Home Alone

Retirement has crept up on us, unnoticed in the busy days and months of relocation. We have become used to our strange new rhythm of life, conducted in harmony, together, one smoothly oiled unit again.

Today is different. Parted for once, to follow diverse pursuits – he to explore the new world of outdoor painting with a newly discovered group of kindred spirits and me at home, armed with pastry, a rolling pin and the best of local Welsh ingredients to try my hand at home baking in my new Welsh kitchen.

The hub of the home! That’s what the kitchen has again become in many people’s minds. A 21^st century ‘back to the country’ phenomenon, reinventing what, for centuries past, has been normal, traditional and so ordinary as not to be noticed. Now, however, it is all the rage.

 

The cottage seems empty today. I saunter about, enjoying my new little ‘kingdom’ – queendom, perhaps. I can do what I please today. Hard to get used to after days, weeks, months with a newly retired husband. I can do nothing... or I can do anything I want to. But I have been shopping in readiness for this day, buying fresh peppers, cheese, mushrooms; I have extracted meat from the freezer, prepared my ground well. So my course is set. It is a strange choice, maybe – a day of baking in the kitchen: in traditional ‘women’s territory’! But it’s my choice and I am relishing the luxury of an uninterrupted day with time to ‘get on’. Today I am safe to be left at home alone; next time, maybe, who knows? I may get up to mischief...

The Gannet

The bird falls out of the heavens, gleaming white, down, down, plummeting into the deep blue ocean, free falling, no parachute, white on blue. Smack, it hits the water, takes a moment’s rest, then up, up again. It soars into the clear, blue sky, a lonely gannet, all alone in the forefront of my view.

 

In the distance a misty haze hovers around the hummocky mountain ridge on the other side of this huge, blue bay. The foreground is in sharp focus, the distant hills less certain, an air of mystery and fathomlessness shrouding them and stealing my attention.

 

The clear, blue sea and my gleaming white gannet are fascinating. They arrest me and hold my attention for some time, as I gaze wonderingly at the spectacle in front of me. A vast expanse of endless blue and a plunging speck of white energy – dazzling white and brilliant blue – take up the foreground. But the mountains are something else. Their misty quality is tantalising, intoxicating and atmospheric. They hold my gaze and fill me with a sense of speculation – what are they?

 

What sheep graze on their grassy hillsides and rocky crags? What whitewashed cottages nestle in their folds? Who lives there and how do they exist in such a remote spot? What streams course down these steep hillsides and trickle unceasingly into brown, bubbling waterways in the valleys? What is unknown and unseen is more captivating, then, for me than what is bright, obvious and initially in my vision. Life’s mysteries have a greater power to capture my mind than her more obvious gifts, it seems. What would be left of life without that innate sense of wonder and curiosity?

The Mixed Border

What could be better than a glorious summer’s day in June? This year you have to make full use of them when they turn up! Add in birdsong, a freshly mown, green velvet croquet lawn in a walled garden of mellow, red brick and a mixed border. That’s even better! I am a lover of mixed borders.

 

Over in the corner a man in a striped T shirt is bent over one of the tall plants, doing what he knows needs doing. He is healthy-looking, wiry and tanned. He is accustomed to the outdoor life and he just knows what to do. He is an expert. You can see it by the results. Now he kneels on the grass, gently pruning off the dead leaves of a magnificent yellow lupin. At this stage in the summer the carefully spaced array of yellow lupins are the most striking plants on display. I love lupins. These are the colour of natural sea lupins but they are prolific, their tall stems overflowing in a profusion of pale yellow blooms, their graceful green fronds shimmering slightly in the tiniest of breezes.

 

I am fascinated by mixed borders and the skill and patience of the wise old gardeners who design them, poring over seed catalogues in winter, researching, planning, propagating, ordering, planting seeds, thinning seedlings, protecting from frost, planting out, watering, feeding, nurturing and just waiting, full of wisdom and patience. Then, somehow, right on schedule, old plants are rejuvenated, clumps of last year’s dead wood yield bright new shoots, new seedlings appear and everything grows, develops, reaches up for the light, blossoms and then, hey presto, as if by magic, a garden appears. The tallest plants are at the back, tiniest plants at the front – all in order: bright, eye-catching daisies, tall clumps of delphiniums, bluer than blue, countless varieties of delicate species of geranium, miniature irises, purple-headed aquilegias, drifts of yellow, nodding poppies and pansies in tiny clumps. My garden does not look like this.

 

How do they do that? The roses, clinging to the wall, spread their graceful foliage along the warm, red brickwork and shower yellow rose petals on the earth beneath them. The gardener advances down the row of lupins, slips a pair of well-worn secateurs into his back pocket and stands back to admire his work. A lucky man! Thrice-blessed with wisdom, patience and this glorious garden! I am grateful for his gifts and happy on this wonderful June day to share with him the magnificent outcome of his superior talents.

 

Powys Castle, Wales