As we went down for breakfast I heard voices, other people already there,. I muttered to Pat, I hate being sociable before I’ve eaten. Two couples besides us, and our chatty host, all in the same age bracket as us. I had to eat my words along with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. We all had travelled quite a lot and our travels overlapped like Venn diagrams, an area of Maths I found to be an elegant system.

An hour or so later we split up, all going for different walks. Pat and I walked down Sunday-deserted village streets to the beach and set off on the coastal path north. The way was narrow, like sheep tracks, through thick bracken and blackberries, ripening and ready to pick. Ancient Forage food, juicy and refreshing. Some women we met were carrying bags bulging with fruit. We met a man from South Africa with who had applied for a job here and decided to stay. He had a Great Dane,

With clouds gathering we walked back along the road on a footpath barely wide enough for one person and felt the first drops of rain as we reached the edge of the village. Weather changes fast here

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Peel castle dates back to Viking times.

Friday 9th Sept

We arrived at 6.30 am on Wednesday and managed to stay awake till 9 pm after a brief nap. Stephen and Judith took us for a walk to Harborne High St in the afternoon where we nearly drowned in a torrential rainstorm. The water flowing along the gutters in seconds became a small river and all the people on the street scattered to the shelter of shop awnings and doorways.
Thursday was also wet intermittently, we had a quiet day at Stephen’s getting over the jet lag and napping. The tv news prepared us for the inevitable with updates on the royal family being called to Balmoral to be with the Queen. She died in the afternoon. What a huge effect that has had on everyone here. I feel as though a member of my family has just died, a benign great aunt perhaps. She was such a constant in our lives. Today, some shops are closed, planned strikes have been cancelled, sporting events and entertainment stopped out of respect.
However, we visited The Falconry Centre this afternoon, a hidden gem behind a huge garden centre. The small area is home to a collection of eagles, falcons, vultures, owls, all endangered in the wild. We watched for over an hour as bird after magnificent bird was flown free, returning for a morsel of food to the handler.

I decide to weed the garden, it’s a week before Christmas and grass is waist high in the flowerbeds. I like to tidy up before visitors come. Rain is forecast. I ignore it till I feel it penetrate my jeans and I need a coffee anyway. Five minutes into the coffee and my book, puppies on my lap, the sun comes out. It is going to be one of those days.

The pups decide to help me plant some native groundcover with little yellow flowers which I like for its toughness. I work my way through the mulch to the soil and Dot enthusiastically assumes I need help digging, and that the tiny green plant is a weed. It now looks like chewed kale but I water it tenderly. I want to take a photo but there is a clap of thunder that sends us all scurrying for cover. it sounds like hail.

Pat has been out the back putting in garden edging after my mulch spilled over the new Covid -inspired path. He regrets hanging out the washing ten minutes ago. Must be coffee time again.

Week three of Stage Four Restrictions

I am writing in my studio again. I walked into a cobweb across the door and opened it to find the floor was a graveyard for slaters, there were white specks of spider poo on the desk, (curiously not on the floor) and the windowsills were covered in dust. Not house dust; this is fine soil blown from drought-affected farmlands. I swept slaters and a huntsman carcass outside and wiped down the desk, legitimate avoidance tasks before being able to sit down and write. I have been reluctant to isolate myself voluntarily in addition to the restrictions we are all experiencing. Instead of craving time alone to write, I have worked in the house editing. The studio feels more like a creative space.

My daughter gave me ‘grand-mothers’ a book of essays by well- and lesser-known women who are grandmothers. I was hooked by the introduction: these are my people, my tribe. I know them, they know me. They understand. Like motherhood, the complexity of grandmotherhood defies description and yet these women describe the myriad emotions I feel that began with the birth of my daughter’s daughter and continue to swell with each successive miraculous birth, her four girls and my son’s precious son. I am so lucky to live close by and be part of their lives. I suspect this may become a grandmotherly blog. Or a birdwatcher’s blog.

The rain has dumped so much water that our heavy clay soil cannot absorb it fast enough and we have silvery puddles all over the lawn. Rainbow lorikeets have invaded the garden and stolen the seeds I put out for the king parrots. They are half the size, but I saw one see off five parrots yesterday, puffing himself up, bobbing his head up and down while hopping and flying from one feed tray to the other. This morning they are investigating a hollow in an old tree quite close to the house. The whole flock swooped in, chattering excitedly, and taking turns to poke their heads into the hole.

Last week was our most active in a while, week 2 of lockdown, shops shut – even Bunnings. Yesterday I mentioned to Pat over coffee on our recently restored verandah, that we should be halfway through by now and he shook his head with a smile, ‘No, Jenny, it’s only been two weeks.’ That’s probably why it was our most active. The urge to get out – anywhere – is strong when the choice is so limited. We walked and cycled, took advantage of the sunshine to work outside, mulching fallen limbs with leafy crowns and nuisance sticks and rose prunings that previously we piled onto a bonfire. The mulcher has been like an extra person in the garden and the bush area, quickly converting rubbishy bits into perfect mulch. It is immensely satisfying. We leave the dead trees for habitat and the trunks where they fall.

The exception to that was the dead tree giant at the bottom of the driveway. We had been driving in and out around it for years and the trunk fell inconveniently across one side, blocking the entrance. A complication was that the resident bees decided they would stay and repair the damage to their home. They don’t like chainsaws much. We left it for months, waiting for winter when the bees would be less inclined to be out and about. Pat sawed it quickly and towed their half onto the grassy side. We can see the brand new yellow honeycomb in one end, like two plates in a rack. We had already planted half a dozen new natives in that area and the tree managed to avoid all of them in its fall. As the daughter of a forester, I have an affinity for trees, delighted with the recent books regarding communication between trees and I like to think the tree fell where it did to avoid crushing the new young ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crecy-en-Ponthieu

After a busy few days visiting my oldies in Scotland (older than me, like, really old) we had visits with old friends, (only as old as us) in Bristol and Cambridge, where Pat stayed while I was in Crecy.  What a fabulous five days that was. I was attending  a writing course with five other like-minded people, run by Alan Durant, author  of 100 children’s books and his wife Ginny who provided delicious meals and a trip to a Michelin guide restaurant. We stayed in the

prettiest cottage in town, slept in the attic, and wrote in ‘silent time’. No talking  and write where you like. I can recommend it. Alan gave us deceptively simple stimuli, like a cemetery and old photos, minimal instructions and half an hour each day of one on one tutorials. At the end of five days, we had each written a children’s picture book and a 3000 word story. These were read out between courses from aperitif to dessert on the final evening. I left feeling energised, and quite likely to go again next year.

Now Pat and I are in a modern apartment in Arras, still in the attic, this time four flights up. We took a guided tour of WW1 sites, cemeteries, memorials accompanied by an enthusiastic Ausssie guide who explained the Australian troops’ involvement in this area. A sobering and emotional day, made worse by shocking hay fever; I sneezed continuously. Pat went to Ypres, Belgium the following day while I rested. We saw entire fields of scarlet poppies, they are a weed here! This morning was market day in the cobbled square. It is hard not to be tempted to buy but we are determined to travel light.

Tomorrow we head back to England, see my brother in Birmingham once more and have a special rendezvous with Dom and Alex in London. We fly out 12 hours before they do!

We’ve been out of range of internet for days. It makes us realise how much we use it. I tried to use Google maps on my phone in the hire car and a message from Telstra screamed, That just cost you $100!’ We bought a map. We caught a train to Carlisle using a “two together” railcard, a useful investment. Cost us six pounds fifty each. Other times it has been cheaper to hire a car! The trip is  smooth, quiet and speedy. So unlike the Australian experience. My 91 year- old feisty Aunt Betty picked us up in her car, brand new two years ago. She drives confidently and we were delighted to find she is as young at heart as ever. She still judges pistol and smallbore target shooting, scoring great bundles of them that are sent each week. She drove us to a forbidding fortress/castle in the Scottish Border Country. It is a five story stone cube built in the 1300’s, extended a hundred years later. Mary Queen of Scots used it to visit her future husband  Bothwell (Boswell?) riding 50 miles across the countryside, making herself seriously ill afterwards. The castle sits alone in farming country, any other habitations have long gone. The Scottish wind is every bit as biting as the Manx; finding its way through arrow slits and the open roof. It is said that only the descendants of the family dare to sleep there overnight. I can’t imagine wanting to sleep in such draughty damp accommodation. Onward the next day to Edinburgh.