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As it is currently very grey outside (on so many levels!) and there is so little to do, I decided it was time to reacquaint myself with some old friends. I say old friends; it’s not like I was once an avid entomologist or that I was ever on first name terms with any of them... but I was once certainly closer to the myriad ‘life in the long grass’, as all children are.
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Back in March when I realised I was facing months of homeschooling three primary age children (picture staring into the abyss, but without the redeeming feature of an abyss), I decided to press go on the self sufficiency project that has been a long held dream of mine. There is an ancient and decrepit swimming pool in the garden here which must once have been a rather glamorous luxury, somewhat at odds with this rustic setting.
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Reflecting on the past year in the garden, it is hard to know where to begin. It already sounds so cliched to say that lockdown helped bring neighbours together and enabled people to enjoy their gardens more. But of course it is true; at least for those of us lucky enough to have them. My husband remarked he had never before noticed how beautiful spring is - until this year. He finally had the time at home to observe and involve himself with the gardening process which was always my project, but is now his too. This is wonderful to me.
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This afternoon in the garden the air was alive with the chatter of birds. It was a disorganised symphony. The melodic doves in the background, cooing sweet nothings intimately to one another. Delinquent crows squawking obnoxiously in the foreground, accompanied by wood pigeons calling somewhere in between - always a little off key.
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We have returned from our Californian adventures and are settling back into life in rural East Anglia. A year and a half of absence and the garden is a wild thing.
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The funny thing about homesickness is that it waxes and wanes like a harvest moon; one week looming large and hanging ominously above everything, a few weeks later a distant and barely perceptible sliver in the endless sky.
They say homesickness has everything to do with attachment. For me it is attachment to a sense of place - a genius loci - which I only truly feel when I’m at home. And the thing which sparked it off most recently was the unexpected demise of a veteran willow tree in my garden back at home.
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I’m so glad this beautiful book came into my life. In it, Charlie Hart describes his journey through the profound grief of losing his parents. He managed to navigate this grief - alongside a lifelong battle with anxiety - with the help of his seven acre Essex country garden.
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This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. Ask any gardener why they garden and mental well-being will be high up on the list. Perhaps not stated so overtly, perhaps paraphrased, but no doubt an acknowledged, perennial driver for this popular pastime. Gardening is good for our mental well being - we gardeners know this intimately through personal experience.