Down on the farm on Saturday in the Blackdown Hills. My sister's neighbour keeps a rare breed of sheep called Jacobs.
We spent the afternoon with them and their sweet faces and 5 gorgeous little children all under 4 years old plus their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles - stroking the lambs, jumping in muddy puddles and running after blown up footballs and beach balls.....
which kept a smile on my face all day - all that joy and energy and new life,
claiming the space, the air, the sunshine of the moment.
A river runs through it... the National Trust's Lydford Gorge on Sunday,
a wet green Spring paradise, scented with realms of wild garlic and bluebells. I could have walked the steep slippery paths all day but RC feared for my safety so much that we turned back,
and ate our picnic in a windy meadow near the loos, with a bold grey headed crow strutting in front of us waiting for crumbs.
Haldon Woods on Monday evening. RC says he wants his funeral here at Haldon Belverdere.
We stand and look at the view out over the estuary and I say I know you can hire it for weddings but not sure about funerals. He says he went to the doctor's that morning and asked her if she knew how long he had to live as it could affect his pension. She said no one knows. You can't predict it. I asked him if he was afraid of dying and he said no. But I don't know how to even imagine it - not being here - him or me.
A birthday gift of tulips which I planted very late in the year - not sure they would come up - but they have - tall and straight and delicate - soft tinged magenta, blooming long after all the others have died away.
Reminding me to trust the new life you can't see yet - below the ground, in the darkness, gestating - waiting for the spring which always comes...thank goodness - as I'm getting tired of all these tears - more tonight - which seem to start so easily at the slightest thing.
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