'All shall be well, and all shall be well...'

It has been a funny old week, but one that has ended with a sigh of contentment, hence the partial quote from Julian of Norwich as the title of this post. My reading has fallen by the wayside but Substack has kept me filled with thoughts and words. I have read three of the sort of crime novels one finds piled up in the garden centre (in fact, they were piled up in the garden centre); enough plot to keep me interested, but light enough to help me drop off to sleep. Sometimes that’s enough. I do have Tom Holland’s ‘Dominion: The Making of The Western Mind’ lined up as my next non-fiction though–that should rattle my brain cells a bit.

My sister visited with her stresses and strains and we spent the week trying to distract and cheer her. The weather was sunny so we could get out and about, but there was a wicked north-east wind blowing most of the time, so getting clothing right was an important decision every morning. We went to Buckfast Abbey (my favourite quiet space) and enjoyed the gardens and the abbey church and we spent a morning on a blustery walk at Teignmouth, with the tide full in and the sea boiling against the esplanade, whipped up by the aforementioned wind. It certainly blew the cobwebs away. By the time she went home on Thursday she seemed much better, so I think we did some good.

There is a small garden at Buckfast surrounded by yew hedges and usually very green and luscious. It had been cleared for replanting and there was a rather beautiful, stark emptiness about it. The reflecting pool was completely visible in its circular perfection, the white bark of the Himalayan birch trees shining out, and two magnolia stellata with their delicate white blooms–it looked so peaceful and perfect. It’s a lovely garden when the lush green foliage is there, but I rather liked it like this–simple and serene–as if it were waiting for something. The sculpture of a drinking stag gave it a sense of undisturbed quietness.

On the way we noticed the blackthorn in full bloom in the hedges, and if this is the ‘may’ from the saying ‘cast not a clout ‘til may be out’, I feel fully justified in exploring my summer wardrobe and putting some of the heavier winter stuff away. Tempting fate? Maybe, but I am longing for loose linen and no socks and cropped trousers. The lightness of clothing matching the lightness of the days and the breezes and the spirits. April should be savoured, like a fine wine or the first peach, it holds such promise. I shall read Robert Browning’s ‘Home Thoughts From Abroad’ and watch the trees ‘in tiny leaf’ and listen to the chaffinch as it ‘sings on the orchard bough’. And feel blessed indeed that I am ‘in England, now that April’s there’. I don’t care if it is one big fat cliché. There is blossom on our apple tree and violets growing in the lawn, so there.

And sitting drinking my coffee outside this morning I heard Chiffchaff, Great Tit, Blue Tit, House Sparrow, Wren, Robin, Chaffinch, Blackbird and Dunnock, all singing their joyful little songs. There were jackdaws ‘chacking’ overhead, and wood pigeons cooing from next door’s roof. A light aircraft, that quintessential sound of British summertime, droned lazily across the sky and reminded me of my (late) friend Rob. There were hoverflies everywhere–the sort that come up close and look at you and then zoom away a few feet; a clump of self-seeded cerinthe was entertaining hairy-footed flower bees (female) and a huge red-tailed bumblebee on its deep blue pendulous flowers. Just for a few moments, all felt right with the world. And I am holding that thought. Wishing sunshine, and flower buds, and birdsong into your lives, wherever you are. Here, have a bank of Devon primroses, and a few from my garden, from me to you:

Take care, and I’ll write again soon. x.