A time for plant inventories
My Christmas will really begin in three days time on Christmas Eve when I sit down and listen to the ‘Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’ which is broadcast by the BBC every year from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. I have done this for over fifty years in order to listen to the most beautiful singing imaginable which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmastide is one of the most important times in the Christian calendar, and of course an important day for most other people for it is a national holiday to rest and relax with family and friends. Georgetown is wild with Christmas shoppers, and as this is the last opportunity I shall have to wish each one of you a very happy Christmas or if it is more appropriate, a very happy holiday, I now do so.
It is my custom at this time to carry out an inventory of the plants I have in my collection, those that I have lost, or acquired during the year and from where. More importantly, where they are to go in the garden. These are of course self imposed tasks, and not really work at all.
I suspect that most of the children in Guyana are in fairly good touch with the plants which surround them. In England children are stuffed full of information designed to assist them to pass examinations. When I was a boy we were encouraged to start learning about life that began on our doorstep. Students studying the science of life are losing a great deal if they do not learn about the non-human life forms which surround them.
When I was a boy my aunts and uncles made a point of teaching me about wild flowers, and dew ponds and small mammals and birds. Latin names were unheard of, but by the time I was eleven I am sure that I could name most of the wild flowers growing in the north and north-west of England. Of course in those far off days we had no computers or other so-called advanced learning methods. We were just enthusiastic learners keen to know about everything which surrounded us.
Now I am so excited about the cashew tree I have growing in my garden. It is getting to be a far larger size that I really could have wished but it is fruiting magnificently. It is native to the West Indies. The flowers are not much to look at, but it is the ‘fruit’ in which we are interested. It is in fact the fleshy flower stalk which produces the well-known cashew nuts which are roasted and which then make excellent eating. The wonderful Amerindian girl who lives with us brought some seeds from Region 8 and germinate them some years ago, and it is from one of these seedlings that we got our tree.
And with that, you will, I am sure, excuse me as I head off for my family and a traditional day with them preparing for the holiday as Christmas hurtles towards us.
Take care of those you care for and love and until I talk to you again may your God go with you and care for you whatever you call him and wherever you are.