My daughter sends me a message saying her train is not running due strikes and her anxiously awaited return for a long weekend is cancelled. She hasn’t been home since January and I feel utterly forlorn…
And so it rains and rains, the wind howls, ‘stove’ complains bitterly and the kitchen fills with smoke time and again. I open windows and doors everywhere to free the acrid stench of soot and cinders but am counter attacked by a shivering husband. Trees come down, more slates from the barn roof — how much more damage will it stand before it falls in completely I wonder — and the pond fills and overflows so badly I think the sheep might need flippers. They are so disgusted by their wet feet and muddy knees they escape to a dryer pasture, (not mine of course) and I am drenched to the skin while I try to cajole five soggy and rather miserable woollies into their cabin with a bucket of nuts and hay. They hate it and bleat all day.
I survey the damage and resulting detritus when the rain has abated and am dismayed to find a tidy up necessitating at least two days work.
Mayhem!
It is to be expected I suppose but a feeling of discombobulation reigns… the days are romping by at a rate of knots and I am unable to concentrate on anything I would like to, or need to. I forget that I feel these exact same frustrations every year when the cantankerous and changeable month of March is upon us. My seeds have only produced their usual fifty percent success rate in germination and even after so many repetitions of the same result I am still surprised. The kale is winning as always, surprisingly, cauliflowers, too, have also have made a tentative showing. Three types of tomatoes were sown and only one behaves as it should and my birds-eye chilies resist all cajoling and stubbornly refuse to even try. The squash too are shy to start which is disappointing, usually they play the game so well. I plant more of everything plus some sweet peas and pray for small miracles to happen.
Unwillingly and probably as disgruntled as my sheep, although I don’t bleat as loudly, I am confined to indoor chores. I drag out old journals, old notes on scraps of paper, dried clovers with four leaves, did they bring me any luck? I don’t remember…. dried flowers and unlabelled seeds in brown envelopes lurk in the corners and bottoms of every drawer and cupboard. Piles of paper, drawings and paintings, unfinished of course, some so old I don’t even remember their beginnings. I despair at the amount I hoard but hesitate not even for a second in abandoning it all when I find forgotten bags of wool. My excitement overrules any sense of self recrimination.
I choose a huge ball of creamy cotton yarn, find a corner of the sitting room that isn’t draped in ‘son’ paraphernalia, put on some music and begin knitting a summery scarf — my only clothes obsession, mainly, now, to hide my scraggly chicken neck — for milder days. I even try, for the umpteenth time, to teach myself to crochet and for the umpteenth time I am unsuccessful! Why does tying knots with one needle instead of two defeat me? I am, as always, vexed at my inability to master this relatively uncomplicated art and vow (to myself only so that I may change my mind) never to attempt it again.
I am thrown off course during these days of March, like a leaf picked up in the wind being buffeted hither and thither without a calm place to settle.. Excited by the first day of spring, the frogspawn in the ponds, the birdsong and blossom, all of which should have arrived with my daughter at the end of the week and in the end only the toads sing their high pitched songs down in the valley, which I know from years of listening, only heralds more rain.
I wait impatiently; willing the clouds to carry with them the balm I need to soothe and quiet my disquiet.
RESTLESS…..
Eddies in streams
flying leaves
amber eyes
runaway horses
whispering winds
bones
aching of love
for freedom
without reason
oh for that…
a symphony of days
singing their hours
running
laughing, crying
sunburned hands
burning cheeks
scents that linger
in old minds…
Ploughed earth,
snow flakes
smothering
nights of passion
tangled sheets
meadow flowers
dancing and dancing
indigo melting
a magenta dawn
to endings
hypnotic embers
far callings
wild mountains
bubbling streams
gentle fingers
a touch that heals
a glance
that loves
that shines
with a gypsy soul...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You write with such speed and visual language, it really is a joy to read your stories! ♥️ And I learn so many new words…🤗
I feel that restlessness too, in the March weather. Your beautiful writing pulls me straight into your frustration and daily life on the hill, as always. Hope your daughter visits you soon and that Easter brings us all some better weather!