I was on the Shropshire hills for empty classroom day [ECD] this year, and stumbled across a year happy-looking 6 group from Hertfordshire. \u00a0Rather splendidly, they were having nothing to do with ECD as they were\u00a0enjoying ECW: empty classroom week \u2013\u00a0staying at a field centre in the Onny valley. \u00a0Well done those schools who persist in seeing the value for children of such experiences. \u00a0No one in the group seemed to have heard of ECD.<\/p>\n
There were also bus loads of children in the Cardingmill valley, all clip-boarded up, fighting for space with pensioners in the National Trust toilets. \u00a0I thought to myself, I hope you're not here for a course in hydrology, as the streams are barely running in some places. \u00a0The elderly heading for the waterfall higher up in the hills might also have been disappointed.<\/p>\n
The final encounters were with a skylark, perched on some burnt-out heather about 10m away, singing as if the world were theirs, and a cuckoo, out of sight, but not sound. \u00a0It was my\u00a0first cuckoo of the year and may well be the last as one per year is the usual rate these deprived days \u2013 thanks, in large part, to the EU Commission's toleration of the spring butchery of song birds in the Mediterranean, that goes by the name of 'traditional practice' .<\/p>\n
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