The Times they are a-changing

The times have certainly changed.
AOL no longer supports blogs so I have had to pack up my hyphens, commas and ellipses and seek cyber-pastures new.
Post-traumatic avascular necrosis of the femoral head some thirty years after dislocation of the hip in an RTA has limited my walking range so no more big hills for me unless and until I get a nice shiny new one.
I am now confined to circuits round the village where the times are changing rapidly. I saw my first butterfly of the year, a peacock, sunning itself in the shelter a clump of aubretia that has sprouted and blossomed on the needs-a-bit-of-pointing-that-does garden wall. On the same day as I came across an ermine in full fig looking some what embarrassed to be still wearing last season’s colours.
The garden has been invaded by the golden yellow stars of celandine. A pernicious, if attractive, weed, it has proved impossible to eradicate. I console myself with the words of Old Jimmy Brown, a local market gardener who survived the Somme and lived to be ninety- umpty. Contemplating the encroaching invader with its tiny bulbules that scatter with every attempt to dig them out, he shrugged and remarked “It’s syn past”. In a week or two the fleshy leaves will wither away - until next year. It gets its name from the Greek for swallow though it will be long past before they arrive. That won’t be for a fortnight yet.
The swallows seem fewer in number every year and more so the swifts. Only two graced the skies above the village last year where dozens used to scream round the eaves when we first came here. The buzzards are on the increase and have been conducting their aerial courtship, diving and wheeling with outstretched talons. Their “pee-you” cries are so elemental they make the hairs on your neck prickle. I suppose the dawn take-away of last night’s road kill helps to sustain the rising population. It is certainly so of magpies, an uncommon bird here thirty years ago and now commonplace.
Nary a hedgehog is to be seen around the lanes and gardens where dozens snuffled in times past. BFC was adept at finding them and suffered for his inquisitiveness with prickles to his nose.
The times are not what they were.