Last week I wrote too soon about the approaching spring, beguiled perhaps by the snowdrops and crocuses that festoon local gardens. It seems that we are in for further storms before any prolonged temperature improvement sets in. 

On the subject of nature notes, I was walking close to Radstock with my collie, Penny. I'm fortunate that she is well behaved, particularly in the field of 'business.'

Other dogs are freer with their excreta and whilst most owners I know gather up same in neat little bags to be taken home and disposed of, others do not and one often has to pick a complicated course along well-trodden footpaths to avoid these canine offerings.

What seems almost worse is that any fence en route will support bags of faeces fixed to it like offerings at a Shinto shrine.

From an environmental standpoint it would be better if faeces were recycled by casting it into the long grass where dwell slugs, the operatives of Nature's own removal system.

These little chaps (some are a little bigger) relish the rich food source and make short work of it.  Gone then would be the unsightly bags and it would be a straightforward to use a trowel – or a dock leaf – to remove the ordure from the footpath and cast it into the wilderness.