Looking Good

Last week the long term weather forecast showed unrelenting rain, a horrible deep ridge of low pressure creeping across the country from the west to arrive in East Anglia by Sunday. But lo! As so often happens the forecast has changed for the better, and I'm inclined to believe this more positive version. With huge confidence I have now ordered a skip, and all the topsoil that's needed to level out the garden. When it's been evened off Martin and I will consider whether or not to leave the ground to settle before laying the turf: 40 tonnes is an awful lot of soil, and it's unlikely that bumps and dips won't appear in the following days, needing to be raked off again. I trust his judgement though, and in any case remind myself that I don't want a bowling green. My days of obsessing about lawns are well in the past.

Alys, the young mother (two toddlers and a 3-week-old baby!) who farms the land behind me has agreed to let me temporarily dump the soil where her land adjoins mine. When I checked this with her the other day she looked so tired I wanted to sit her down and make her a cup of tea, my own maternal instincts kicking in. But she said she was fine, and I know she has a huge support system - mum, sisters, sisters-in-law, friends etc. Babies and toddlers, aarrrgh! I'm stretched to the limit looking after my own issues at the moment.

My flu may be abating slightly, but I'm exhausted. After rushing downstairs this morning to open the door to the postwoman I had to sit down quickly, and promptly fell asleep. But the awful sore throat has largely gone, and if the lungs don't get infected I'll be fine. Staying indoors has been a wise decision, but alas I had to go into Fram briefly to pump up the wheelbarrow tyre and get some cash. I did the journey twice because the first time I forgot my wallet. I'm really not myself. The young lad who sometimes helps me in the garden, the charming Ash, is coming tomorrow to continue the job of ferrying stones from the back to the drive before the men arrive on Tuesday, and a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre would be useless. I'm disappointed to not be finishing the job myself: not exactly a Sisyphean task, though certainly a Herculean one, and a tribute to my dogged streak which sometimes verges on the masochistic.

Outside, the field behind me sports a thick and verdant crop of peas. I'm surprised at this, as I was told they were last year's crop too, and they usually rotate. It's big pea country around here, and when Bird's Eye pulled out of their very long-term contracts with local farms a few years ago it seemed that the good days were over. Luckily another frozen veg company (Findus?) stepped into the breach and tragedy was averted. The annual Peasenhall Pea Festival that celebrates the little green chap and its "incredible versatility" was saved. Anyway, apparently when the big machines have been in and stripped the plants in the field behind me I'll be able to follow them, an aging Tess gleaning the harvest, pea by pea.

Flattened

Back from a wonderful long weekend in London to a soggy, slightly bedraggled garden, and even soggier self. No sooner had I unpacked and taken in the effects of the heavy rain on the roses than I was struck down with a nasty flu bug, and so I'm languishing between my bed and the kettle. I had wondered what it would be like to be ill alone, and the answer so far is: not so bad. Help isn't far away if I need it, and all I really want to do is sleep, read, sleep some more. The giant tome "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson is perfect for getting lost in, and staying lost for over 600 pages, its slippery temporal structure matched by the temporary impairment of my own grasp on reality brought on by a fever. Yesterday I decided to sprint into Waitrose to buy a load of microwave meals for the freezer, but I hadn't reckoned on the road into Saxmundham being closed, with the official diversion sending traffic via Inverness. Twenty miles later I got there, exhausted, barely able to get out of the car. But it's done now, and though I have no appetite it's reassuring to know that I have easy food if I need it. Later that day I had a long phone chat with the gardening contractor who is due to move mountains of earth on Tuesday. We discussed ordering the topsoil and the turf, the order of play - all very reassuring. Pity the long-range weather forecast is currently showing rain for the scheduled date. But I'm not downhearted at the prospect of another delay, possibly something to do with the slight euphoria that comes with a raised temperature. Something to be said for flu.

Through a Glass, Brightly

A wild storm the night before last has flattened some of my irises. Water butts are overflowing, and the wheelbarrow, when I went to move it to collect yet more stones, had several inches of water in the bottom. During the night I heard thunderous winds, the wisteria scratching at the window like a wild thing trying to escape the chaos. I reached over, half asleep, to where I keep a pair of earplugs beside my bed, and once in place I heard nothing more. When I went outside in the morning I could scarcely believe that only the irises were affected.

Irises, slain in their prime

I now have another sun room where before there was gloom and introspection. The room that was called the dining room in the estate agents' particulars had two windows placed quite high in the wall perpendicular to each other. I have no need of a dining room, having a kitchen large enough for any entertainment needs I may aspire to. But this room more than any other downstairs had the best views, though only when you were standing. Sitting on a chair or sofa, just the sky was visible. I have a thing about windows: you must be able to lean out of them comfortably, the better to soak up an atmosphere or vista, and inhale the scents of the garden. And they must catch the sun at least part of the day (bad luck indeed if they all face north). I intended to use this room to house my books, but something radical had to be done to make me want to spend time in it. I have it now. A huge plate glass window with a side opening has replaced one of the offending apertures, and French windows where the other one used to be now open straight onto the garden, or what will be a garden. The room has been transformed! Light floods in from around 1pm, and stays until it sinks behind the barley field. I've christened it the Book Room, though it may become the Sun Room. The former is less from a tendency towards pretension than because every room needs a designation, and it is filled with books. I still have a Room With No name, and suspect it will always be thus known. But now, happiness is sitting on a rocking chair in the sun, gazing down across the fields, musing on how it is that a place can feel like home so quickly, as if it was just waiting for me to find it.

New window and door

Surprises

My friend Helen came over this afternoon with a bottle of pink champagne to "christen" the summerhouse. Helen has more stories than anyone I know, and she keeps a straight face as I dissolve with laughter over and over again, or stare at her in astonishment. I never know if she is being deliberately funny or if the people she knows and the things that happen to her just sound extraordinary when she describes them. All I can say is that her world is outrageous in every way compared to mine, and she has crammed several lifetimes into her 54 years. When she left I put the remains of the bubbly into the fridge and set off for a walk. The evening was fresh and clear after a brief shower, and I stalked briskly down the hill to the valley behind my house and then up to the ridge on top. From here I can look down over the deeper Alde Valley and the village of Bruisyard. I wonder if the river was ever navigable all the way to Aldeburgh. What fun it would be to row a little boat to the sea. There was a Poor Clare convent in Bruisyard Hall from the 14th century, and there is still evidence of the nuns' presence, though nowadays it's a very upmarket wedding venue. At our recent parish council AGM a villager whose large old house looks down towards the Hall complained of the fixed lighting that steers wedding guests from the barn to the main building on dark nights. The chairman was amused. "But that's low level, low voltage, low impact lighting they've got there now," he said. "How far is your place from the hall Peter?" It's about half a mile as the crow flies, he replied. But it disturbs us. The council should tell them to remove the lights. "You must have to get the binoculars out to see if the lights are even on," said the chairman, and everyone except Peter laughed. He was a prickly old man, but I kind of knew how he felt.

As I reached home and turned in at the gate my eye was caught by a splash of maroon that wasn't there this morning. During the day a delicate clump of gladioli had bloomed in the sunshine, and now flowered proudly in front of the irises. As I went to have a closer look I spotted another three groups, one hiding coyly behind the fading wisteria. While my back garden gets paler and paler from the poison it's been fed, the professionally planted front is lush and teeming, throwing up delightful surprise after surprise.

Stoned

A strange day, today has been. Absolutely scorching again, and so it may have been perverse that I decided to continue my mammoth task of moving stones from the back garden to the uneven drive. Why there are so many stones I don't know. They were dumped on two raised vegetable beds by a previous incumbant, and obviously have to be moved. As it happens I have decided to shore up the bumpy drive before having a load of planings delivered, the crushed grey product of churned up old roads. And so there is a kind of painful pleasure in gathering up the stones, piling them into my wheelbarrow and trundling them around to the front, barrowload after barrowload. Already the difference is amazing, and if it weren't for my aching neck I'd probably have kept going. Instead, as the sun went down over the yardarm, I decided to pour myself a glass of leftover Prosecco from last night's drinks party, and nibble on some remaining posh cheesy biscuits.

Today was the day for my garden to be created, planned in the diary months ago. A large team of men, or maybe it was a team of large men, was due to arrive at dawn for a few days to tear up what's there, dump 40 tonnes of topsoil, and smooth it into gentle slopes. 200 square metres of turf were to have been laid and cut to shape, and my new beds created. A terrace should have been built.  Disappointingly, the earlier date planned for killing off the existing grass and weeds, an essential task, was the first wet one for weeks, and so the new garden had to be postponed. I know it will happen soon, or sometime, but I thought I'd be planting my new shrubs and flowers by now, and ticking the last major item off my list of 'Things To Do'. We Laings like our gardens to be happening.

Cloud is beginning to filter through the intense blue that has been the sky for a few days now. Perhaps the weather is changing again. Earlier today I heard, with utter astonishment, loud music blaring outside my house. I bristled, and went to see what it was. An Open Reach van was parked down the lane, engine running, radio blasting. In an earlier life I might have told him to move away, or turn the radio off. But despite the heat I was chilled, and I went back to my stones instead. He soon moved away. Everything passes.

Smelling of Roses

Barely a breeze to rustle the leaves in the garden early this morning, and the sun already hot and shimmering. Small wisps of smoke from my two-day old bonfire. I decided to "nip" to Fram on my bike to collect my newspaper and some milk. Various hitches with the bike have stopped me doing this so far, but today the tyres were plump and hard, so off I went. No traffic along my lane, and no houses either in this direction: I'm the last one in the village. I hit the main road - well, it's not even classified B, but you do see cars from time to time as it leads into Framlingham. Old cottages set well back in their garden are dotted here and there. At once my nose was filled with the scents of dog roses, garden roses, lilac, laburnum, all the smells of summer. I was catapulted back to my earliest childhood in Ireland when I used to walk alone to school. The distance was a mile and a half - I measured it once as an incredulous adult - along a lane straddled with pastureland, cows, cowslips, meadowsweet and all the other wild flowers that I still can't name. As the lane neared the main road I used to pass a large, rambling old house standing in neglected grounds, and it was my habit after school to enter this garden and wander about sniffing everything. I can still clearly remember myself, aged six, seven and eight, inhaling the sweet scents and feeling such happiness that I thought I must surely explode. I was often reprimanded for being late, but I could no more give up this vice than stop breathing. This early experience formed my character more surely than anything else has done, and gave me my love of everything rural. I'll always be grateful for it.

Irises, the petals like shot silk

My front garden, two views

The route into Fram, so fast and seemingly level in the car, is anything but. "Nip" indeed! Who said Suffolk was flat? I arrived at the shop in a coating of sweat, struggling to stand as I dismounted onto jelly legs. How was I going to get home? Despite my tired, flabby thigh muscles I made it back, rejoicing in the loveliness of the day and my freedom to enjoy it like this. The hedges are rich and thick with late spring growth and birdsong. Old folk in the shop muttered about the heat and sun not lasting beyond the weekend, but what does it matter? It's here today, and it's enough.

A Country Local

Last night my friend Ruth and I visited my 'local' where there was going to be "STORYTELLING - Local writers, authors & storytellers will enthrall you with a selection of short stories. Come along and listen, and bring your own story if you have one!" Who could resist this invitation, right on my doorstep (well, 2 miles away, but then the nearest M&S is 25 miles away, so that's practically next door)? I'd never been in the pub so it was a good excuse to try it out. We arrived in the fading light to find a horse and open carriage just returning from taking people on a jaunt around the lanes, with the usual array of smokers sitting on benches outside. Inside we found two packed rooms but no bar. How to get a drink, we asked a ruddy-faced man propped on a wobbly 3-legged stool, and he pointed at a door marked Taproom and told us to knock - "Don't ring!". Sure enough someone came out, took our order, and disappeared inside again. We grinned at each other. This was quaint. We inched our way with our beers through the crowded room to an emptier one where well-dressed people of all ages, maybe 12 in total, sat around a large scrubbed pine table shuffling papers in front of them and talking earnestly to each other. Had we missed the storytelling? No, no, they reassured us, we're just taking a break. We'll be off again in a minute.

The White Horse, Sweffling

Now Ruth and I are prone to become helpless with laughter by just looking at each other, and when the first story was underway I glanced at her to see her reaction. Big mistake. We struggled to compose ourselves before we were spotted, trying to avoid each other's eyes. I don't know what I'd expected, but it probably involved someone pulling up a stool, leaning forward with lowered eyebrows, and starting "It was a dark and stormy night, and the wind howled in the rafters," from memory rather than carefully-prepared essays. These storytellers were part of a writing group, and horror of horrors, they wrote poetry too.

We scuttled off as soon as we dared while a reader held the others' attention, and escaped into the night. But what had happened to the moon? The sky was inky black, nothing visible a few yards beyond the lighted windows of the inn. We crept along the lane, hearts thumping as an owl made ghostly noises near our heads.Every tree looked menacing, and we cursed ourselves for forgetting torches.

James Childs, alias 'Did'

Earlier in the day 'Did' called round to kill off the grass and weeds in my back garden before the landscapers come in and transform the space. He rolled his ciggie, lit it, scratched his head under his cap and he was off. I now know how to get a reluctant retriever to do its job (it involves a hat, a dead rabbit, lots of determination and plenty of praise), how to stop a terrier doing what it does best (I think there's a dead rabbit in that one too, and maybe a hat ...), how to dispatch carrion crows, the hardest birds to shoot (not one for the squeamish, but they do eat hundreds of free-range chicken eggs a year), and the best way to stop your elms trees from getting Dutch Elm Disease (keep them under 15 feet). He's the genuine article, a countryman through and through. I gave him tea and chocolate cake when he'd finished, and we sat in the sun shooting the breeze. Well, he did. I just hung on his every word.

Where the Deer Rest

  
My new friends from up the lane, Sue and David, rang me this morning to ask if I'd seen the large herd of deer that had sauntered along the edge of the field behind me earlier. They were concerned that I might have started planting shrubs and trees, and created a feeding station for the herd. We couldn't see them when we looked, and I reassured my friends that there was nothing for them to eat yet. But there will be soon, and so we discussed ways of keeping them out should they try to add some tasty changes to their food supply. A 6ft-high sheep fence should work, though I find the idea oppressive. I want to enjoy the views and the wildlife without creating such an obvious visual barrier. But I was assured that, after a short while, you tend not to see this kind of fencing with its large holes. I'll discuss it with 'Did' tomorrow, my new fount of all rural lore.

I strolled back from their house in hot sunshine and immediately spotted the deer. They were standing, sitting and lying in front of a copse of trees just over the field. As the day got hotter they sank lower into the ground, the occasional flick of an ear or tail, or a brief flash of white, betraying their presence. On and off throughout the day I checked and they were still there. Sun worshippers, facing south.

I've spent the day shovelling shit. No, literally. My back garden housed three miniature donkeys until a few months ago, and though the main pile of manure was removed before I came here, a staggering amount had collected along the hedgerow where the stable used to be. I moved nine loaded barrowfuls to my bonfire area, my aching back proof of this feat. Physical work like this is so enjoyable, but while I'm completely absorbed in what I'm doing I find I'm engaged in constant conversation in my head. I don't plan to, but I discuss everything I do with somebody else. Each time I catch myself and laugh, and then I'm off again. "I'm just going to do a few more loads and then I'll stop and have a rest. I'll print off the crossword and sit down with a cup of tea. I know you think  I should probably keep going, but I'm not going to! I can do as I please! God it's hot. Shall I sit in the summerhouse or outside in the sun? I suppose inside is best. And I'm going to have a nice fat Danish pastry with my tea. So what if it spoils my appetite?I don't care! I can have my supper late. I shall please myself!" And on and on, endlessly, mindlessly. Do other people do this I wonder? Perhaps I'll lose the ability to verbalise and eventually just look at my companions, eyebrows twitching, face animated, having my half of the conversation in my head.
 

Evening in the lane

The sun's going down now. A few hares are lolloping around in the field and the house is abuzz with flies and wasps. The deer have crept away, melting into the trees. All is well.

Suffolk Old Boys

Last night as I walked back from a last leisurely snoop around the fields I was serenaded by the bellringers practising in Framlingham Church, all of two miles away. At first I thought I was in such a state of bliss that I was hearing music, but it was the real deal. There's something so archetypally summery about bells ringing across meadows of waist-high barley and wheat. I imagined a scene from a Thomas Hardy novel, with earthy farmworkers spruced up in their tweed suits and ties after their evening meal, solemnly pulling on the ropes and every now and again chiding each other gently or irritably according to their natures for missed timings and wrong sequences.

This morning a real Suffolk old boy turned up in an aged Land Rover to cut my grass and strim my edges. He was dressed from head to foot in country colours, from his tweed cap through tawny multi-pocketed shooting jacket to his lovat moleskins. He backed his trailer into the drive, shook my hand and introduced himself as 'Did', then proceeded to light a roll-up while he chatted to me. Now, after nearly six years in Suffolk, I'm well used to the menfolk, especially the tradesmen and most especially the ones who come to work in your garden. They know they've come to work, but they want to chat, and they don't know when to stop. Sometimes you have to employ tricks like hearing an imaginery phone ringing to get away from them, because they will go on for hours. As it happened I could have listened to 'Did' for ages. He spoke in a gentle, fluent burr, telling me about the owak (oak) tree he felled yesterday, and the cowess (cows) that got in the way, and how I'm unlikely to be bothered by rabbits because the soil in the field behind me is too heavy for them. "Ever see a parliament of hares?", he asked. "The bigguns are the sallies, and the little 'uns are the males. When they get together for a meeting it's the sallies what does the talking and the telling." It's a lovely accent, and he was a lovely man. "Why are you called "Did"," I asked. "Because I was little," he replied with a laconic half smile. "Short for diddy".

   

Garden before Did did it

Garden after Did did it

'Did' has lived in Yoxford all his life, and worked on the land as a feller of trees, a shooter of pigeons and rabbits, wherever he's needed. He and his ferrets are in constant demand. With his mate John, until a few weeks ago the gamekeeper at Cockfield Hall, he's used the local landscape as a means to earn a living and as a playground. There's nothing he doesn't know about the countryside. Alas John has just been let off from his job. Cockfield Hall has been bought by Mr Hunt of Foxtons fame, to add to his growing Suffolk empire that began with the purchase of Heveningham Hall when he sold his huge, controversial estate agency for a fortune. Nobody knows what plans he has for the Hall, but they don't include John who has sunk into a depression. "We've been on the estate since we was kids, and leaving it has left a big hole in our lives". I liked him very much, and I'm glad he's coming back on Friday to do more work for me.

The Beginning

Where to start? Oh, just get on with it. We'll have no prima donnas in this blog.

So, I needed a refuge, a place in which to take stock, recharge my batteries, and begin again. I yearned for a sort of cocoon to envelop me and keep me safe while I got used to being unexpectedly alone. I wanted to crawl inside a warm, dark nest and curl up while I recovered. I wanted to begin again, and I wanted normality, a healthy response to crisis which I clocked with relief in one part of my brain. But I needed the security and comfort of my own bricks and mortar around me to achieve this. I dreamed of a cottage in the country, detached, separate, surrounded by fields and sky. I wanted silence, peace. I needed space, and beauty, a garden, lots of light indoors, room to spread myself out. I wanted to be near enough to the coast for it not to be a big deal to drive there, reasonably handy for Waitrose, close to a railway station. Did I expect many of these boxes to be ticked? Of course I didn't. The search for my new home was long and disappointing and depressing, though in retrospect not as long as it seemed at the time. Anything I could afford was small and poky and completely unsuitable. My ideal home was too expensive. Despair often hovered menacingly at the edges of my awareness. When your life has ended suddenly and you find yourself cast out from everything familiar and loved, you crave the things you feel will substitute for the loss, and make you feel like yourself again. I knew I needed a home before I could begin to feel whole again, and I knew it had to be the right place. I couldn't afford to make a mistake, not at this point in my life.
 

I found it almost as soon as I started looking, but I rejected it at once. It was exactly what I wanted, but it felt too isolated, and I understood that, ache for silence and solitude as I did, I shouldn't cut
myself off from the world entirely. Had my friend Ruth and I turned right instead of left the day we went to suss it out I would have bought it sooner. But we drove away from the unseen village, and decided it was one of a pair of farm cottages in the middle of nowhere. How often have tradesmen and visitors, arriving at my gate over the past few months, uttered that very phrase in amused, almost patronising amazement.

As summer surrendered to autumn and then winter and I poured over sale particulars I returned online again and again to Medlar Cottage. It was absurdly beautiful! Spacious, full of huge windows and with fabulous views, every room was painted in a subtle but rich shade of Farrow and Ball. All I had to do was buy it and move in. I obsessively measured the distance from the house to Snape, my musical and emotional heartland, to Waitrose, to the coast, to the towns and villages I regularly visit. All were relatively easily accessible. On a whim I drove up there again, and discovered the cottage was just a couple of hundred yards from the church. And as the leaves had begun to fall and leave the trees bare I saw that across the lane was the big old farmhouse that had once built these two cottages for its labourers, entirely hidden behind tall specimens and high hedges filled with native Suffolk breeds. The village too was just there, beyond a field or two. I would not be cut off! And it was still for sale!!

I've lived here for nearly four months now, and I love Medlar Cottage and everything in and around it. It contains me, it enriches me, it fulfills me and supports me. I can't believe my luck. I've changed things in the house and made it better, more itself. Unwelcoming rooms have been lightened and opened up to become truly delightful. I've built a summerhouse where once there was a stable, and it gives 360 degree views of the house, the garden, the fields around it and the views. Such views! A few weeks ago when the family were staying we watched a large herd of deer a few fields away, grazing in the early spring sunshine. Hares skip and chase each other, sometimes as many as 13 together. Two fat partridges with tiny red heads find the as-yet unmade back garden a productive feeding site. It's a magical place.

Happiness is a completely subjective state, and it's not a word I expected to be able to apply to myself again. But I feel happiness many times a day as I live in this beautiful house and revel in the riches all around me.

Before, with Stable and Tackroom

After, my new summerhouse in place