When we moved to this garden 4 years ago I found one of those cylindrical, push in the ground mole scarers. It was broken with small dents all around the lower half, almost as if it had been well and truly done over with a miniature pick axe.

There were no signs  of mole activity in the garden but I knew they couldn’t be far away.  Just the other side of our neighbours paddock is a 5 acre hay meadow full of moles and rabbits. Interestingly there has never been any sign of moles in the paddock, perhaps the horses and dogs scare them off. Until last summer we had only had a few fleeting visits from Mr Mole and they were always in the flower beds and usually  when we went away for a holiday. I could easily maintain my live and let live gardening philosophy. My neighbour, however, has a less  philosophical approach. When a mole takes a liking to his veg patch the shot gun comes out and the mole is history. This I think nicely illustrates the difference between me, the suburban escapee, and proper country folk born and bred. I grow agapanthus, he grows food. I am soft and sentimental and he is hard and elemental. I have a mole and he has not!

Right now half my lawn resembles the wilder regions of the moon. A mole has been excavating  the newly laid half  for six months, completely undoing all the hard work I put into preparing, seeding and nurturing a smooth lush sward. I find my attitude  hardening. Perhaps direct action would be justified.

Live and let live?  Up to a point!

I am not at that point yet, but it’s rapidly approaching.

Well no, less is definitely less. But less can be better than more and is always preferable to more and more and more….

Apparently we are billions of pounds poorer due to the snow. I say apparently because it’s not entirely true. The way these figures appear to be calculated is to take GDP for a year and divide by 365 thus giving a nice easy figure for the media to turn into a catchy headline.

However, what is overlooked by our sound bite obsessed society is a small matter of the truth; much of the business that was not done while we enjoyed the snow will be made up over the coming months. I for one will be working extra hours and days during the summer. Of course there will be some businesses for which the effects of the winter weather will be serious and long term and no one would want to be anything but sympathetic in the face of real hardship.

For most of us the unplanned intervention of Mother Nature into our seemingly well oiled routines may serve an important purpose, it perhaps reminds us of our individual fragility and that of our collective achievements, however substantial and permanent they may seem. A little humility may indeed go a long way.

One place in which I am sure less would indeed be much better is the BBC.

I have felt for years now that there is a real possibility we will lose this vital institution and a recent interview on Radio 4 worried me a lot. A BBC spokesperson, I can’t recall his name, admitted that programme making was suffering due to the amount of money being spent on extracurricular activities. I assume this means extra channels, iplayers, blog webs and pods etc…

It seems to me the BBC’s best protection from the triple threats of political interference, creeping privatisation and public apathy must be to remain clearly distinguishable from other broadcasters. Note I do not use the words competition or rivals as the BBC is not as it seems to believe, in competition with anyone. That’s the beauty of its situation, The BBC is on another level, above and beyond all other broadcasters worldwide and that’s not an exaggeration.

The BBC has nothing to compete with other than its own high standards.

It is by maintaining the standard of its programmes that the BBC can remain distinctive and relevant; a constant in an ever changing (and not for the better) media world.

It upsets me terribly to be watching the decline of the BBC.

I would start a Save the Beeb campaign, but the reality is that only the BBC can make consistently high quality programmes and there lies its path to salvation.

OK, so I don’t get out much. I admit, the demands of family and work, combined with a woeful lack of social skills take their toll.

But in this instance I am alluding to a different sort of getting out.

This morning I managed for the first time this year to get out of the office, (which is full of paper work, samples and models, mostly relating to one or other of this year’s show gardens) and do some physical gardening rather than the conceptual or virtual kind.

It wasn’t to last long however.

Sod’s law intervened; as I arrived on site so did the snow. After an hour, and having replanted a short section of holly hedge damaged when a sycamore stump was ground out, I have now resumed my sedentary life.

The holly by the way was a variety called Siberia Limsi. Not too prickly, a refreshingly lighter green than normal and self fertile, very clever!

“As soon as you try to put a thought into words it ceases to be true”

 Schopenhauer said that!

 What do you think?

 If you agree, you will have to answer this question by telepathy or I won’t believe you.

Everything dies baby that’s a fact

But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

Bruce Springsteen wrote and sang that.

Several things have brought this lyric to mind of late.

 It could apply to the careers of discredited New Labour politicians, Middle East peace envoy, pull the other one!

 Banks and city bonuses, resurrected almost before they were cold.

 The Lisbon treaty or was it a constitution?

Either way Lisbon died in the jaws of a Celtic tiger and was resurrected by the tears of a wasted leprechaun who had squandered his crock of gold and ended up chasing after the next rainbow.

Don’t tell me we live in a democracy, unless you call having a yes no choice and knowing that you will be asked again and again until you get it right, democratic. I call it disgraceful when I can be bothered to engage with it at all. Then I am told that apathy is the real enemy of democracy. Well I tell you this, when I don’t vote it will be down to anything but apathy. When we vote we unwittingly legitimise a corrupt system, therefore we are left with no choice but to register our unwillingness to be complicit in this charade by our abstinence.

What all the evidence tells us is that all the important decisions are made in advance and then justified afterwards. (See Iraq inquiry for details).

Some deeper than usual thinking has been prompted by the convergence of the extended winter break and some additional reading matter supplied or recommended by friends and family.

I was approaching half way through The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and feeling that he could have said everything necessary to make his point in a book half the size, (perhaps if you aspire to be taken seriously size really does matter) when a friend recommended The Road and everything did die including my will to go on.

Then just when it couldn’t possibly get any darker a star appeared in the east, well three stars to be precise and not exactly in the east either, that was a bit of artistic licence. From here in Sussex the stars would have appeared in the north, directing the way to Bray via Heston Blumenthal’s fabulous Fat Duck Cook Book.

Now I am no fanatical foodie and not even a passable cook. Combine this with several food intolerances and an irrational fear of posh restaurants and you begin to see just how unlikely a present my wife gave me in the form of The Fat Duck Cookbook.

I can only explain the delight and satisfaction this gift has given me by the following.

The first time I saw Mr Blumenthal on the BBC I knew nothing of his background and reputation and certainly had no desire to visit a three star restaurant.

All that immediately changed.

Blumenthal has qualities that are rare and beautiful wherever they are found.

They transcend the narrow confines of the possessor’s specialist subject to inspire those who connect with him from whatever distance.

 And the moral of this tale, it’s an ill rant that blows no one any good.