I owe my election as a district councillor in May 2023 to my North Devon Green Party colleagues. They photographed and designed, had printed and then delivered four rounds of leaflets and cards. They also put in hours knocking on doors.
That’s why my wife and I help other Green candidates. Here I am with Rosie and other stalwarts ready to start canvassing for Cllr Sara Wilson, centre, who is standing for Devon County Council in the election on 1 May and is a truly excellent candidate. Rosie and I were out canvassing for about five hours. Responses were mostly very positive, apart from a couple of brusque NO THANK YOUs.
During the week I filled in a questionnaire about being a district cllr. This is part of a research exercise by someone who is on Reading City Council and also an academic at Reading University. Asked how many hours I put in each week as a cllr – including related pro bono activities – my answer was 25 plus hours.
Last week, for example, I had one and sometimes two meetings every evening, plus more during the day, plus phone calls, emails, Teams, Zooms, etc. Retirement, I now realise, was just a phase I went through, like adolescence.
Planning committee site visit to Chilpark, Fremington
These were last week’s engagements, including the pure pleasure of a poetry workshop.
Monday: a lunchtime Teams meeting on the Northern Devon Cultural Awards, a new scheme to identify and honour cultural achievements: the winners and runners-up will be announced at the Park Hotel, Barnstaple, on 28 March; a talk given by Nick Bruce-White, the excellent CEO of Devon Wildlife Trust to our local branch.
Tuesday: AGM of the Friends of St James Church, Swimbridge, of which I am Secretary; North Devon Council Governance Committee, including a pre-meeting with external auditors to assess our work (three hours total);
Wednesday: Site visits with North Devon Council Planning Committee to Fremington (application to build 101 houses, 30% affordable, on a green field site plus a 12 house development put forward by a Community Land Trust on part of the Great Field (a medieval survival) in Braunton; at 5pm Rosie and I attended the 70th weekly vigil for Gaza in Barnstaple High Street; I attended the first half hour of a Teams meeting of the North Devon parishes forum on Emergency Planning before joining the monthly Zoom meeting of North Devon Green Party.
The actor Juliet Stevenson on a Zoom call with members of Just Stop Oil, Defend our Juries and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Thursday: lunch with the chair of Barnstaple Buildings Preservation Trust, followed by volunteering at the Barnstaple Museum, where I am scanning the jobbing printing collection; tea with members of the Swimbridge & Landkey Community Speedwatch Team at the Castle Inn in Landkey to discuss future plans; Zoom with Just Stop Oil on the appeals of several activists facing imprisonment – a highlight was Juliet Stevenson speaking out so eloquently, like her admirable fellow actors Susan Sarandon and Debra Winger in the US; Swimbridge Parish Council monthly meeting.
Friday: meeting in Petrockstowe of Save St Petroc’s Petrockstowe, ably led by Cllr Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, with valuable input from the local MP Sir Geoffrey Cox; Swimbridge Q&A organised by the Friends of St James Church, Swimbridge – three talks on the recently conserved Gothic pulpit from c 1500.
Saturday: the aforementioned canvassing in Ilfracombe.
Sunday: Counting wading birds on the Taw at 7.15 am; Moor Poets Zoom workshop with Katrina Porteous (shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize in 2024) on poetry and place.
Magnolia, Fremington
One of the pleasures of being out and about on site visits and canvassing is seeing so many magnolias in blossom. Light relief after canvassing on Saturday included watching quite a bit of Wales 14 – England 68, which introduced some new young heroes of English rugby, followed by two recent TV documentaries about The Who.
Reading in the summerhouse early one morning last week I heard a sound I did not recognise. I opened the Merlin bird ID app on my phone and found that the call came from a Stock Dove.
Cycling off to a meeting later that morning I heard another distinctive bird call I could not place. Merlin quickly identified a Willow Warbler. We have had hard frosts these last few nights and I have worried about the frogspawn on our pond. However, the spawn is now wriggling with tiny tadpoles. All seems well.
Finally, the highlight of my wading bird count this morning was an otter. I noticed a wake of ripples on the far side of the Taw at about 8.15 – and then the head of an otter appeared. It spooked five Mute Swans, who flew off noisily. The otter swam over to my side of the river and continued upstream, close to the bank. I managed to capture a glimpse of it at the end of the little video at the top of this blog. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for reading
Mark