​​A zero-carbon future lies ahead so will we be up to the task of coping with it?

It’s always nice to be greeted by the new growth. Yet something wasn’t quite right this year.

Clearly, everything had made a big effort to be ready to show off on my return. But somehow or another it appeared to give up half way there.

My sweet-pea clearly had no intention of climbing further than it had done, the lettuce had given up the ghost altogether and my roses were a sorry sight spilling their petals on the ground earlier than usual as though in disgust.

Maybe politics had something to do with my plants’ half- hearted efforts to grow. Or is it something to do with all the changes that may come with the growth of A1 – artificial intelligence for those of you at the back - and no I don’t understand it much either.

Is it something to do with Rishi Sunak who has had the misfortune to be our Prime Minister just as what we know as `net zero’ (an eight year period of change) is to morph into something more complicated?

I’ve been doing my best to find out what comes next though a ban on petrol and diesel cars seems likely. It’s known as a zero-carbon future. Will we all be driving electric cars in less than a decade from now? I really hope not. My little petrol driven four wheeler is still only 13 years old and I had hoped it could be here long enough to celebrate its 21st birthday.

Like ailing summer flowers politics can be complicated. Right now I see the rogues amongst the politicians, people who started off with nothing and are now telling us why we have to change our lives to suit the eco fanatics.

In the midst of it all is a well-known person who one newspaper suggests claims that `England stole Ireland’s land’ I just hope that Labour leader Keir if he ever becomes PM isn’t tasked with the idea of putting Ireland back together again. Since he’s not Prime Minister yet and I’ve a feeling is never likely to be, then we’re safe enough.

And then there’s Putin, the Russian `spiv’ who it was suggested this week `is finally losing his psychological grip’. Now psychology is a marvellous thing, a great gift to mankind. I say that because my mother was a nurse before she married my father. She would have been taught the psychology of the day and my goodness how she must have regarded it as a blessing when bringing up her sons and daughters.

Owen Matthews writing in the Daily Telegraph this week about Putin asks: `can his popularity survive increasingly frequent Ukrainian drone strikes on the heart of Moscow? ‘ I think I know what my mother’s answer to that would have been. I have a feeling too she would have known how to deal with our local errant politicians and those who stride the corridors of Westminster without achieving what we sent them there for. Her best friend was a Catholic also with a large family and

the pair of them often debated the politics of the day over a cup of tea.

So what happens if we have to throw out our oil fired burners, our petrol driven cars, survive the business of handling our money without having a traditional bank account and inheritance tax reaching more of us? I think I’ll return to gardening and let the world sort itself out.