Oak and ash and thorn

There is a lovely old folk song I used to hear called "Oak and ash and thorn", a celebration of the English countryside. It is time for the leaves on the great big trees to come pushing through into the world once more.

The weather has become wintry, which is not what you would expect for late May. the trouble is there are no clear expectations of our weather any more. Even the butterflies are in trouble. Out early in the heat of March they probably wish they had not emerged now.

Oak before ash, there'll be no but a splash

Ash before oak and we're in for a soak

I think the oak is just a little ahead, in spite of the soaking we already had.





















Did I post these roots already? I like them so much. The rivulet was quite a stream still at this point.

This is a real art shot. I took it when the flood was very much at the height.

                                                      This was a very peculiar piece of debris. How did it get here ?                       

A day later the river had risen still higher and when I came back it was about 400 yards further down the river. No sign of the drowned calf though.

Eventually the waters went down enough to let us back into the meadow once more. This lovely pool was left behind.

The bluebells have grown really tall on all the water this year; almost too tall.

Little trajedies happen all the time in spring. WEas it the cuckoo we keep hearing who took this one?

    

foraging

waters slowly go down, but there is a long way to go before the flow is normal

The water was spread all across the valley; now it is a shrinking lake

 Sophie almost caught this one. Poor thing was lucky to escape.

Finally the May is out. It is so late this year. |Why?

Abused and exploited children: who is to blame?

http://www.itn.co.uk/home/44971/Asian+sex+gang+jailed+for+over+70+years

A gang of Asian men have been charged with grooming young white girls for sexual abuse in Rochdale.

Some time ago a group was jailed for something similar more locally in Oxford, though in the Oxford case the girls may have been trafficked.

Last night on Newsnight a poet, Lemn Sissay, and a children's Commissioner discussed the situation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01hhd8s/Newsnight_11_05_2012/

The poet said we were all, as a society, as a collective parent, responsible for failing to safeguard our children.

I think he was right.

But we have very little say in the matter as ordinary members of the public.

It isn't as if we could throw out the local government officials in charge of child care.

It isn't as if there was a political party offering to change the spending priorities of local or National Governments.

We have very few journalists willing to tell us the truth about these things.

In Denmark children in care are offered care homes with something akin to alternative parenting. It works. Children there grow up safely.

In this country we do not invest in that kind of care.

We ask that teachers get better pay. No one thinks we should pay care staff  a good wage.

What you end up with is young inexperienced adults being asked to be the main carers of vulnerable teenagers only a few years younger than themselves.

You have managers who build their careers out of keeping their budgets down.

The children want to be loved and cared for.

Maybe we should not be too surprised they turn to these Asian predators, in the absence of quality care in children's homes.

Care is low status and low waged in this country.

The higher you go in social work the less contact with children you have. You fill in the forms that are a substitute for real safeguarding. You tick the boxes.

The whole approach to managing abandoned vulnerable children is flawed.

How do I know this. I worked for many years in social work as a consultant and trainer.

I have been a consultant and training officer to  a large group of children's homes.

More recently, I have witnessed the privatization of child care, hiving off children to PLC's for shareholder profit.

We see a town like Margate over run with farmed out children from London boroughs.

The management cultures are a bit like Macdonalds.

It might work if children were hamburgers.