So glad I came

People sometimes ask me, "do you regret leaving London?"

"You gotta be joking," is my usual answer. "Best thing I ever did!"

So glad I came

It’s a funny thing.

I thought when I moved to the country after living almost seventy years in London, that I’d be in for a nice, quiet, relaxing life of retirement. Oh boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong, fortunately in a good way. I’ve never been busier in my life, nor so consistently happy.

And why? Because for once in my life I did the right thing! I ventured miles out of my comfort zone and followed my heart.

I’d always thought life was quite difficult, full of stress, difficulties, challenges and sometimes pain, but I have discovered that when you follow your heart, it’s actually quite easy. The key is to drop your resistance, stop being a control freak and adjust to a new reality. Things roll differently here. For a start everything is constantly changing.

For instance, a month ago we had torrential rain for a couple of weeks or so and the river at the end of the water meadow at the end of our garden overflowed and suddenly we found ourselves living by a lake! And even I, a dyed in the wool Londoner at heart, couldn’t help noticing the sudden arrival of a whole new population of wading birds. I counted at least half a dozen egrets, for example, a flock of about twenty five very noisy geese, no less than eight swans (where previously there were only two), and the odd heron that kept on popping up here and there. That’s just to name the few that I could identify.

Then the rain stopped and gradually the water retreated back into the river, and all the wading birds were gone just as suddenly as they had arrived, with the exception of the original two swans. Next day I heard on the radio that some local councils were considering a hose-pipe ban! Surely, they must have been living on another planet.

Next day we drove out into deeper country for Sunday lunch in a nearby pub, and snowdrops were everywhere. What an abundance!

The day after that, with joy in my heart at this obvious sign that spring must actually be here at last, I found a pure white Dove dead on the edge of our garden, so sadness took over as I had to perform a funeral. As I was donning rubber gloves in readiness to put the unfortunate beast into a bag, I became aware of a presence and looked up to see seven pairs of big brown eyes watching me with intense curiosity and going “Moo” very loudly. They were the bullocks from the farm next to us, our very nosey next door neighbours coming to check that I was doing it right.

I was by now beginning to wonder if I’d landed in a David Attenborough wildlife documentary.

Then, to cap it all, later the very same day I heard my cousin had had died, so tomorrow I shall probably be going to London for another, more formal, funeral. Then, later in the afternoon, I noticed at least 14 daffodils had sprouted, casting a hue of vibrant bright yellow in a corner of our garden. The eternal cycle, the dance between life and death, was really imprinting itself on my psyche.

Now today I wake up find myself looking out ofthe window at a fine white carpet of snow where our garden is supposed to be.

People ask me do I regret leaving London?

How could I possibly regret that? True, there aren’t many quality rock ’n roll gigs to go to round these parts, but you can’t get bored with all this free entertainment from nature that’s constantly going on. When you live in London you just don’t notice what’s happening and changing in nature all around you. And the weather changes so fast! You really notice the weather down here.

And I love it! I’m so glad I came!