Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

In-between the mixes of rain we managed a little work on our land. Mr cut staves from the Middle Hedge to mark out and support another length of dead hedging along the westerly side of the tree corral. I wrestled cardboard and clinging weeds to put a first mulch layer around each tree in the Durnford Hedge, to give them the advantage when spring sets off her starting pistol. In the Dragon Hedge we attempted and failed to save the storm-stomped rose arch (the rose itself is unharmed) and pruned back a few stems of rugosa. Behind a clump of primrose, which offered up two flowers, a pheasant skull was loitering. In the Middle Hedge snowdrops had appeared, and fancy frilly ones at that. Things are budding, growing, creeping up, including the names we arbitrarily applied to areas. The Middle Hedge is named for its location, the Durnford Hedge for the grower of the seven oaks that started it, the Dragon Hedge for the spikes of the rugosas and raspberries. The old paddock land is being claime...

This morning, Wednesday 4th February: at 6am the alarm woke me from patchy sleep. This isn’t terribly early but Tuesday nights are always late so I knew I would be tired. Everything was prepped, including the coffee. All I had to do was boil water and pour it; wait a little, plunge the pot, then take my mug of dark, wonderful sorcery back to bed and bridge the gap between reluctance and acceptance.  By 7am I was driving, admiring even the sloshy weak light- I saw two magpies, auspicious, then two-thirds of the waning moon loitering over astronomic clouds. Making good time I took the sea road where the view rolled out and out over slate grey, white topped waves- and yes, I am tired but I am thinking about the good stuff: a quiet brew, coastal scenery, tokens of luck.

Today was a pop of spring in between rain warnings- the ground and air damp, the sky blue and white, the sun imbuing warmth- like a rainbow, it held promise. I walked awhile and noted where branches had snapped, where floods had swept stones and mud across roads, where spring bulbs and stems ne’ertheless pushed up through winter’s mulch.

The sky is all shade, no colour. It looks flat unless I stare, then I see evidence, no more than smudges: here was a cloud, gone now, rained out. The sky is ghosts. But the horizon is alive with stark beauty: winter trees, the silhouette of a lone crow. 

This morning we managed to finish the latest line of deadhedging on our land, the one that will catch the icy flow of air as it sneaks down into our tree corral, that will be excellent cover for the frogs we hope will soon find our first mini pond. At home snowdrops drift up banks- ants carry their seeds, they are gardeners too. Daffodil hordes begin to raise their colours, heralded by bold crocus. Evenings are light for longer, bit by bit, and though the weather wearies of surprising us, doubling back to storms, we are heartened, we are sturdy in the whirl and lash of winter’s middle month.

Homewards, I drive. Fog makes heavy work of driving, makes you concentrate to find the road. It gathers like a paste in the valleys, dissipates on peaks. As I guide my car up onto Bodmin Moor the view expands beyond the expected. A bridge of startling light all across the night sky, a bridge between worlds! The Aurora Borealis has me questioning my sanity until I'm home and everyone else can see it too. Even monochromatic it swells with magic: through a camera lens all the colours that a human eye can't catch are there.  We pull on boots and warm coats and walk into the middle of a field to see the whole sky open- and then clouds close the show, and cold pinches our skin. But we are satiated, happy to return to the cosy hearth, hearts full of wonder.