2016: what a year that was. When I last posted on this blog, David Cameron was sitting pretty as UK Prime Minister, having pulled off one of the biggest electoral surprises of modern times the previous year. Hillary Clinton was going to coast to victory in the US Presidential Election following the self-destructive spasm the Republican Party had suffered by selecting loudmouth businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump – Donald Trump!! – as its nominee. Oh and Europe was an issue obsessed over only by the likes of Nigel Farage and the lunatic fringe of the right wing of the Conservative Party. Whilst the “Vote Blue, Go Green, Greenest Government Ever” schtick had long since been ditched along with other “green crap”, there was a feeling of cautious optimism that a global consensus was building around the importance of taking urgent action on the climate, which was further strengthened with the signing of the Paris climate deal.

12 months later and we are hurtling towards a Brexit that nobody voted for (the referendum question having been framed in terms of “In or Out”, not “Hard of Soft”) with all the leading figures of the Leave campaign having conspired via a bizarre political suicide pact to leave Theresa May, who was almost totally invisible during the referendum campaign but was generally reckoned to be a moderate Remainer, driving the country towards the cliff-edge of the hardest of hard Brexits.

If the environment has been overlooked in all the hysteria regarding immigration and debates about what scraps in the way of trade deals the UK can scrape together having voluntarily left the world’s largest single market, on the other side of the Atlantic  the new occupant of the White House is busily burning the books of climate orthodoxy and promising renewed investment in the type of carbon-intensive industries the rest of the developed world has been busy divesting itself of.

This rise of the right seems to be accompanied  by a hardening of public attitudes towards minority groups and a general lack of acceptance and tolerance of others generally. We even seen this in our visitors at Bradgate – a greater selfishness and reduced willingness to compromise in the case of disputes or disagreements with other people.

If 2016 has been a year of seismic upheaval, what is 2017 going to bring?

Or so I said in my last blog post…in March 2016!

It’s been a busy year and one in which work became all-consuming at times. Nicola often jokes that she has to play second fiddle to “Lady Bradgate”…and she is a demanding mistress.

Anyway, following something of a wake-up call over the past few months, I am trying to restore some balance to my life and finding time to write is going to be one way in which I endeavour to do this.

Suddenly it is the middle of July and I have barely posted anything in 2015.

Life at work is busier than ever with a full programme of events at Bradgate Park for the summer season. Since 21st June, when we very appropriately staged a production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream we have hosted an Archaeology Open Day for the University of Leicester fieldschool that has been taking place on the Park, held a Wildlife Weekend and a chainsaw carving demonstration. This weekend we venture into musicals with an adaptation of ‘The Jungle Book’, followed by a fundraiser for the Army Benevolent Fund and Royal British Legion as part of the World War 1 centenary commemorations the following Saturday.

Alongside all this we are welcoming more visitors than ever and making good progress with our conservation and habitat restoration work. It is safe to say that Bradgate is no longer the sleepy hollow it was as little as three years ago.

Also, I am now a published author! It may be only 32 pages but ‘The Story of Bradgate Park’ has my name on the front and is on the shelves as the first in our new series of publications to update the worthy but dull Bradgate Books from the 1970s.

Away from work, this month we celebrated our Silver wedding anniversary with a Druid blessing and tea party for 80 or so friends in our garden. Someone (I forget who) once said that a successful marriage depends partly on finding the right person and partly on being the right person. I have been very blessed with the former and strive continually to deliver on my side of the bargain.

May 7th saw the election of the first majority Conservative government in 19 years. Unfettered by coalition partners we have already seen the new administration cut subsidies for onshore wind energy, continue to promote fracking for shale gas and mount a failed attempt to dilute the provisions of the Hunting Act. It looks as though the next five years are going to be tough ones for the UK environment.

There is no sign that life is going to get less busy any time soon.

I am about to embark on the process of migrating my site from Moonfruit to WordPress.

Wish me luck!