The fire is lit. Milo sits beside me on the beanbag reading ‘House of Secrets’ He is reading a rather dark period of the book and has requested ‘dark’ music.
Portishead plays, after ‘Me against I’ by Massive Attack. Even darker!
Next to Milo, on the other bean bag, lies, urr, Baggle (Zippy), next to her is Sparkles, both look wonderfully content. I sit, in a louche manner on the sofa. The view is of the hills of Elstone and Kings Nympton. The light is starting to go, its 8.10pm. I can feel the fire from here, it’s blasting. We had a bit of rain yesterday, about 2mm, but nothing to shout about. The ground is tinder dry. The grass is struggling to grow now that the soil has warmed up, due to lack of water. The cattle are in the main, still in the shed. Poor buggers. There since November. That’s 6 months. Oh lord how excited those bovines are going to be when they head out in to the field, skipping, hoofs a kickin’, running the perimeter, first, then into the centre to start the munch. This year, we’ve had a very calm housing period. We’ve had loads of haylage, good quality and quite dry so the animals don’t need a lot of straw bedding either. Down in the woods, the two Iggle Piggles are released beyond the electric, snuffling, grunting, ears a flappin’, galloping across the virgin woodland, over blue bells and primroses a sproutin’. The ground is tilled to perfection, but then mixed up with broken roots, annihilated blue bells, chewed and spat out across the rampage.
This is the third weekend we have spent up at our holiday home. Lockdown means no guests, no income but our bonus is the wonder of staying here ourselves. It is of course also a wonderful fact finding mission. We learn truly what it’s like to be our guests. We can see the beauty of the views, the comfort of the Nap, but at the same time we can see why we need a toaster, why we need to convert the compost toilet to a flushing loo, all those little things you don’t necessarily think about as an owner.
One thing I do know, is that this place is bloody wonderful. It is utterly serene and calming. Truly a place to inhale and exhale, listen to Michael Kiwanuka, write, gaze, drink and play Yaahtzee. But above all it’s a place to get away from reality and be what you want to be. Reset, reboot, take stock, re-evaluate. It’s what Covid 19 just might do, if we’re really lucky. If we as a world can make such radical changes in 8 weeks the like we have not seen since WW2 for a virus, then it is clear that if the desire is there, we can easily prevent environmental meltdown as well . The world should learn from this and never go back to where we were before. This is the time to truly change. Nature is teaching us a lesson. Will we ever get another chance to reboot?