Escape

Yesterday evening everything was soaked, after a night of heavy rain. Shining puddles dance with concentric rain circles.  A burnt orange jeep, foursquare and cheery, sits perfectly parked bettween carpark lines.  I've escaped Exeter for a quick break - sore eyed from computers and too many books as well I think.  

It's not the nicest of Premier Inns.  It looks shabby and the signposting from the road is terrible - I overshoot and find a tight lane, which promises an evening walk.  There's an open Toby carvery and suddenly, after a queasy headachey day I feel HUNGRY.  So I succumb to a roast.  Turkey, lots of veg, mac&cheese, all in restrained quantities. Oh, did I mention half of Guinness (painkiller) and profiteroles? Hmm, I can never resist profiteroles in any format, but these were a bit sticky sweet but they did the job.

A bit of middle age TV - gardeners world and a programme on John Denver.  My mum loved him, had his records - she's an Anne, and he wrote "Annie's song" for his first wife.  I sadly seem to have been born singing the songs and know most of them, to my surprise, off by heart.  He had terrible, dreadful taste in shirts and should never ever have danced with 70s dance group Pans people - awful, embarrasing,  I guess that's what I remember - parents taste in music and embarrassment - but actually I really like his songs! 

With the help of radio 4 I slept like a happy log.  Good job it was only a small beer as the breakfast room has plastic grey stools with stripy fabric tops, battered, flaky paint chairs and a floor of wood laminate chevrons in green, brown and duck egg blue.  It's a bit vibrant for the morning but hash browns, bacon and the other nice Premier Inn bits and pieces make up for feeling slightly queasy.

I shot off to Montacute and spent an hour walking in the parkland, to catch the early sun. Picked up a decent coffee after the worst cup I have ever had with breakfast.

only to find this large, furry robber drinking my water.  He would have had the coffee too, if I hadn't booted him off the table.  

Montacute is so good.  It makes me feel slightly awed, knowing that in Queen Elizabeth's day, people were walking round this house, pacing up and down the massive long gallery, admiring their new tapestries, watching the cheery plaster friezes drying, slowly.  It is that old. The honey colour Ham stone glows in sunlight, it is beautiful.  This time, a different selection of National Gallery portraits on loan - last time the gallery was full of them, this time only a few.

I enjoy looking at the faces - some look unnervingly modern - one military man, minus the silly Elizabethan beard and dressed in khaki with red tabs could be a twenty first century brigadier. One woman looks like Sonia, who was one of the characters I worked with in Transplant mastertrain, I wonder if her Elizabethan counterpart was equally miserable and grumpy in the mornings!

I finished off with a couple hours of weeding for friends - 3 barrow loads of weeds and leaves for the bonfire and my half price goretex trainers are now suitably worn in and muddy.

Blackbird O'Clock?

 Friday morning I just couldn't stay in bed.  It's been a trying sort of week.  Parents needing care, lots of frustration at work, the awful, miserable angst invoking news....and so I crept out, early to grab a coffee, when I should have stayed in and done useful things or read a book at home.  But then..I would have missed the waking blackbirds, singing and warbling in the trees, by the health centre as I walked over to pick up the car.  Such a beautiful sound and the light was still "proper dimpsy" as good Devonians say.

This morning, after a swim, I sorted life for the parents - mum had a minor foot operation and poor dad needed a slightly more competent cook so I organised lunch for them, drank a glass of their sherry and weeded out the patio and pots of daffodils.  Mum supervised- which means she whinged that I was a little rough on the weeds.  At least she was getting fresh air and must have been feeling a bit better!

My own garden has a mini riot of small daffs, whose beautiful egg yolk yellow peeps above a variety of bought and donated terracotta pots.  Checking them today in a brief respite from weekend chores, I see they have been joined by rhubarb and custard striped mini tulips.  Only a few and more to come, looking at their emerging leaves. It makes life feel worthwhile and I find my energy picking up.

This evening I had a brief stroll to deliver a nearly overdue birthday card.  The street is lined with magnolia trees and around this week in March, every year, they start to emerge.  It brought back a quick flash of memory - two years ago, just pre-pandemic I went to Hidecote gardens and the memory I have is of staring into blue sky, photographing vividly pink magnolias against that standout sky.

The next year, I was walking the same street at Magnolia time, unable to meet friends, worship, work or indeed go out for more than an hour.  Memory is a weird thing.

As I turned the corner into my friends road, I was stopped by the severe pollarding of the trees - they looked like a hammer beam roof - like the ribs of the Mary Rose which I visited a few years ago.  Give them another month or so and they will be clothed in beautiful fresh lime spring green.