Being Here.

We’ve had a marked change in the weather here. The sunshine and cold winds have been replaced by warm, calm, moist conditions. My favourite. The heavy spring growth comes even more alive in weather like this. It almost glows.

That’s one difference between Emily and me. She found the essence of nature in the wind; I find it in warmth and wetness. My life has been ever turbulent in mood and matter, and weather like this calms me down. It’s my comfort blanket.

I went to vote in the AV referendum this afternoon. On the way back down the hill from the village hall, I passed the old school house with its winding little path that has carried four whole generations of tiny feet. I looked at the Victorian building, the old wooden balustrade lining the path, the verges full of wild grasses and flowers, the hedgerows, the fields and the trees. The school is over a hundred years old; the lane, the fields, the hedgerows and most of the trees are rather older. I felt a profound sense of timelessness, which I suppose means a sense of some single thread running through all the changes and connecting the generations. You don’t get that to quite the same extent in towns and cities. You don’t get it at all in the suburbs.