A shock...and getting used to it.

Love them...

rare to see a sparrow on the feeder these days..

and even more unusual to see the goldfinch.

But not the pigeons who hoover up the seed in the ground feeder in seconds,

even this one with his scissor beak...unless that's his tongue.

I miss Edward.

 I got a shock first thing this morning when I drew the curtains back from my north facing bedroom window. A van parked in the field. Two men, in hooded jackets, in pouring rain and strong wind, looking for something on the ground.

This is the field between me and my farthest neighbour, the field running all along my boundary hedge at the side of the garden. The protected hedge where the dormice are hibernating.

When I bought the house I knew there was planning permission to build 5 houses in this field. This is the first sign of activity.  Because nothing has happened so far I was hoping that it wouldn't happen at all.

I pull on my wellies and a long mac and step out into the rain with the intention of finding out when the building may be starting. But they are just leaving, pulling out in the van so I flag it down and have a chat with the driver. Who doesn't really want to tell me much except that they will start on the 3 entrances to the road first ...and then the houses .....and they are just clearing some trees .....and a digger could be coming later ....and no, it could be months not weeks before the building starts.

I don't think he really knows and didn't want to commit himself to anything.

Later I go online to try and find the details of the planning application but can only find this artist's impression of what the five houses could look like. 

It's in an article in the local newspaper and there is lot of correspondence about how they are flat roofed 'boxes' and will be a blot on the landscape.

I don't know about that but I do know I'm in a kind of mourning already for the loss of the quiet open space and view around my house...for the loss of 'living in the country' feeling that I have started to get used to. I also know it is a great privilege.

Meanwhile the whole county is in constitutional and political crisis. Like the EU ministers in Brussels, I'm irritated, frustrated and weary. Grateful it isn't me who has to negotiate my way out - or in.

 But like the houses in the field which I don't want, somebody else does want them. And  I know change is inevitable, it always comes. For better or for worse.... I have to choose between love and fear. But actually I'm usually negotiating my way between the two most of the time.

I'm afraid the houses will ruin my experience of living here. But they might be really lovely people who move in.

My choice isn't what happens, it's how I live with it when it has happened.

Like being a widow.

I'm nowhere near getting used to that.