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Spring Thoughts

© Gay Klok

"I should like to inflame the whole world with my taste for gardens. It seems to me impossible for an evil-doer to share it." Prince de Linge

October in Australia and it is Spring time. Our clocks have gone forward one hour and our days begin when the sun is coming up to shine on the wonderful flowers in bloom in our garden. I have been laid low with sickness, indeed I have been in bed with a doctor for nearly a month now! And that is very frustrating. Far better to curl up in bed and sleep a Winter month away. It has been most miserable to miss the opening of the Spring curtains in the country garden and relish the new leaves on the Maple trees, the first blooms on the early flowering Rhododendrons and the Camellias at the height of their Spring show. I did mange to take a few photos in the Town garden and walk slowly down the brick paths and, secateurs in hand, cut off blooms that had finished their performance. I always carry a pair of secateurs when entering my own little piece of Paradise. These walks gave me moments of a contented heart and peace of mind. The grandchildren have been ordered to stay away so the garden also strengthened my will to live!

Forced to stay in bed most of the time, and as my eyes were also infected and reading became tiring, I listened to the radio with a TV watch on important occasions. Yes, Australia is also in election fever time. As the days rolled by, I became more and more amazed at not only many of the political manoeuvres but the selfish attitudes of the folk ringing in to the radio discussion groups. Such a "gimme, gimme" attitude that has developed in our Western world and the politicians listen and throw more and more money to the greediest, instead of to the neediest.

If only we could make our world leaders, our politicians, do an hour's digging and garden walking before they attend their conferences. Maybe we could persuade them to take a forest amble in the wilderness too. If they are religious, no matter what religion, could it be pointed out to them that gardens and wilderness were here before mankind? A Christian believes that God started our species in the Garden of Eden. He did not have Adam and Eve starting the race in a house with minimum four bedrooms and four bathrooms. If you believe in the 'Big Boom' theory, the prehistoric animals were extinguished but the forests remained. But what does clever peoplekind do now? We defy Nature and are fast eliminating our forests and poisoning our water ways.

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