Just up the road from where I live in Fabulous Flintshire there is a house, and it has a garage, and every year a pair of swallows nest there and raise a few young ones. That's been going on for many many years. A few days ago I actually got to talk to the occupants... I was walking past and they were just emerging from their back gate.... and we talked a bit about those swallows. They expressed the joy of having those swallows, and were " so pleased to see them return every year." Oh dear .... I was stupid enough to tell them that it was very unlikely that it was the same pair returning each year .... the average life of your average bog-standard swallow is around 3-4 years. They point blank refused to believe it ... well, they didn't want to believe it. And I felt a right twit for telling them. Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow. But ...but .... accepting reality is probably a sensible thing to do in the long term. ... and I've often wondered if we humans are the only creatures that know they will eventually die . I suspect that we are.
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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