These roses are growing in a bed outside the RBS bank in Exeter. I pass them when I'm walking to my solicitor's office - delivering the latest tranche of papers to do with moving house. Walking there is necessary to get me out of my head and all the legal stuff I have to read and understand which drives me potty. Today it was all about the enquiries on my purchase.
Tonight my bedtime reading is the planning application to Mid Devon County Council to build 5 houses in the field next to the house I'm buying. I want to find out what I can expect.
I'm thrilled to discover that the dormice have come to my rescue.
The area to the east of the site has been retained to serve as an ecology mitigation zone,
providing a higher value environment for foraging and commuting of dormice.
Which means that they can't build on that piece of land which is on the boundary of my property. So although the houses will still be built - now only 5, not the 6 as originally proposed - they won't be jammed up next to me. There will be a safe dormice buffer zone between us.
I can't help imagining the dormice in tiny bowler hats, carrying rolled umbrellas as they commute freely up and down their foraging zone bringing home the bacon/berries for their families.
This is the only very blurred photo I have of a dormouse taken at the Nature Reserve at Seaton Wetlands last May. He's the cutest little thing.
I miss telling this story to my father - he had a very soft spot for dormice and he would have cheered when I tell him how they had the power to convince the county council to protect their hedgerow home from bricks and mortar and concrete.
Robin would have cheered too.
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