A letter from Mary Truell:
I have just been given the most beautiful calendar by a Lympstone friend. Each month displays one of his photographs of wild places, some by our own River bordered by red cliffs and woodland nearby. In May by the Otter River there is a superb enlarged photo of a dragonfly on white blossom whose majestic robes have left me spellbound. In other months the pictures carry the same emotive power of Nature’s Beauty.
It has made me sad but grateful that it is Groups like WAL in dozens of villages all over Britain that people in thousands have been responding wholeheartedly in recent years to use all their expertise or just simple love, to try to revive, restore, encourage our fellow members of the Wilder World to come back. We urgently need the help of our fellow creatures of the wild to survive. In this respect Lympstone has been full of the joys of activity this year with the wise wisdom of highly qualified Citizen Scientists and knowledgable amateurs giving free hours to advise and assist. Our two splendid schools go pond dipping and tree planting. Many more of us are bird watching while they in turn are worm watching! There has been Positive, persistent plastic plucking from the hedgerows by praiseworthy people. Faithful Flood/Flowing Followers; Grand Garden Growers Galore in General Grounds plus Graveyards; Tree Talkers and Wilderness Walkers; Favourite Fishermen and Wind Worship Wanderers challenging the Waves; Spiders and Slugs, Butterflies and Bugs, Moths in the Moonlight for whom the heart tugs; Stars in the nighttime losing their glow because of the cruel lights submerging them below…
…sorry, enough of my doggerel. Do make up some more if you feel like it. So many many more areas I have not mourned here such as wild flowers, mosses and fungus, ants and woodlice etc. etc. all at present diminished in number.
May 2025 be full of Achievement, Friendship and Fun to all. I’m sure we’ll bring back our new old Life and Beauty in our countryside. All your ideas are heartily most heartily received. Thank you for all the kindness given joyfully throughout this year. It portrays Hope personified.
