The Newt...Homeless inside myself....Releasing Regret

Friday

Another lovely birthday treat. This time at The Newt in Bruton, Somerset. A newly acquired estate with woodland, gardens, hotel and restaurant which are being beautifully restored and developed.

I'm not sure of all the details but it sounds like the man who bought it is a South African wine grower and philanthropist who was inspired by a wonderful woman in the family who used to own the estate. She went to South Africa during the Boer War and nursed the soldiers. When the estate came on the market a few years ago he bid for it and won.

It's all curved lines, wood, stone and wicker, 

glass and flowing water, espaliered trees, chickens and apples.

All the vegetables for the restaurant are grown in the wide pathed gardens,

the titles of all the dishes are simply the name of one lead vegetable or fruit..

which is the star of the dish...

Artichoke

Cauliflower

Mushroom

and Cured and Matured - meats and cheese and pickled vegetables.

The vegetable garden and Victorian green house...

wicker...

the hotel...

the newt...great crested - a protected species....

the apple..

apple display for Apple Day..

the fowl...

the pond - Koi Carp..

the fountain.

A delicious day....

driving home, inspired.

Saturday

 Cafe coffee, cheese scones and butter,

 walking, stopping,  sprained knee resting, bench sitting, talking,

with dear friend at Killerton Estate..

while the world and his pushchair swirled around us, following the great pumpkin trail.

Sunday

Back to the fields after weeks away....trying out my knee on the hill, 

and the footpath. Slow and steady...it still hurts..but not as much as before....and it's so good to be back...in the air.

Still feeling uprooted, unsettled, temporary, restless in the house.

My big sister reminds me that since I was two and a half my family  were on the move....travelling from Zambia to the UK...staying with relatives...travelling back....but not to the home I knew... to another place and then another place and then another place....and then back to the UK when I was 13. 

All my adult life I repeated it...moving jobs, and flats and towns and cities and countries and relationships....over and over....looking for home....a reason to make a home....to stay put.

And then Robin came... and he was my reason... and I made a home for us...several homes...in different places ...but always home....for 30 years.

So now it's like being two and a half again...no choice about being uprooted..widowed. I  did choose to move and leave our home because it wasn't home anymore without him.

I did choose a place.....I was guided here..... with potential to make my home.

 But the potential is still in the misty distance...and 

I'm still travelling somehow ...on the move within these walls...homeless inside myself.

Today

With the guidance of lovely therapist I ask about the pain... in my knee and thumb and back... about hurting myself .....and I uncover shock....and regret. Hurting myself with regret. Deep regret...remembering the last days before Robin died....and long before that....before he was ill...all of it.

And  then I find I can start to let it go...not let go of  him......or the past..... or what happened or didn't happen.... or the hurt of the loss of him....  but let go of what isn't helpful to me....thinking, wishing I'd done it differently.

Releasing this layer of regrets and releasing the judgement that I should have done it already...3 years on...another unhelpful thought.

And I'm sure my knee doesn't hurt so much tonight...