Who was Wilson anyway?

There are a couple of hard questions I've been asking myself lately, like "at what point did I become a nature nerd?" and "who the heck was Wilson anyway?"

On the first issue: I've never been into 'spotting'. 'Spotting' to me, is something done by sad men in thick spectacles and plastic anoraks, often involving trains or birds, usually to fill a void vacated by a love-life or..well...a life at all really.

And yet I found myself last week, standing on a beach at Wilson's Prom, with my trousers rolled up (exposing my knobbly knees) enraptured by a white tray full of water and broad-leaf sea grass, trying to 'spot' wee aquatic beasties. My mother would have been proud.

"Oh, it's a pipe fish It's a pipe fish! Look! etc" I yelped excitedly, every time a piece of sea grass moved. And then I caught myself and cringed. A wee bug spotter, I am.

I was at the prom for the State Waterwatch conference - Waterwatch being one of my responsibilities in my relatively new role at the Department of Sustainability and Environment.
It was the first time I'd met the state team (or at least thirty of 'em) but they're all amazingly passionate folk and genuinely interested in what I had to say (which is just as well, as I keep saying it repeatedly, so obsessed am I at the importance of educating voters on the importance of healthy waterways and the beasties (including us) who rely on them). I may extrapolate on this in a further posting... Be warned.

So who was Wilson and why is it his prom? Still haven't got an answer to that. But he made a good choice. Wish it was mine.

Other news:

Knitting: Ariann is coming on in leaps and bounds... well, more like little-hops actually, but I hope to have something to show you by next week's posting.

The Kids: Lachie has been walking around furniture fora couple of weeks. To top this off, he threw himself out of his cot this morning. I'm thinking of buying him a surfboard... :-)