Local patch 3

The spring equinox has passed and this weekend we have put our clocks forward and jumped into British Summer Time.  We are looking forward to longer evenings and an opportunity to be outside at the end of the working day. It was a perfect Mothering Sunday, with a celeste-blue sky all day and warmth in the sun. We walked in the Quantock Hills.  Wills Neck is the highest summit (1261 feet). From the top you can see as far as the Brecon Beacons and over to Dartmoor and Exmoor. There is a long, slow pull to the meadows at the top and there was a bright, blustery breeze which tore our voices from our mouths and quickly chilled our cheeks. The woodlands were full of primroses and the first Chiffchaffs were shouting their arrival from the trees.

Back home, I spent a long time searching the skies for further swallows and am beginning to doubt my early (10 March) sighting.  But that joyous, swooping flight is really distinctive, isn't it? I couldn't wish one into the sky today, but over the sunny, tumbledown wall on the edge of the garden there was another herald of Spring: a first Brimstone butterfly. Sharp as lemon against the terracotta bricks, he was unmistakable.

Local patch 2

All of a sudden, the countryside is colourful again.  New leaves and new grass are citrus bright. There is a green haze on the trees, and blossom and bloom compete to be noticed: pink, cream, yellow, purple, orange, red, blue.  We walked the field paths around NT Lytes Carey on Saturday.  Lots of mud remains but the blustery air was soft with Spring.  As we turned the corner of a large field, a patch of clear sky was lit by bright sunlight and the first skylark of the season was tipping his liquid song into the sky.  It's a reminder of better days and a sound full of great promise.  What joy.

Local patch 1

I saw my first swallow over the garden on Friday - 10th March!  Last year, the first one I spotted was on 16 April.  It didn't stay around and I haven't seen another one, but I know that house martins were recorded by visitors to RSPB Ham Wall last weekend.

Can we believe in Spring again now? It has happened in a couple of short weeks.  The daffodils are in full flood, I have seen my first sweet violets, there are primroses on the banks and we have blossom, finally.  The blackthorn was followed by the pink cherries, and in the village this morning: two magnolias - glowing. Tiny leaves are bursting from buds; the young plants in our new native hedge looks like they might thicken up a bit this year.

The pond that we dug and filled last autumn was immediately adopted as a bathing spot for the clouds of starlings that cross the house on the way to and from their feeding and roosting spots. The house sparrows love it too. A surprising number of invertebrates have already made a home there. On Sunday we found a Great Diving Beetle.  We can't wait to plant it up and get that water clear.

Birdsong in the garden seems to get louder every day.  The male blackbird has reclaimed his singing tree, a silver birch above the pond.  The walnut tree is being visited by hordes of rooks who crash around, breaking off the brittle twigs and dragging them back to their shaggy stick piles in the high trees by the Church. The nest boxes in the garden have been explored, I think at least one is already being used by blue tits.  So far, our owl box remains empty though.

tale of two dogs

The young pup walked on two legs for the first five minutes, bouncing and tearing at the lead.  I try not to let him pull but everything is exciting and bright and new when you are four months old.  Tonight we took half a step forwards, three sideways and about four backwards as we made prancing progress down the lane.  In my other hand the precious, ancient collie was marching to her own beat, slowly examining each weed and crack in the walls.  I was in the middle: trying not to get tangled up, managing two poo bags and stopping the pup from knocking the old girl over.  This was not as easy as it looked!  We got to the concrete stile and both dogs needed help: the one too old to climb over and the other too young to know the trick. After the stile, we crept past the garden of the Old Rectory where the scary dog lives and out to the fields.  Skittish black cattle watched us pass and huffed softly.  The rooks were tumbling back to their roosts and a young tawny started to call.

Once off the lead the pup stayed close, investigating everything.  The ancient girl followed steadily, as she has all her life.  Failing eyes and ears now mean that she often gets lost and panics; I checked back often.

The nearly-full moon was up and it was dark as we reached the big meadow.  The cattle were on the far side and so we took the footpath around the edge, stopping to investigate the huge rabbit warren and adjacent badger sett.  Neither dog noticed the rabbits flicking their tales and disappearing into the thick hedge. There was a strong scent of fox as we crossed the small orchard and walked up the track beside the farm.  It had been raining all day and the lane where the cows pass was thick with mud.  As we turned towards home each dog was trotting neatly by my side; I love having two dogs!

here and there ...

I have been thinking recently about home. Not home as a specific place, but something less tangible.What does it mean, why is it important as a concept and why is it so powerful? I have prided myself on my ‘gypsy soul’. I have told and retold the story of my ten year old self begging my father to apply for an overseas post. Eventually it became THE story of my life. We share our lives by the stories we tell, but maybe those stories also shape who we become. As a teenager all I understood about my future was that I wanted to travel. It was the only story I knew how to tell.

So I did. Luckily I married a man with itchy feet too and we doubled our urge to leave places and move on. “We travel light” I said in the early years, when we did not have many possessions. “I love having a good clear-out, it’s better than shopping”, I confessed as we honed our packing skills. “I don’t get attached to houses, I always feel at home” I said to friends who looked sick at the prospect of yet another move. Having babies did not slow us down, it is easy to pack them up and relocate them and waiting at the school gate is a great way to meet new people and make friends. And so in 28 years of marriage we have lived in 18 houses; in 12 towns; in 4 countries; on 2 continents; in 2 hemispheres. I have made a lot of curtains, dug many gardens, redesigned several kitchens and painted lots of walls. We have explored wonderful places in Europe and let South America get under our skin in a way that we shall never recover from and probably do not want to. Our children have passed through half a dozen schools. They learnt what it feels like to be a foreigner, and to operate in a second or third language. The experiences have been rich, painful, exciting, frustrating, colourful, satisfying and scary; but never boring.

But something happened during our last upheaval. I made a surprising discovery. Selling up, packing up and flying away was a brutal experience. It felt physical, like a violation, as if my insides were being torn out and then laid bare for all to pick through. And so I have started to re-examine those stories that I live by.

“I make friends very easily”, I have always said, “and we can keep in touch”. Yes, but you cannot keep up with everyone. When you move out of their lives people have to let you go. In our headlong rush to pastures new I think I have been a little cavalier and careless about friends, I always leave them behind.

“Moving and packing makes you realise how little you really need to take with you”, has been my mantra for years, “it’s only stuff”. But there has to be somewhere to store the precious early artwork and handmade cards. I do not what to get rid of the photos or the Duplo or the familiar bedtime story books and how many more times do I want to collect all those useful things that build up in the kitchen cupboards and drawers but which are not essential kit?


“If this job/house/town is not right we can just move”, we have reassured each other frequently, but I would love to see the bulbs and shrubs and trees that we plant grow to maturity. Dare I suggest that perhaps the big challenge for people like us would be to stay?

It feels a little like heresy, but I think I am beginning to discover that what I want now is to belong somewhere. Finally, perhaps, I need to feel rooted. It would be nice to be part of a landscape, part of the storybox of a place. There is value in belonging; in day to day interaction with people who have shared good and bad times with you; in not being the new girl. The urge to leave is a powerful one and to be on a journey is exciting. But it can become a habit. It is not a habit I want to kick but I think it would be nice to go … and then to come home again. Perhaps this is the new story that I can start to tell and live by?