Earlier this morning, Martyn spotted a pied wagtail outside, feeding (presumably) on silver birch seed. It was still around when we got home after shopping. Quite a treat: they are such pretty and entertaining little birds. The other sighting was a fallow deer in the forest: it sprung out in front of us - fortunately at a safe distance - and disappeared in the woods on the other side. That’s our first sighting of wild deer for quite some time: the last was when one leapt out immediately in front of us, followed by about five more. We quite often see farmed deer when we’re on the way to the garden centre. I’d like to find a supplier of local venison, but Martyn is a bit squeamish about eating the likes of bambis and bunnies!
I wonder if we’re seeing winds of change among that other local fauna, the West of Disgustedville Tory voter. A couple of elections back, one of our local councillors, who happened also to be the leader of the Tories on the council, got utterly trounced. The winner was the candidate of a local alliance formed to oppose said leader’s vanity project to build a fixed-seating theatre in place of the highly versatile Assembly Hall. It would have meant borrowing several millions, intruding on town centre green space and eliminating some hundreds of revenue-generating car parking spaces. Ironically, as readers may remember, it was in that same Assembly Hall that the count took place!
Next-door neighbour Julian’s death created a vacancy, and the election was held on Thursday, the alliance having called it even before Julian (who, incidentally, opposed the theatre project) had been laid to rest. The Tories fielded Julian’s daughter Rowena, expecting that she’d romp home. She told us that she was meeting a lot of hostility on the doorsteps, and that normally reliable Tory voters were wobbling: to quote her, ‘Boris isn’t helping!’. Her defeat was a lot closer than that of the former leader, but a defeat it was. So the Tories, though the biggest group on the council, are now in a minority. Interesting times, eh?
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