The Recorders Conference - another Last for me?

The years are hurtling around again, as it was the Biological Recorders Conference on Saturday.  This seems like a good moment to pull one of Col's butterfly photos from his Photo Gallery, as he used to walk a Butterfly transect as a Recorder.  I am spoiled for choice, but have decided on a rather splendid Clouded Yellow.

I only managed half of the session, in that we had to leave after lunch - everything too painful - but we got to attend the talks Col was most interested in - one about moths, and one about a cricket called a Wartbiter (thus). Don't ask.

Michael Blencowe was there, the author of the wonderful and heartbreaking LOST.  I wrote this about his book in a previous blog:

"The author starts by taking us to the Booth Museum - just down the road from here. He manages to capture the strangeness and fascination of the Booth. It is well worth a visit by the way. And he also skewers the Victorian obsession it commemorates in a couple of sentences:

"Victorian society was enthralled by the natural world and they demonstrated their admiration through coveting, collecting and categorising it. Birds, butterflies, ferns, eggs, seaweeds, shells,you name it - if the Victorians could get their hands on it, they'd kill it, skin it, stuff it, press it and pin it."

Michael takes us all over the world, from Alaska to New Zealand.  He describes the valiant, hopeless and heartbreaking struggle of the vanished Stellar's Sea Cows as they tried to protect each other from the slaughter."

We have been living in a tragedy since the loss of Eden... and the animal creation has suffered so much. Michael has done a valiant job of commemorating those animals we have lost through our greed and our selfishness.

And a real positive about the Recorders Conference is to see how many people do care for the creation and are trying to help.

It was nice to see a few more from our old Butterfly days.  And the veggie buffet was good - hot bhajis and samosas, and various cold spreads and dips and veggies.

But...unless some wonderful new cure and repair for arthritis and its damage is imminent, I think that will be my last Recorders Conference.  For one thing, I can no longer cope with the dining room we have to eat in. The seats are so low - designed for children and their healthy little knees (the venue is a school) -  and I am still paying for the wrench of getting myself on and off their low dining seats.

I never thought about this aspect of old age - the saying goodbye to things, not realising that they are lasts.  I had my last swim in the sea when my sisters were down a few years ago, and that may well have been my last walk and paddle on the beach.

However, to end on a Doubleplusgood note,  I hope to live forever in the restored earthly paradise, and who knows what we will be doing then - new things as well as old. And re biological conferences, we will all be learning how to take care of the earthly creation perfectly, as the Kingdom of God will be restoring the peace and harmony that prevailed in Eden worldwide. For one thing, it will co-ordinate all our efforts perfectly, and there will be no politics - large or small - to get in the way and make our lives miserable.

And it will give us such joy to be able to care for the earth and all that is on it.