Our Seaview home – Page 6 – something from seaview

Our Seaview garden story

I have been much in the garden lately, enjoying some fine warm days. And I have been reflecting on how our garden has grown with us – and what solace it has given. But it has been hard work.

As I have written elsewhere, we inherited a garden that had been unloved, and grown wild. The grass was long; some of the fencing had come apart round the oil tank; and in the corner you might just glimpse the sad remains of the plastic shed that had been blown apart in storms.

The first chore was to mow the lawn. The garden was well-fenced in. This was useful while our cat Poe made her preliminary expeditions in her new territory, but meant we couldn’t see the view from the house.So the next task was to reduce the height of the fence. Then we could see the sea! After that we replaced the shed. This sounds an easy task, but was complicated by the fact that we were experiencing very strong winds at the time, and there was no way we could hold the large wood panels correctly in place with the wind blowing as it was. Everyday we checked the Met Office forecasts. A week later our opportunity came and we got the shed up.Sitting in those pots on the patio were the plants and seedlings we’d brought from our old Devon home. We now needed to make some flower beds in our new garden so we could give our much-travelled plants a new home.We started with a large bed in the corner of the garden….. and that’s when we realised how hard it was to dig this ground. Eventually we acquired a pick-axe.We learned that digging flower beds here involved removing all the earth, clay and stones and rubble from the proposed spot, sieving it, putting back a little bit of good earth and buying a lot of expensive compost and top soil to refill the hole!This is why it was such hard work.

One of our neighbours kindly showed us some pictures of the old farm steading when it was being converted into homes. This is our kitchen. That pile of rubble behind the kitchen is our garden. We further learned that our garden was where the tractor was usually parked. To keep the mud under control, the farmer regularly tipped hardcore and rubble on this spot. Aaaaagh!

Despite the hard work, we did finish the little beds beside the fence in time for our little seedlings to be transplanted there in the early spring.It felt such a triumph to sit out in early summer as we came to the end of our first year here.These little beds under the fence were still very empty, so we bought poppy and cornflower seeds. This was the result in high summer – just amazing. We added a conservatory. This has been a huge bonus for us in windy, colder Northumberland, meaning we can shelter ourselves and our more delicate plants.Stephen put a lot of care into making raised beds to grow our vegetables inIn a few years we had transformed the garden with the addition of water butts and three raised beds. And, of course, a greenhouse.This is the last garden bed Stephen dug. Judging by his expression, I think it is the last he is ever planning to dig.Suddenly it looked like a proper garden!And we got produce from the raised beds. Our first year carrots were a little curious.But last year we had these beautiful courgettes …and tomatoes …and chilli peppers too.I cannot believe that we now have what looks like a proper garden! There is still often work to do.The garden is now showing us that it has a mind of its own. How silly of me to think it is our garden. Of course, it isn’t! It belongs to the place itself …

Self-sown poppy seedlings are growing round and through our bench …and in our raised veg beds …and in the lane …Never mind, Poe can still do the fence walk …and she can still find the bird water when she’s thirsty.As for Stephen and me, – well, we’re happy so long as we can still see the view.What we have tried to do, is build a garden where the plants we grow merge into the natural grasses of the fields around us.

The essayist, Francis Bacon, was surely right when he wrote that “…[a garden] is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks.”How lucky we are to have a garden for solace, beauty, abundance – and hopefully a lot less hard work!

Silly babies, squabbling teens

Our garden is full of birds! The first crop of fledglings have arrived and they, together with their exhausted parents, are everywhere, greedily looking for food (and water). It wasn’t like this when we first moved here.

We arrived some five years ago to a cottage that had been converted from an old steading. After the conversion, it had been let to temporary tenants. Nobody had put energy or effort into the garden. We inherited a wild grassy field of a garden.When we had tamed our wilderness (mown the lawn), we had nothing in the garden but grass – nowhere secure for birds to shelter bar the one clump of grass we left (on left of picture below, just inside the fence).That winter birds came and went as it snowed and snowed. They must have been very hungry – but none stayed. How could they – there was no shelter in our garden. But as we dug beds and things began to grow, the birds began to visit. Our mornings start with the ritual of putting fat balls and bird seed out for the birds. Some goes in birdfeeders hanging on walls and fences, and some is scattered on the path (we grate the fat balls up).

This is to cater for all tastes. Some birds like to graze on the ground…(this is a family of collar doves that came for a few days and then moved on….same with the crow.) Some eat at the feeders…There’s a great deal of argy-bargy, particularly at the feeders. Remember these are young uns, learning how to cope with just about everything by themselves.They don’t only have to learn to share the feeders – there’s the drinking water/bath tub as well.One of my favourite ladies, this doe-eyed Blackbird teen, hesitantly approaching the cat drinking water. It’s all the same to them (provided the cat isn’t around, of course).We are especially fond of the wagtail family who have been returning to spend their summers here for several years.But we are disappointed that the wagtails have not chosen to nest in our woodshed this year (as they have for the two previous years. Their babes were just a hoot.)Last year the blackbird also nested in the woodshed, and we got birdtv set up. It was the best! Sorry Mr Weatherperson – it was far far better than real telly. Here’s Mama Blackbird working hard to feed her chicks.And here’s Papa Blackbird working hard to keep the nest clean!Mama Blackbird knew how to keep her chicks in order – look at that little squashed face on the right!Somebody else in the house was very interested in birdtv…But poor old Poe – she’s really confused! Love this pic of her trying to work out where the baby birds really are.When she was younger, she was really seriously into bird watching …But now she’s older, she just lets the world go by… Unfortunately there are other teens in the block. This is our neighbours’ young cat who is fascinated by what goes on in our garden. Sometimes young bemused teens fly into our conservatory and have to be coaxed out. One year we had a silly sick young carrier pigeon (nicknamed Gormy) whom Stephen loved to death (sadly that’s true though it was a very poorly bird when it arrived).We were beginning to think that this was going to be rather a disappointing year. No birds nesting in our wood shed, and where are the chaffinches and greenfinches we’ve found feeding at our table in previous years? These days, it’s quite ordinary birds that we find eating on our path… But you can never guess the animal world. Who was to arrive earlier this week but Larky Boy! (I shouldn’t really label this bird so because I don’t actually know if it is male or female.) But he (I’m sticking with Larky Boy) is most unusual and a real delight.

We hear the larks here on and off all summer, and sometimes catch brief sightings of them, rising helicopter-fashion from their nests in the local fields up, up, up to the heavens for some glorious singing. But they are very shy birds….apart from Larky Boy. He even did a little tentative practice singing on our lawn!The other day he brought his siblings. But they haven’t reappeared. He has though, – just got to enjoy his presence while it lasts. What pleasure it is to have these birds with us for a while.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

I will let you into a secret. It was for this view that we moved the 400 miles from Devon to live in Northumberland.You are looking out of the window, over the fields, over the Eastcoast railway line, over the sea, towards Holy Island. That bump that you see towards the right of the picture is the Elizabethan castle standing proud on Beblowe crag. In differing lights the island looms grey or shimmers as a mirage. Sometimes it is wrapped in mist. It is always fascinating.

It is as though one is glimpsing Avalon, the Isles of the Blest, a place associated with deep yearning and longing – and peace.

Although I have always felt drawn to this distant vision, I haven’t always enjoyed going to Holy Island.

Our first visit was in August 2004. Like the rest of the day-trippers, we’d checked the tide tables and driven over the causeway in a busy queue of holiday makers. We were directed into a huge busy carpark, and followed the stream of people walking into the village where it’s all busy and bustling, and you can join the rest of the crowds in the tiny Lutyens castle, the mediaeval priory or the usual mish-mash of touristy shops.

Nothing special there. Just busy, bustling and bustling. How to reconcile this with the spiritual intensity of St Aidan and St Cuthbert, to draw near to the harshness of life that those amazing monks experienced who produced the Lindisfarne Gospels, to understand the holiness of the place?

Well – we have learned the way. Now I can feel the island calling to me when we have not visited for a while. It has worked its magic on me, and I am a disciple.

So – let me tell you about our visit earlier this week.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is not really an island. It would be much more accurate to call it a peninsula. Peninsula – from paene meaning nearly in Latin and insula meaning island. It is just that: nearly an island.

You have to cross a causeway to get to Holy Island, and the causeway is flooded by the tide twice a day. So for approximately eleven hours of each day it’s inaccessible by road.Before the causeway was built in the sixties, you had to approach by boat, or else walk with your donkeys over the sands as these two good ladies did.Were you to cross when the tide was high, you would be unable to drive right over the causeway. You would have to take refuge in this rickety little wooden hut and wait for the tide to go down.You are still directed into the huge busy carpark. Even though it’s a long way off the school summer holidays, the carpark is crowded and busy. Holy Island is an immensely popular visitor attraction. But it is from here that we diverge from the masses. While most people walk into the village (or catch the local hopper bus), we back-tracked and walked along the road to a footpath that takes you over to the dunes. The expedition has begun!! You can immediately see how different this area is. The wild flowers are fantastic. There are poppies and daisies….and cowslips and orchids and buttercups and vetch…..There is also piri-piri. At this time of year it is young and green and harmless. There are warnings about piri-piri, and rightly so as it is most tiresome and we definitely do not want it to spread.One year, later in the summer, I unwisely trampled in the piri-piri and this was the result. This plant has the best survival tactics of any I have ever known – it attaches itself with little wiry hooks which are the very devil to remove. and then it travels with you until it finds a nice new uncolonised spot to invade. After you leave the meadows, you climb up into the dunes, and there is the sea! The vegetation is different here – more sparse and lower growing. Everywhere the birds are calling. I cannot capture the many larks we see as they fly up and up and up with their glorious singing. But believe me, they are there, and their song is beautiful.We sat on the edge of the dunes and looked down on this wonderful white empty beach. Not a lot of birdlife here today, and no people at all. Strange – there are usually oyster catchers, curlews and redshanks, and at least the odd beach-comber competing for finds.There are, however, quite a few kittiwakes chicks in nests on the cliffs. We can see one nest quite clearly. There is a very demanding chick there! You can see its open greedy beak, and boy, could we hear it! When parents arrive with food, the chicks go wild and make an unholy din.After watching the birds, we turn inland again and head for the castle. It is fascinating how many different sorts of terrain there are on one small island. We call this part the Moon Landscape. It is actually what was once Nessend Quarry. This is where, in the 1860s, they quarried for limestone. The extracted limestone was fed into the limekilns (at the foot of Lindisfarne Castle) where it was roasted into quicklime (commonly used as an agricultural spread for neutralising acid soils). You clamber out through sandy dunes and are back in meadowland again. We are once more in the land of verdant greenness.There are traces of old dykes and ditches. The monks farmed here so these may be very old indeed.We turn onto the old tramway that once carried the limestone to the Castle lime kilns. This is very comfortable walking after the rough terrain of the quarries and dunes. They’ve clearly been shearing the sheep – bits of their fleece are scattered all over like snow. But it’s a coarse fleece – I shan’t be taking any home to spin. Now we’re beginning to draw closer to the castle, and we can see the sheep whose fleece I’ve been inspecting.I love Lindisfarne castle. The washed colours remind me of an Uccello painting.It is not an old castle as British castles go – nor did it see important action. A castle was first built on the protruding rock of Beblowe Crag in the 1570s as part of the English defences on its unruly Scottish borders. But in 1603 the crowns of England and Scotland were united under James (1st of England, 6th of Scotland), so after that the castle was rather unnecessary (although a small military garrison was maintained there for another three centuries).

It was reborn into modern life in the early 20th century when Edward Hudson (the owner and founder of Country Life magazine) acquired the building. He appointed the distinguished architect, Edwin Lutyens, to convert the castle into a home. Lutyens made a magnificent job of it. It is enchanting inside – simple magnificence combined with a strong eye for detail.

On the shoreline below the castle people make cairns with the local stones. We may not all visit Holy Island as Christians, but without doubt many people find in the place a deep spirituality. I think this couple were building a cairn to commemorate the scattering of cremated ashes. I can well understand why you would wish to leave the ashes of those precious to you in the care of these little islands on the Northumbrian coast.

You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid (T S Eliot: Little Gidding)

On the distant horizon is the Inner Farne Island, whither Cuthbert retreated when he could no longer cope with the busyness of Lindisfarne. Now we are rounding the shoreline and the old tram road path leads up to the Castle (those arches on the left are the Lime Kilns). The castle sits like a galleon sailing in these magnificent Northumbrian skies.We are nearing civilisation …But first, glance up at the golden lichen on the castle approaches. Lichen thrives where the atmosphere is pure. And look down, at the banks of valerian on the lower castle reaches.We are back now with our fellow tourists. The ruins of the Priory are in our sights.A sunny lunch in the local pub. It’s quite an ordinary little pub, but how many other pubs sit so casually next to such magnificent ruins? It was St Aidan who brought Christianity to these islands at the request of King Oswald of neighbouring Bamburgh Castle. The sainted Aidan was much loved and is still revered as a great saint, as is his successor, Cuthbert. But in many ways it has to be said that Cuthbert has overtaken Aidan in the popularity stakes. This is Cuthbert’s country. He was – and still is – hugely special to Northumbrians. They remember him locally as Cuddy. If you look carefully you’ll see the Cuddy duck (actually an Eider) nestling at the foot of this rather curious statue of Cuthbert. Crinoid fossils found on the beaches are Cuddy beads, and were once used to make rosaries. Today there’s a ginger cat asleep nearby, oblivious to everything but the sunny warmth. Aidan and Cuthbert never knew this stone built Priory. Aidan came here in 635, and Cuthbert is thought to have arrived here some 30 years later. They lived and worshipped in wooden buildings which have completely disappeared, but are thought to have been on the same site. Given the simplicity of the monks’ lives here on Lindisfarne it is truly extraordinary that one of the finest books extant, the Lindisfarne gospels, was copied and illustrated here. The Lindisfarne Gospels are thought to be the work of Bishop Eadfrith, Cuthbert’s successor on the island. They are now one of the greatest treasures of the British Library. First page of St Matthew’s gospel. Image made available to the public domain by Wikipedia.The monks left Lindisfarne in disarray when Viking raiders began a series of attacks on the monastery at the end of the 8th century. But they took the body of their beloved St Cuthbert with them, and a fine wooden carving in the church commemorates their devotion.

In the 12th century monks returned to build the Priory that we see today. It is a beautiful building, and despite the exposure to the elements still looks amazing. You can still make out the details of the chevrons on the columns. Even in the Priory, it is the Castle perched on Beblowe Crag that dominates. It intrigues me that when I speak of gazing longingly at Holy Island, it is a conflation of the image of the Castle and the ethos that the monks created that sits in my mind. The Castle is the stronger visual symbol of the place, but without the history of Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and all their fellow unknown monks, it could just be another castle. Of course, Mother Nature has a strong part to play in making this place remarkable too!Time to face the world again. There’s the whole Lindisfarne/Holy Island retail experience. And then we join the pedestrians walking back to the car park. I hope they will return to the mainland as refreshed by their visit to Holy Island as I have been.

Field of the Cloth of Gold

As the seasons pass, the fields outside our house change colour – sometimes it’s because of the weather, sometimes it’s because of the crops growing there. Sometimes it’s just the light. It is extraordinary how different our view can be because of this colour change.

We spent our first night here in July 2010, and this was the view looking from our home out down the coast to Bamburgh Castle. Gold – and a rainbow to boot! The crops – wheat, barley, oats – were ripening. One field had already been harvested and ploughed up for winter sowing. You can see the reddy-brown soil of the locality. But the overwhelming colour and feel of the place when we first arrived will always be gold for me.By October, the fields were green. The farmer had sown winter crops, conditions had been benign, and the young crops were growing well. There were still plenty of small creatures about for our cat Poe to hunt.Then in November, and on through the winter, we got snow. Sometimes, it was a white out.Sometimes, it was that blue-white, picking up the colour from the brilliant sky-blue and sea-blue.In other years, we’ve know that sort of semi-snow state where it’s not white or green or brown.Early spring is an intense green – and blue. I just love days when the forget-me-nots pick up the blue of the sea like this. (Think it’s a hare in the field).And the plants get greener and bigger. Field, garden, lawn – all an abundant luscious green.Then the crops start to change in colour – they’re on their way to gold via a sort of fresh lime-green. At the same time, stronger and bolder colours take off in the garden.Then back to gold again.On light evenings the colours shift. Some nights a dense blue dominates. Golden fields are harvested.The stubble turns a softer faded gold.One year the farmer had planted broad beans in the field nearest our house. These were left until late, late in the season when the beans were hard as pellets, and then they were combine-harvested like the other crops. Apparently dry beans such as these are sold to Pakistan. A dirty scuffed brown view for a long time.There’s also spring muddy-brown , with just the hint of green as the new shoots burst forth. We had had heavy rain just before this picture was taken, and then hot sun resulting in mist steaming off the fields.This is the best brown – the rich chocolatey brown of the freshly ploughed field.In the right light, a field will take on a completely different colour.This year, the farmer has planted rape for the first time (that we have known). It has just come into flower. A Northumbrian field wearing a cloth of gold.

My story quilt

Last year, several things came together for me.

I found myself spending much more time sewing than I had for many years.

I was inspired by a blogpost I read by Rebecca of Needle and Spindle in which she wrote about the Needleworks Collective and their GiveWrap idea. In brief, they aspire to reduce the horrific throwaway culture of Christmas and present wrapping paper by replacing it with beautiful handmade fabric wrappers which could be used and re-used many times.

As it happened, my cousin Polly and I were looking for a project that we might work on together. In her spare time from music and Alexander teaching, Polly is a part-time printmaker. Together we evolved a system of making joint GiveWraps with her printed fabric scraps incorporated in my surrounding patchwork. We had such fun! Here is our first GiveWrap (you can see Polly’s inclining printed ladies in the centre bands).We made a lot of GiveWraps last Christmas. And I realised with a start that I was using up all my special fabric treasures on GiveWraps that I would probably never see again (the central tenet of GiveWrappery is that you pass it on, and then the GiveWrap is passed on again and again).

Further inspiration came at Christmas when Polly gave me the powerful novel, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. This is a story of slavery in America’s deep south. One of the slaves, Charlotte, is a fine seamstress, and makes a quilt to record her life story for her daughter. Aha!! My quilt is nothing like Charlotte’s quilt (it’s arrogant of me even to compare them), but the seed of an idea was sewn, and I embarked on my own story quilt, sewing the odd fabric pieces together in the same way that I had made my GiveWraps.To give some sense of structure to what was really rather a haphazard quilt, I decided to restrict myself to the red, orange, yellow colour spectrum on one side, and blues and greens on the other. Purples and browns, blacks and whites crept in unbidden everywhere.

I started with a mess. So many fabrics, so many scraps, so many memories – just so much to put in.In the end, I had to be strict with myself. After I had completed the central body of each side of the quilt, I allowed myself to put in only one piece of each of the fabrics that were left in the mitred edges. Here the blue/green side is being built up to match the completed red/orange/yellow side.I added the polyester wadding to the red/orange/yellow side first. You can see my basting threads holding the two layers together. Our cat Poe thinks it is a new play place, and is not helping with the next step: adding the blue/green layer to complete the whole. While all this piecing was going on, I was researching quilting methods – after all, this was my very first quilt. I watched youtube training videos, searched the internet for advice, dug out my mother’s old quilting and patchwork books. I invested in thimbles and a curious thing called Aunt Becky’s finger protector (which helps prevent you ending up with sore, needle-pricked fingers). With all three layers well-basted together, I set to with my thimble, Aunt Becky’s finger protector and needle.

Disaster! I really am very bad at quilting! My nice level running stitches on one side were completely wonky on the other. Nothing for it but to ditch the hand-sewing and turn to the man and the machine.

The man is the measurer and calculator – absolutely essential if you are as dodgy with numbers as I am. Here he ruminates and studies my wonky efforts. It’s going to be tricky to get straight measurements here……. But with old-fashioned rulers and long metal tape-measures, we did get straightish white chalk lines on the quilt. They are 6.5 inches apart. I managed to machine it up – just! I’m not sure my machine would have been able to cope with a larger or thicker piece of work.The machine quilting worked surprisingly well, and it looks good – I now had a proper quilt! Time for the edging. I’d originally planned to use a single strip of brown and purple fabrics for the edging, but it soon became clear this wasn’t going to work. The purples and browns planned for the red/orange side were far too strong and intense in colour for the lighter-toned blue/green side. So I had to make a special binding, combining suitable toned colours for each side.Then the bindings were hand-stitched onto the quilt. So what have I put in my quilt? Well, all sorts really. There are fabrics that have come from clothes I have worn, my sisters and mother have worn, and my grandmother wore too. There are little bits of projects I have started or done as test pieces. The fabrics used include silks, satins, cottons, tweed, towelling and jersey. (You can click on all these images to see the text more clearly).There are new fabrics, fabrics that have come from much-loved clothes, fabrics that have just been in the family for so long that I don’t know where they came from.

I have added my name to the quilt and the date and place. A little bit of Latin (and elsewhere Greek) since I was a student of Greek and Latin at university. There are knitting sheep at either end of my name – new fabric, representing my fleecy knitting interests. Then there are the hearts. I put the first heart in because it was a left-over from one of my mother’s sewing projects. Then I realised that I had the perfect use for all those extra bits of fabric that I badly wanted to include but no longer had any room for.This heart is from an exquisitely embroidered Serbian blouse – it’s probably 50 years old as my grandmother wore it before me. The rest of the garment is yellowed and perished but the embroidered panels are still in good condition. There are bits of poetry too. The words in this photograph have come from one of Stephen’s poems. The squirrel in a go-kart in this photographic is fabric I used to make bedheads and pillow cases for my children when they were young.I don’t think my quilt will ever really be finished. This bit of text that I’m currently working on acknowledges Stephen’s help with maths and measuring: Mathematics by Stephen!It’s a great pleasure to lie in bed under the quilt and look at all the pieces, to remember stories and people, events and places. What I did not expect to enjoy so much is the handle of a quilt – it is so light and comfortably squishy. Perhaps I’ll just wear it for a while.

The Black (and White) Dog

My father died earlier this week. It is deeply deeply sad, and he is much mourned by his family and friends, but it was also a blessed release. He had been unable to walk for some years, and towards the end we discovered that he was suffering from Lewy Body disease.

This is a surprisingly little know neurodegenerative dementia considering that at least 5 percent of 85 year olds are thought to suffer from it. It shares the mental symptoms of confusion and loss of memory with Alzeimer’s, but the really distinguishing feature for many of those suffering from this disease are the visual hallucinations. For many these are visions of animals. In my father’s case, it was a black dog.

I don’t think the black dog was really surprising because there had been a black dog in the family several years ago. Brackler was of mixed Springer and Labrador parentage, and originally came to live with Hugh (my first husband) and me in Devon in 1978. He was a fine dog – almost completely black, apart from a white flash under his chest. Apart from this, he could easily be mistaken for a pure Labrador.However, he had inherited a wild untamed need-to-explore trait from his Springer mother, and when my son was born in 1980, I couldn’t cope with Brackler, so he went to live with my parents in Kent. Memorably, Hugh and my father met to pass Brackler on to his new owners at Guildford Cathedral – a place forever etched in my father’s mind as completely miserable because Hugh was so extremely upset to have to part with his dog.Brackler went on to live an extremely happy life with my parents. When they moved to Budleigh Salterton in 1987, he took to amazing sea swimming. He would swim the entire length of the bay from the red cliffs at the west of the beach to the River Otter without break. A very powerful dog. My father adored him, and grieved terribly when he died in 1992. (They went on to have another dog, Pellow – featured in the photo below.)A couple of days after my father’s death, one early afternoon, we were visited by a black and white collie dog running round the Seaview properties. It was racing around, up into our gardens and off into the fields – a sloppy walker I thought, not walking with their dog conscientiously.

But later in the afternoon, by teatime, it was back – in our garden, nosing around the fat balls that we crumble up for the birds to eat on the path. It ran away when I went up to it – clearly shy and anxious. It had a broken leather lead round its neck, looking as though it had been tied up and pulled free.

It kept on running off into the fields and back into our garden – was clearly hungry. So I went to our neighbours’ house to get Jan and Craig to help me catch it.

They are very experienced dog-owners who originally hailed from Gateshead, but have been tempted to Spittal like us because of the beauty of the place. Jan says she’s half gypsy. She’s a carer, and if I was old, ill or dying, I would like her to care for me – she’s a wonderfully warm woman.

Anyhow, we couldn’t catch the dog. It kept on running off into the fields – miles and miles away, we could just see the small black dot. We were worried because we are quite close to the main eastcoast railway line. Then it would come careering back.

Eventually, Jan got close enough to give it some food. It scoffed everything really quickly. She managed to stroke it – then it bared its teeth, so she left off.

We rang the police – but they won’t help as they no longer have facilities to house lost dogs. I rang the local council dog warden. Somebody else locally had reported the dog. They also wouldn’t help – unless we caught it, and then they would come and take it away.

We just couldn’t catch it, so eventually we tempted it into our greenhouse with food and water, and left a blanket in there for it to sleep in. The idea was that in the morning we hoped to find it asleep, shut the greenhouse door and phone the authorities.

As we hung around in the twilight trying to tempt the collie in, I told Jan that my father had just died. Lightbulb moment! “That’s why the dog is here! It’s come from your dad, he wants you to know he’s alright!”

Stephen and I had a small chuckle about this later in the evening – but it felt curiously comforting.

In the morning the dog was gone

I’m with Hamlet on this one: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

RIP RHE, born in Melbourne’s Surrey Hills, 9th March 1926; died in England’s Surrey Hills, 31st March 2015.

One of my favourite photographs of my father, taken in the garden of No 5 embassy house, Tokyo, during the snowy spring of 1967. Behind is the Diamond Hotel which featured strongly in our childhood dinner conversations as we could see it very clearly from the dining room, and my father would regularly comment on the seasons with the (to me) immortal phrase:” Soon we won’t be able to see the Diamond Hotel any more.” It was code for spring approaching. It is lovely to remember him smiling, happy and having fun!

Let me introduce you to Poe

Poe and her sister Monet came to live with us in our Crediton home in 1999. They were sweet little kittens, and we loved them ……and they loved each other too.But that love did not last. Before long, they preferred to keep an unfriendly distance from each other.Monet was an anxious cat, and had some very difficult problems so eventually she had to leave us for the great cat home in the sky. RIP Monet.Curiously, with Monet’s departure Poe found her voice.We weren’t at all sure how Poe would take to our move from balmy Devon to the windy open spaces of Northumberland.She loved it! – and took to mousing with such enthusiasm that even when the snows came she was out there, catching mice.She liked to bring the mice in to play with – but often lost them so they ran off to make new homes inside.Recently high blood pressure caused her retinas to detach and she went completely blind over night. Luckily medication (very expensive!) means that she can now see again.These are a few of her favourite things …
hogging the best spot in front of the fire…drinking Jammy’s cereal milk ….lying in the sun…….doing the fence walk with you know who ….rolling around in a smelly man’s shirt……..watching bird tv (broadcast live from our woodshed)!……and her Christmas mouse! Oh Poe – we love you!

Windy, windy, windy-blow! *

We’ve just embarked on a period of real winter storms.

They started yesterday, gathering full momentum over the evening and night. By the time we went to bed just before midnight, they were into full rampaging mode. I lay awake and marvelled at the sound. Yet, curiously, when I woke in the early hours, the storms had completely abated – no sound at all.

But they are back now.

Our house sits on an east-west axis; to the north lie the old steading courtyard and more buildings; to the south are the open fields, sea and the view down the coast to Lindisfarne.We are protected from the brunt of the nasty cold Northerlies, North-easterlies and North-westerlies by the rest of the steading buildings. Westerlies stream along the length of our house and are funnelled by the shape of the buildings out to sea.

It is the dirt-laden, shifty Southerlies that we hate most. They blast over the flat coastal lands before the house, and slam into our buildings. You might think they would be balmy, warm and good-natured (and of course some are), but most are edgy and difficult. Our windows are grimy from the Saharan dust they carry. And if they are really boisterous and bad-tempered, the gusts will slam down our chimney and can put out a blazing fire with one casual puff.

Right now the winds are all over the place. The only common factor is that they are powerful. They find out every little nook and cranny and we are cold, cold, cold. I sit typing looking just like a comfy old rotund teddy-bear because I have so many layers of clothing on.

Our bedroom is right under the eaves so bedtime when the winds blow does not mean peace and quiet! In fact it can be blowing a gale and we are hardly aware of it. At other times the slates rattle persistently. It all depends on the wind direction. It seems to be when the wind strikes the roof obliquely rather than sideways on or straight at it.

Last night we went to bed with 40mph winds and it was hard to get to sleep with all the rattling. By morning the wind had not abated but had swung round further to the north and we were hardly aware of it.When we first arrived here, – indeed our first night here! – a storm blew up, and the winds lashed against the roof. I lay in bed and thought how mad we had been to come to this dreadful, frightening place. Now I lie in bed and marvel at the sound. Often the winds just grumble round the roof. Nights when they complain like last are extraordinary – and to be wondered at.

Not that I always think that. I have discovered that I can take about 3 days of windy noise, and then I have had enough. Please please oh go away oh noisy wind.

For the moment the thing is to keep warm and busy.

*technical term of Stephen’s

Busy old fool, unruly Sun

It’s now 18 days since the winter solstice, and although each day that passes lifts my spirits as the minutes of daylight increase, there’s an accompanying sadness.

We are losing our sunrise.

Our house looks south, out over the North Sea coast, so on a good day we clearly see the castles of Lindisfarne and Bamburgh.No view of sunrise, you would think. But that’s where you’re wrong. Until I came to live here some 4 years ago, I hadn’t realised that because of the tilt of the earth, during the winter months sunrise moves over across the eastern horizon towards the south.

Imagine our excitement the first winter we were here in 2010 to see this magnificent sunrise exploding over the snowy fields. At this point sunrise has moved to half way between the two castles.A more furious sunrise here; now the sunrise has moved right up to Bamburgh Castle and you can just make out the silhouette of the castle with the sun rising behind.Christmas Eve last year, just a few days after the solstice, and the sunrise is far past Bamburgh Castle. But it’s started out on its journey back.Oh, busy old fool – teasing us with all that promise ….to when you make your cosy little egg yolk first appearance ……to playing mean and moody………to coquettish, mysterious ………to simply gorgeous ……I don’t want you to go – I shall miss you!