"Gee,
but it's great to be back home"
We haven't entirely been living in Cornwall recently, but holidaying
in Suffolk with my little sister and her family. My sister has the occasional
look at my website and I can't stress enough that I love her dearly and
thought nothing of travelling from the furthest point west to distant
East Anglia to spend some time with her, but a week away from Cornwall
is long enough as I feel landlocked without the distance of the horizon
and the sea.
Don't get me wrong; Suffolk is beautiful.
Wide, sweeping skies, canopied over endless fields, fringed with poppies
and cornflowers. A canvas of Impressionists' brushstrokes characterised
in primary blues and red against caramel-gold corn. Pretty gardens profuse
with hollyhocks and delphiniums surround cottages, many of which are
painted in a deep ochre called 'Suffolk Pink', a gaudy shade of reddish
pink which is used traditionally and historically, was achieved by mixing
pigs' blood with lime to reinforce the earth based medium. There are
lovingly restored Saxon halls in perfectly preserved villages, in-filled
with red brick bungalows encompassed by front gardens defined by angular
borders planted with pansies and petunias, here chino-trousered chaps
not only mow their lawns, but mow their verges, manicured to Centre Court
immaculateness.
Suffolk has real charm, but for me, is
a little too neat. Not neat in a colloquial sense of 'cool' and there's
nothing wrong with neat when describing school uniform, handwriting or
a pile of ironed laundry, but not when it comes to the countryside. We
were invited to a garden party and a woman asked me, ' Why do you live
in Cornwall? It's too far from anywhere, nothing interesting happens
there, the potholes are terrible and the lanes are a nightmare, high
hedges, no warning of oncoming traffic...blah, blah...". I tried
very hard not to get defensive, but she did make me think, 'Why do I
live in Cornwall?". There are many reasons, one of which, is because
it isn't neat. Much of Suffolk acquired a cultivated uniformity after
the hedgerows were ripped out for prairie farming, bequeathing the broad
countryside with a tamed gentleness, unlike Cornwall, where little has
changed for thousands of years leaving the landscape more natural and
primitive.
As with all families, ours has moved around
depending on where partners and jobs have taken us. The dynamics of relationship
change and mine with my sister took a while before we understood each
other - probably most of our childhood, adolescence and into being mothers
ourselves. She was a free spirit and had a penchant for motor bikes,
arriving home in the early hours astride 1000ccs of throbbing metal,
leather-clad and tossing her blonde hair loose from her helmet, while
I sat in my room, struggling to decline Latin verbs and swot my way through
the Unification of Europe in the late 1800s- neither of which has improved
my life in the slightest! These days, as our husbands insist on telling
us, we're very alike, although neither of us can see it - she's my soul
sister.
She's still bloody-minded (in a nice way!!)
but channels it as a crusader and has been fighting to keep a tiny part
of Suffolk free from lawn mowers and people who think they know better
than to upset her. Near to her home, there is a meadow known as the 'Cricket'.
It's common land, abundant with native wild flowers and was part of the
original village green, enjoyed by generations as a quiet place to sit,
walk dogs and play games. A local councillor decided it should be kept
under control by fencing it and letting his cattle graze it! My sister
wasn't having any of it! She started a petition and campaigned with a
group of like minded people, obtained grant aid and match funding for
the preservation of the area. They've dug ditches, cut down the brambles
and invasive weeds, put up owl boxes, cleared a pond that has Great Crested
Newts and she's succeeded in making her own field of dreams.
When we arrived back home, we heard that
a very dear friend had died and we wanted to celebrate her life in
away she would have appreciated. We drove out to Botallack, near Land's
End, had a picnic in the shadow of a ruined engine house and raised
a glass to her memory as the sun set, finishing the evening listening
to guitarist, Mike Chapman, playing in the Count House. It takes a
quiet moment of reflection to see what's around us and not take it
for granted. A land strewn with igneous rocks, serpentine, gabbro and
granite, thrust up from the ocean floor in an untidy disorder resting
wherever they randomly deposited themselves during an inter-glacial
disturbance. Here and there, a standing stone, silently guards its
ageless secret below the bruise-purple heather and small fields, shaped
by ancient Celtic farmers, are still cultivated around boulders. The
granite hedges remain, with a violet, flame and magenta spume of montbretia
and wild fuchsia spraying onto the wayside, interwoven with a tangle
of brambles and honeysuckle.
We've all seen the pictures of the looting mobs rampaging
through our cities. I can't do anything about changing attitude and
behaviour, but we could start by celebrating the difference and diversity
of not only the countryside, but the people of our country and not
be ashamed but proud of "this sceptred isle, this Earth of majesty,
this other Eden... built by Nature herself, this England".
P.S. While I'm on the subject of fencing, cattle and 'officials' and
individuals fighting to retain what belongs to us all by right, look
at the latest news from the Save
Penwith Moor campaigners
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