less than a mile from home, when you’re in your sixties, and when you can manage at home than in any other circumstance. I need to see what I can do to improve my balance, to be more aware of what my body is doing and where it is in space, and maybe to be less distracted when I’m out and about – there is a touch of Ronald Searle’s Fotherington Thomas about the way that I react to nature. I once got a serious sprain when attempting to cross the road to look at a plant. Go figure.

Any tips, Readers? I know I’m not the only one who has crashed to earth accidentally, though I have rather more experience of it than most I suspect. All advice gratefully received!

Fortherington-Thomas – ‘Hello Clouds!”