Not Worth a Straw
A straw, they say, shows which way the wind blows. I use straw on my little property for many other purposes than mattressing straw- berries, but for the first time over many years this winter I have been unable to obtain a single bale. Straw, it seems, has 'a scarcity value and at the same time is, worth no more than weeds. Fairly recently I travelled across the width of Wiltshire's- broad back from Tisbury and Hindon in the west to Kingsclere in the east. During the whole of that 30-miles journey I was never, not once, out of sight of the smoke of burning fires. I might, like the children in Puck of Pook's Hill, have been witnessing time in reverse and Wiltshire being martyred by a Viking raid. The farmers were burning their straw, and that memory has burned itself into my mind. Never have I feared more for my country, for a nation that makes a bonfire of its natural wealth is fixing itself between the nutcrackers of Hubris-Nemesis.
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