Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
Lichens are generally overlooked as you pass along the coast or visit graveyards or walk among trees. They cover 6% of the earth’s land surfaces and they are press-ganged into a range of uses. Reindeer and caribou devour prodigious amounts of them. Humans consume vast quantities for perfumes, dyes, soaps and tinder.
The coffee percolator was on the hob for the second time. We’d watched the morning news on two channels between 8 and 8.30 and I’d moved back to the kitchen to read the yesterday’s Irish Times newspaper. The sun was shining on the back deck, dappled through the trees that line our southern fence. Beams of light brought different items into perspective while pigeons continued their cooing. They added a base note to the unusually loud dawn chorus that started around 5 am today and were still at it. I was reading about nightingales singing in Berlin, the no malice-aforethought surge of Covid-19 in nursing homes and the obvious need to rebase existing national debt and double it. Pigeons and nightingales aside, I needed a diversion.
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