20years at home

Jan­u­ary 19, 2001 (2am)

Twenty years ago we bounced up the track to this farm­house. Our new home. It was pitch black and bit­terly cold. But we could not have been hap­pier. Life had just changed be­yond our wildest imag­in­ings.

Two days ear­lier we had boarded the 4am ferry from Dover to Calais en route to Catalunya. We were a mot­ley con­voy com­pris­ing our old car with a roof box and trailer, a friend’s van and a hired seven tonne truck, all stacked with ne­ces­si­ties from a piano to empty jars. Jammed in the car were two very de­ter­mined, sleep-de­prived adults run­ning on adren­a­lin, a trust­ing five year old girl, Ella, a sleep­ing baby boy, Joe, two springer spaniels and pre­cious lit­tle money.

We had no plan other than to re­think, to live, learn, be, to begin an odyssey in search of time - time at the table, in na­ture, grow­ing, not miss­ing a minute of our chil­dren’s lives. We had no idea re­gard­ing in­come, we just had our wits and an abid­ing drive to heed the un­de­ni­able truth that the great­est re­grets in life are not things you have done but the things you never did.

And there has not been one day of re­gret. Chal­lenges, of course: count­less, some very steep. But we are liv­ing, learn­ing, being, brim­ming with mem­o­ries. And more. We found our­selves in a coun­try that loves books - oh joy - a land of trees and moun­tains steeped in rich cul­ture, a place to breathe, within a com­mu­nity that re­tains the in­valu­able un­der­stand­ing and good­ness of trust and rec­i­proc­ity. Thank you to all our friends in The Pri­o­rat, in Catalunya.

We count lucky stars and we con­tinue to grow. We are so grate­ful to our chil­dren, now taller and in many ways wiser than us. We be­lieve in them.

Dur­ing those early years olive trees were pa­tient with us. We har­vested, but we bent our backs in the lit­tle vine­yards longer than we should. The grove bided, and as the years rolled the time we spent with the trees in­creased, as did wis­dom. Olive oil now sus­tains us, is core but by no means all that is our home, L’Hort de la Mare, Mother’s Gar­den. This lit­tle farm grows wilder by the day. Bad­ger, deer and boar tracks in the snow yes­ter­day.

Thou­sands have come to stay from all cor­ners of the globe. We hope we will wel­come more once the world moves, hope­fully to a best place of sus­tain­abil­ity and rec­i­proc­ity, not least with all liv­ing things and Mother Earth her­self.

I wish every­one would read Braid­ing Sweet­grass, the finest book among the many we read in 2020. Rec­i­proc­ity runs through Robin Wall Kim­merer’s text of na­tive Amer­i­can wis­doms and es­sen­tial lessons of how to live with re­spect for all life and na­ture. Yet her voice and all those clam­our­ing warn­ings at the glar­ingly ob­vi­ous tip­ping point are drowned out by so much bloody stu­pid noise. Noth­ing like enough is chang­ing suf­fi­ciently or fast enough.

So out­side I go.

Two days ago, the crust of frost on top of the 45 cen­time­tres of snow held my weight for a few steps then caved. That night my gaze fol­lowed the pad and claw tracks of the bad­ger into the bro­ken woods. He or she was light enough not to sink. The storm has passed and the melt and the clear­ing of the many bro­ken branches has begun. I stop work­ing and give thanks for small won­ders. The life-force beauty of the hun­gry chaffinches and robin com­ing to the bird table burns brightly against the blan­ket of white.

Live the day. Tread softly. Keep safe.