No Leaves on the Plum Tree
17 October

We've arrived at a significant moment in the autumn - the plum tree has now shed all of its leaves.

It's a sign that, despite the continuing mildness of the weather, we should press on with putting the garden to bed. There's a variety of things that need cutting back and transplanting and, since I'm off work this week on holiday, gardening as well as decorating is high on the list of things to do.

We cut back the twisted willow on Saturday. The fine array of fronds gave me inspiration for Sunday's Quaker meeting. I was on door duty and part of that service is to provide a floral arrangement for the central table in the Meeting Room. Normally, these are quite chaste and formal. So, I thought that, if I used the twisted willow, I could create something big, bold, brash, energetic; something that completely swamped the central table. And I did. And they all loved it - bit only as a one-off experiment.

Another reason for getting the garden to bed before it gets too late in the year is prompted by news on the BBC web site.

Britain has not had a particularly cold winter for ten years, but some experts believe that temperatures over the coming months could plummet as low as the winters of the 1970s.

Paul Simons, The Times weatherman, said that the shift in temperature was influenced by a phenomenon known as North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO, influenced by a low pressure system over Iceland and high pressure over the warm Azores islands in the sub-tropical Atlantic. When the Icelandic pressure rises and the Azores pressure dips, Britain catches blasts of bitterly cold air.

He said: "In the 1940s the NAO turned negative and brought some of the coldest European winters of the 20th century, including the bitter freezes that helped to defeat Hitler's invasion of Russia. Another bout of negative NAOs in the 1960s included the worst winter for more than 200 years, when homes were buried under snow and ice floes drifted in the English Channel.

"The Met Office is forecasting a negative NAO this winter. Although they cannot tell how severe the weather will be, the past ten winters had such ridiculously mild weather that even an average British winter will come as a rude shock."

There's also been a lot in the news about the possible onset of a pandemic of bird flu.

The spread of bird flu, also known as avian flu, to Turkey and Romania and the increasing numbers of human deaths in Asia from the virus is causing concern.

Like humans and other species, birds are susceptible to flu. There are 15 types of bird, or avian, flu. The most contagious strains, which are usually fatal in birds, are H5 and H7. The type currently causing concern is the deadly strain H5N1. Even within the H5N1 strain, variations are seen, and slightly different strains are being seen in the different countries affected in this outbreak.

Domestic birds are particularly susceptible in epidemics. This is why the confirmation of the H5N1 strain in birds in Turkey and Romania is causing concern. The fear, after the Turkish and Romanian findings, is that H5N1 will spread across Europe. Because it is carried by birds, there is no way of preventing its spread.

Bird flu was thought only to infect birds until the first human cases were seen in Hong Kong in 1997. Humans catch the disease through close contact with live infected birds. Birds excrete the virus in their faeces, which dries and becomes pulverised, and is then inhaled. Symptoms are similar to other types of flu - fever, malaise, sore throats and coughs. People can also develop conjunctivitis.

As of 10 October, 2005, there had been 117 confirmed cases of avian flu in humans in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, leading to 60 deaths. Avian flu does have a high fatality rate. In comparison, Sars has killed around 800 people worldwide and infected at least 8,400 since it first emerged in November 2002.

The real fear is that bird flu will combine with a form of human flu. Experts believe the virus could exchange genes with a human flu virus if a person was simultaneously infected with both. The more this double infection happens, the higher the chance a new virus could be created and be passed from person to person, they say. Concern has also been raised by research which showed that the virus which caused the 1918 pandemic was an avian flu virus.

Once the virus gained the ability to pass easily between humans the results could be catastrophic. Worldwide, experts predict anything between two million and 50 million deaths.

Experts say people in the UK are at "very low risk" of developing the disease at present. But the Health Protection Agency estimates that if a flu outbreak did reach the UK around a quarter of the population could be affected, with possibly 50,000 deaths.

It seems to me that, like a cold winter, a flu pandemic is a near certainty. Now, what I am about to say is going to sound callous but the planet could probably do with a cull of human beings at present. As we were saying at work, a flu pandemic is likely to take out a higher proportion of elderly people and, bingo, there's the pensions crisis solved. In fact, I'm sure the government would both wring its hands and jump for joy (behind closed doors).

I've a couple of social events to mention.

The Sunday before last, after Quakers, I dropped in on Phil to discuss our forthcoming trip to Stirling in January for another of our courses. The business was quickly dealt with. But the real talking point was the presence of Phil's friend, Loz. Now this is a name which has been part of conversations for the whole of the nearly fifteen years of our friendship. And this was the first time that I had clapped eyes on him. And, of course, he didn't look anything like what I'd expected. He simply looked like himself.

Last Saturday evening it was over to Pemberton to see Colin and we had a very plesant three hours or so chatting and eating. And I came away with a copy of Charles Kingsley's Hereward the Wake and a "private" recording of Bellini's I Puritani live from Las Palmas on 18 May 2004 and starring Juan Diego Flórez.

Elsewhere, there's little to report. I've managed not to go to the theatre twice and the concert hall once. Work totters on with JobCentre Plus seemingly incapable of keeping to the same story two weeks running as they change their minds in the light of realities and implications.

Here at home we are now on episode 7 of 10 with Spooks - that certainly seems to have gone very quickly. And we are maintaining an interest in Lost. However, the very best television to be had at the moment is on BBC 2 at 8pm on a Saturday night as Andrew Graham-Dixon (he of 2002's A History of British Art) escorts us through The Secret of Drawing. Excellent, prime time public service broadcasting.

And before we go, I have to hand you over to a special sub page for a special announcement about Philip Olivier.