May is my favourite month. With any luck we may get some sunshine and
everywhere the grass and leaves are at their greenest and flowers are
blooming. My absolute favourite is the foaming white of the hawthorn
hedgerows which to me are one of nature’s greatest glories. Sadly though
this is a glory which is seen less and less of each year as hedgerows are
dug and removed to make way for tidy fences and neatly sterile concrete.
All around us gardens are bricked over to create parking spaces or ease of
care. All totally understandable but so so sad. Birds are heard and seen
less, hedgehogs are becoming rarer and are at risk of becoming endan-
gered. When I was a child our suburban gardens were filled with hedge-
hogs, slowworms, lizards, butterflies of all colours and the spring was a
delicious symphony of bird song. Ponds were filled with frogspawn and
there were at least two species of newt. Streams teamed with minnows
and kingfishers flashed. I miss all this!
We seem to forget that this beautiful earth is ours to treasure and protect
not despoil and ruin. When I look at the result of what has evolved I see
the mind of God in all its diversity and beauty. We have this wondrous gift
yet so often we don’t seem to appreciate it. Nature is rarely tidy or neat –
it is a creation and creativity is the antithesis of sterility.
Fran Monahan
