"And just where do you think you've been, young lady?"

Hands up all those women of 25 and over who can still recall the guilty shiver those words can cause.
Yes, me too, even though I had depressingly few occasions where the guilt was justified. But those are the words echoing in my head on returning to this blog and finding it is over 6 months since I last posted.

So where have I been? Right here actually, in a tab just next to this one. But the reassuringly tedious regularity of life is not conducive to the sort of blog posts that might conceivably be of interest to anyone, so I have sent my inner voice to the Quiet Corner.
Why am I posting now, I don't hear you ask? Well, my principle online activity as a volunteer editor at the Open Directory Project is currently on hold due to "upgrades" of some technical stuff, so I'm suddenly purposeless. Also, a couple of my friends have turned out to be quite entertaining bloggers, and I feel very outclassed!

I've never been a true blog fan (as proven by this stop-start effort), but I can see how addictive it can be to read other people's personal journals and clear out the contents of one's own cluttered mind.

I have two newly discovered facts to share with you today, each as inconsequential as the other. One I learned from a blog, and one from "real life". See if you can tell which is which.

1. Avocados take 18 months to develop on the tree, and even then they will not ripen until they are either harvested or fall to the ground.

2. Regions immediately above the Tropic of Cancer are called sub-tropical, just like those below the Tropic of Capricorn. The same applies to sub-equatorial regions.

If you guessed that one of my friends has a climate blog, well done, and here's an unripe avocado as your reward. (Hint: it will ripen in 9-10 days, or 7-8 days if stored in a brown paper bag in a cupboard.)

Just peachy

Now that I am able to clonk about on crutches in my giant metal boot thing (feeling like Frankenstein's monster), I have resumed my former computer position near the French doors at the back of the house.

These open out onto the deck with the home-made but very pleasant water course trickling past. We all enjoy sitting (or lying) here, particularly in the mornings before it gets hot.

There's an old peach tree here, that was close to death when I bought the house, but has responded to my inexpert but well-meaning efforts at pruning by being laden with fruit each year. Unfortunately the last few years the whole crop has fallen victim to fruit-fly, so this year I set aside my principles about not using toxins in the garden, and sprayed. It really should be done several times, but once was all I was prepared to do, and it certainly made a difference. There are still lots of fruit-flies, but only about half the crop is affected this time, leaving plenty for me to share with local birds, lizards and the dogs.

The tree is so close to my chair that I can take photos without staggering to my feet, which is just as well, because crutches are not a very effective way of stealthily approaching wildlife. I've uploaded some of my favourite photos from over the past 2 weeks, and they can be seen here.

This female Red-capped parrot has been particularly entertaining, because despite being perfectly able to feed herself, she maintains a constant plaintive chirping which eventually persuades her mate to fetch the best bits for her.
But an awful thing happened 3 days ago. She took off from the tree and flew straight into the glass of the kitchen window with a sickening noise. She flopped to the ground and was making pathetic efforts to fly, but unable to co-ordinate or gain height. By great good fortune the dogs were inside, so I hobbled out as quickly as I could to try to throw a towel over her so she didn't injure herself some more. She managed to lurch up into the tree, however, and I couldn't reach her. She was calling piteously for help and it was all very distressing. I watched her for ages as she sat there panting and crying, until something startled her and she flapped off in a very wobbly fashion. I did not expect to see her again, but to my huge delight I heard her petulant chirping yesterday and sure enugh, she was back, tucking into a peach with gusto. It made my week!

"When is hungry not hungry"

I subscribe to a monthly e-newsletter from The Word Centre, a group in the UK who promote the use of plain English. In today's edition is this scary item:

When is hungry not hungry?

Answer: when the US Government decides to replace one easy-to- understand plain English word, with a decidedly unclear four-word phrase.

From now on the new phrase used in a report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be 'very low food security'.

Why? Because the word 'hungry' is not a 'scientifically accurate term' for what the annual USDA food security survey looks at: how many American people have gone without food during the year.

This year's survey found that 12% of Americans, around 35 million people, could not put food on the table for at least part of last year. Of these 35 million people, 11 million said they had gone hungry at times. It is to this group of people the phrase 'very low food security' will apply.

The USA has set a goal of reducing the number of hungry households to 6% or less by 2010, or to half the 1995 level. But it is finding this target difficult to achieve as the number of people going without food has increased over the last 5 years.

'Anti-hunger' advocates say the new words 'sugar coat' a national shame.

David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group, says:
"The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families.'

In other words, if a goal is not being met, move the goalposts. Or if that might attract unfavourable comment, call the goalposts impermanent target-indicative markers instead.

Mind you, I think the "anti-hunger advocates" could have chosen their metaphor with more care.