Wanderings

I have been discovering the pleasures of walking on my own this afternoon. I set out for the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream farm, a short walk from home across the fields that I must have done hundreds of times in the time I have lived in Eastby, but there was no incentive of an ice cream at Calm Slate Farm until two years ago. I sat at the top of one of the field stiles for a while, listening to and watching the birds. Four curlews circled in the sky for a time and there was a lone lapwing making its characteristic peewit call. I walked through a big meadow bright yellow with buttercups. Lower to the ground were flimsy dandelion clocks, bright pinky red clover, ox-eye daisies, delicate may flowers and bright blue speedwell. It was so peaceful until I got to the top of the convex slope and saw and heard the Ice Cream Farm. I intended buying my favourite Mango sorbet but the queue was too long so I didn’t bother and headed back home. The last time Simon and I visited in March we called there on the way back from the gym. It was warmer than today but much quieter.

The events in the village this weekend and the programmes on television and articles I’ve read connected with the Diamond Jubilee have all encouraged looking back to significant events. I have enjoyed seeing the youthful images of the Queen especially as a young mother. One programme included extracts from letters she had written to her mother soon after she was married. It spurred me on to look at some of the letters Simon wrote to me when he was working in Newcastle during the week and only coming home at weekends in the mid 1980s. I also have all the letters I wrote to my grandma around the same time. I used to write to her every week and I never realised that she’d kept them all until I was given them when she died. After she died I continued my weekly letters but to my dad.

Simon’s letters reminded me of how hard he worked how passionate he was about getting things right and how much he cared for and loved me and the children. They also helped me to feel his energy again. Having lived in the slow lane with him for at least two years I am finding it hard to lose the images of the body he inhabited when he died. I don’t want to remember him like that.

Simon would have loved the Himalayan garden and sculpture park I visited with a friend last week. It is only open for six weeks each year when the azaleas and rhododendrons are out. It was a tonic being there as I am sure you can imagine when you see the picture below.