Frazzled.
Everyone's frazzled and it's not just the air temperature.
Defra's been frazzled by proposals to control buzzards around country estates where people pay to shoot pheasants. Suggestions included capturing buzzards and destroying nests around the estates. Eviction and imprisonment - for that's what they're suggesting - is a ridiculous way to spend tax money, given that buzzards may, at most, kill and eat less than 3% of the vast numbers of phesants bred each year for "sport". Far more pheasants are killed on our roads.
The RSPB is frazzled by the scale of planning proposals threatening the UK's natural spaces; frazzled too by the very physical demands put upon our land management by drought followed by flood; and frazzled by economic cuts and policy reform that govern and finance the work we do to ensure we all have a natural heritage to hand-on to others.
My neighbours, my children's friends parents, family and the people I know in our east London community are all frazzled too. Many are working harder, or longer, for less. So do we need to party or what?
Despite the news, there's still lots to celebrate. There's the Jubilee. There's the start of summer. We could welcome the breeding season. Have you noticed how hard blue tits and great tits are working? They seem to be constantly eating, but they're not just feeding themselves, they're feeding chicks too. So do share food. Invite them to a picnic of cake crumbs, fruit, seed, unsalted cheese or maybe even some mealworms if you're not squeamish.
Celebrate too the determined bunch of people who live and work in Noth Kent, who're standing-up to defend nature against some very wealthy backers of proposals to build a giant airport on the area's salt marshes, mudflats, farms, towns and industry. This last week a lone voice from the world of banking raised his hand and politely pointed out that the idea is more of the same sort of development which led to the western world's economic meltdown.
To live up to the stereotype of a moaning conservationist, I can't end this on a high note. Here' s the catch. Please think about how you celebrate and if using balloons, fireworks or Chinese lanterns, make sure they won't end up causing harm to breeding birds, bugs and other critters and that they don't end up littering our open spaces.
Now. Go make like a penguin ... and chill.