Dear Readers, I get an occasional box of British-grown flowers to cheer myself up, but as we get into November and December it becomes harder and harder to find something colourful. But today, there was a big bunch of what I think of as ornamental cabbages, but which are actually ornamental kale – from a distance I think you might mistake them for roses.

Of course, they smell a bit cabbage-y rather than rosy, but I for one am glad for a bit of colour. And for some reason, I started to think about Mum and Dad – this was the time of year when they first went into the nursing home in Dorchester, which is always a painful time. And then I remembered this walk, around their village in Milborne St Andrew. It would have been in 2017, just before their 60th Wedding Anniversary party, and before they both started their rapid decline. It always moves me when I read back, and see how innocent I was of what lay in store – Dad’s dementia, and Mum’s ill-health and death in 2018. Still, it also reminds me of how healing nature can be, if only because it can drag us into the present moment, and put our worries on hold for a brief moment.

Heading off on my walk….

Dear Readers, my visit to Mum and Dad was hectic this time – the 60th Anniversary Party is on 21st September, and we needed to decide who was sitting where for the meal. I was expecting this to be a palaver, but we sorted it out very efficiently. We had two guidelines: we weren’t going to ask anyone where they wanted to sit (because experience has taught me that this pretty soon leads to a meltdown) and we were going to try to seat a variety of people on each table so that folk had somebody new to talk to.We have also decided to  accept that we can’t control whether people have a good time or not – we can provide a nice setting, but after that it’s up to the folk involved. I suspect that the party will go swimmingly, but if it doesn’t we can’t have done any more.

And so, after all that, I needed a walk. I headed off, past the church, and through the massive gate posts that lead to Manor Farm. I noted that these are striped with Coade Stone, an artificial stone invented by Eleanor Coade in 1770, and it is renowned for its ability to weather well. It makes a wonderful home for spiders and other small creatures.

And then it was on and over a stile, and into a field so full of young cabbages that there was a faint whiff of school dinners as the sun warmed them up.

The hogweed was still in full bloom. Just look at the number of small pollinators that this one flower head has attracted.

There were still a few bumblebees about, mostly common carders.

As I walked along, it became clear that there was a stream on the left. Great beds of comfrey were in flower, both creamy-white common comfrey and flamboyant pink Russian comfrey.

Common Comfrey

 

Russian ComfreyThe fallen flowers remind me a bit of the milk teeth that I used to leave under the pillow for the tooth fairy.

I was somewhat less delighted to see the flamboyant flowers of Himalayan (Indian) Balsam. Such a pretty plant, and such an invasive one. This plant loves watercourses of all kinds, and is well established along this stream. Its orchid-like flowers come in shades of deep cerise to palest pink, and they are loved by bees, and I suspect that it will soon be featuring in a Wednesday Weed. People have very strong views about this plant, so I shall have to write it and then duck.

Himalayan balsam

Pale pink Himalayan balsam

At the end of the field, I see a steep, well-trodden path heading down to the water. I find myself in a hidden world, probably used by youngsters eager to escape their parents’ oversight.

Hartstongue fern on the streambank

A calligraphy of roots

Someone plays here, for sure

I see that the stream bed is completely dry, and I realise that I’m looking at a winterbourne – a stream that only runs in the winter. Many of the places around Milborne St Andrew are named for such features – there’s Winterbourne Whitechurch just up the road for instance – but I’d never seen one before.

I go over a stile, and admire the sinous shape of the trees here. And then I realise that it’s nearly time to head home (pancakes for lunch!)

So I walk speedily back up through the cabbages.

I am passed by a happy poodle and a chap with a beautifully  tended beard, who is wearing flipflops. I wonder if hipsterism has come to the village? Has it been ‘discovered’? The pub will be selling skinny macchiatoes next.

The black blob is the poodle

It’s often when I’m in a rush that things happen that bring me to a complete halt. What, for example, is this?

Nothing less than a freshly-emerged, box-fresh peacock butterfly.

There was so much about this insect that it’d never noticed before. There’s the blending of blues and creams and black and russet around the ‘eyes’ on the wings, the stripes on the ‘shoulders’, the hazy, dewy quality to the colours. Truly, I live surrounded by beauty every day of my life and yet I often stride past it, head down, shoulders hunched, on to the next thing. But not today. Today I stopped and was so filled with wonder that everything else went away. What a gift.

As I head back down the hill, I pass the rectory, and notice a fine gathering of rooks in the old tree.

What are they up to, I wonder, with their cawing and their chattering? They must be saying something important, because as I stand there I notice that they are arriving from all sides, a great black feathery spiral pouring out of the sky.

And so I head home to make pancakes, to go with Dad in the car to get some petrol, to look at fridges online and to finalise the table settings, and, much like the rooks, something in my heart has folded its feathers and settled.