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Rewild your life!  Today we did the organisation for a bake sale which we are having in May for our Save the Elephant fund, and the students were all super-good and listened like the best sets of ears ever, because they knew that the quicker we got that over and done with, the faster they could get out and run.

They were up and out of the door as soon as I said they could go, because I had told them that the only running was to the field, after that was a deep breathing exercise to be done quietly, with eyes shut.

They were all running about as far away as possible when I got there, but followed the obedient girls to sit in the shade against the wall of the old church and learn deep breathing.  It was lovely and quiet, and they all, after a little bit of giggling from the usual suspects, got really into it and said how good it had made them feel, making thoughtful remarks on our way back to school.

Except for one (there's always one) who is an athlete and thinks he knows everything anyway, so apparently it meant nothing to him, but that is fine, you can never win them all, can you?  One kid even saw blue when she opened her eyes finally, everything was blue!  Deep breathing into blue.

Our advisory has made posters for the Save the Elephant fund, and we are going to have two bake sale for these amazing creatures, to do our little bit, because "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do nothing" as Edmund Burke said in such a sexist way that I had to add "and women" for him.

Indeed, it is a woman actor in China who has spoken out against China's massive trade in ivory.  Her name is Li Bingbing, and you can watch her here.

At yet another elephant conference in London in February this year, the world moved ahead a little, as a contract was signed between many nations, including China, proclaiming a ban on ivory for 10 years. Also, several countries agreed to destroy their stockpiles of ivory.  Why for 10 years?  Why not forever?  People will just hang on to their ivory, and their schools for ivory-carving, and their grand businesses, for 10 years, and then we are back where we started.  It has all happened before. 

Anyway, it is something, it is a big something, so I and my little group are happy about that, and we will bake our hearts out and create some wonderful sweet concoctions to help these majestic, enormously wonderful creatures.

The amazing Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants.

Today at school I found an old orange I had left on my desk for a while, so old that its skin was hard and wrinkled.  I really felt like eating an orange and so I decided to cut it open on the off-chance that it was still edible.  It took some sawing with the knife to cut through the skin, but once that was done the soft juicy flesh was absolutely delicious, cool citrus with a lot of luscious goodness!

And of course it became a metaphor, because us older people are always looking for things like that to make us feel better about this aging business.  So even though you are old and wrinkled, and you're rather tough and weather-beaten, there is still sweetness to be had.