Life and death, highs and the lows in nature

Posted by Jon - 19 July 2016

I KNOW, I should be blogging about jewellery; the inspiration and the new designs busting out of my mind, that's why you are here, that's what you signed up for. However I can't resist telling you about my week in nature, well walking the dog actually. If it's any consolation, it's my thinking time, the space in my life where my own ideas and thoughts can emerge and grow like the abundant greenery that surrounds me. Right, moving on before I get sucked in to some flowery poetic vortex.

My week started on a bit of a downer. The Sunday morning dogwalk is a great one, no pressure, no nagging feeling that I should be at work - working. Stefanie, my wife, usually joins me, and we have those rare moments where we can talk without the kids around, often about them, or even better, just share some valuable moments together.

Anyway, we changed direction from the planned route, on an impulse, and we were just going over this small wooden bridge when my eyes wandered down to meet with the eyes of this perfect little fox cub. The wonder soon changed to horror, with the realisation that it's back legs weren't working, it was dragging itself along by it's front paws. We took Connie, our dog home and returned with a box, which we put him in and took him off to Hydestyle, Animal hospital. He was put down very quickly, he had almost definitely been hit by a car, and wasn't going to recover. Leaving us with a surreal feeling that we had stepped out of what we knew and had somehow brushed against the wild and beautiful side of nature. Actually we felt acutely sad, with a sense of loss, out of proportion for the amount of time that this perfect little creature had touched our lives. However we also felt some pride, that we had at least stopped him from having a slow, and very uncomfortable death. They were great at Hydestyle (link below) and I urge anyone who would ike to support a local wildlife charity to have a look at the amazing work they do. Without knowing who else to turn to, we were personally really grateful to them for the compassion they showed, and the professional way that they dealt with our little fox cub.

https://www.facebook.com/HydestileResidentAnimals/?fref=ts

So, rapidly trying to pull this one back to a happy place, the weather has of course been amazing the last few days, and we've been eating the wild strawberries, wherever we've found them. For anyone who hasn't seen them before (they are tiny and hard to spot) they have a bit of a taste of goji berries, but with that unmistakeable strawberry flavour, and a subtle sweet kick when they are ripe. Here's a link for anyone who wants to find out more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria_vesca

Dogwalks at both ends of the day have been wonderful in this weather, huge sun in the morning, soft moon at night, both undertaken in tee shirt and shorts. The other night I dragged the whole family out, including various extra teenagers that were staying over, to see the glow worms. They only live for such a short time you see, because adult glow worms can't feed, so they only live for 14 days or so. I fear I'm going to drag the whole blog down again, because I can't help sharing this quote from the UK Glow worm survey home page, rather poignant , rather Romeo and Juliet; 'Only adult females glow, to attract the flying males, and once a female glow worm has mated, she turns out her light, lays eggs and dies!' I've filled in their survey, more info here: http://www.glowworms.org.uk/

The other treat I've experienced this week was seeing a Kingfisher. Now, I think I've seen one before, but it was so long ago, that it might as well be a first, and when I say that I saw it, I just rounded this corner, and out of the gloom caused by overhanging trees around this stream, I saw a dart of vibrant electric blue, that almost glowed out of the half light. It was amazing, and reminded me of some of the fanrtastic stones we have here, that when placed in the shadows, almost glow, taking whatever meagre light is around it, and recycling it in to a softly intense aura. The colour was pure Paraiba tourmaline, a particularly rare shade of copper rich tourmaline, which in it's most famous incarnation is pure, vivid turquoise. I've recently bought a mixed parcel of Paraiba tourmaline, small stones, to use as accents, so that experience has got me inspired! More information here... 

I'm signing off now, and because it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride, emotionally, I know the TV news always used to end with a jolly bit, mostly with a dog. So here's Connie, my constant partner on these experiences, my muse you could say, but don't tell my wife that I said that!

Thanks for reading,

Jon

P.S. I meant to say, all these stories unfold on our instagram, if you are interested in my jaunts through nature, see more here: Jon Dibben - Jewellery Designer Instagram Although I have to say, this internet link seeems to only show the jewellery pictures, I guess you need to have the App to see the complete deal!?