Blog for Monday

 

Sitting today under the shade umbrella, I was writing, trying to press on with the second novel, a sequel, the rest of the story of Unsuitable Girl, when a Holly Blue butterfly fluttered through the garden and distracted me. I took some shots of it basking on the Privet Hedge in the warm Easter Monday sunshine, and then a male Orange Tip butterfly, followed by a female, less brightly coloured but none the less beautiful, flew across.  And I had a ‘smell the coffee’ moment…

 

For the past three years, having moved away from our beloved garden and family home of forty-three years, I have been grieving for that life, the friends I can’t see any more, some have died since we left, and all the familiar places we loved going to. But today a light switched on, in my head.

 

 We are here in Eccleshall now, and already have new pals, new places we like to go, and can sit in our quiet garden smaller, but more fitting for a couple in their advanced years, being entirely flat! It has been a diverting challenge to turn it from a green waste of neglected, dull lawn and outbuildings to a mini nature magnet. We have Goldfinches, Bluetits, Coaltits, Wrens which I can hear calling now, Blackbirds nesting in the Privet hedge, the occasional Nuthatch on the hazel trees, after nuts. We still await a visit from the Woodpecker we heard on one of our short walks along Cross Butts, towards the school. It was drumming, and the sound reminded me of our garden in Abbots Langley, where Green Woodpeckers would come to stab at the lawn seeking leather jackets or ants’ nests, to lick up the eggs.   We have a small pond here which has been adopted by the local frogs, and again has a crew of tadpoles wriggling about this year. I don’t expect to replicate the occasional visits from a Kingfisher as we had in Abbots Langley, to our huge pond, but never say never in nature! And an extra feature we have here is an almost tame male pheasant which wanders about picking around the garden.

 

So, the point of this rambling blogpost is to say thank you to all you Eccleshall peeps…the shopkeepers, my excellent hair stylist at Francesco’s and all the staff there, the garden centre people (Fletchers and P & M Edwards, up the road from us, the Coop, the cafes, the folk we pass on the street, on our walks around the church, and along Green Lane, the Book Group, the Poetry Group (I used to go, and they are lovely and were the first to welcome me to the town), Yoga class at the Community Centre, and the Eccleshall Today FB page, and especially the Eccleshall Area Gardens FB page, and not least the lovely helpful library staff.

 

All of you have  ready smiles which makes life better. I think I’ve taken another big step along the transition from our old life to this new one, with everybody’s help, especially Tim, who applied much effort to dig the pond, cut down loads of hedge, hacked down superfluous sheds and posts, dug up tons of turf....and did much much more, while sharing his wisdom on life's challenges!