Spring again.....

Resurrection

The Resurrection (Piero della Francesca) c 1460

I have this fresco on my bedroom wall (there is a copy in the Museo Civico of Sansepolcro, Piero della Francesca's native town).  Every morning I wake to the haunting gaze of the risen Christ, while I still feel as asleep as the four soldiers at his feet (the second from the left being Piero himself).  I am reminded that it is time to make a refreshing pot of tea.....

One reason I so love this painting is that resurrection does not just refer to the man arising from his sarcophagus (though I do feel a bit like that some mornings) - there is the resurrection of the natural world from dormant Winter (on our left) with its bare trees to verdant Spring to our right as life regenerates. Here is Persephone. Here is Osiris. Here is Eostre.....

This Spring, however, is different. The past winter was, for me, the hardest I remember.  Not in terms of the weather, no.  But in terms of loss, of dying.  In December, for the first time in almost forty years, I spent our wedding anniversary alone. Then Christmas, in the company of our two daughters, was again a first without Amanda. New Year; my birthday; Amanda's birthday..... these anniversaries passed in colourless silence. Yes, we visited Amanda in her Care Home. But, no, she could not really participate, or communicate, or recognise.

On top of which, for one reason or another, I didn't feel so good, and the darkness dragged on, well into March, with little sign of hope.

But then the days began to brighten, and, haltingly, there were signs of regeneration. The world seemed to be coming to life again - even if not for everyone. At Easter I took Amanda for a wheel along the prom at Hunstanton, and there were people on the beach!

And across the Marsh there are walkers on the Flood Bank - still attired against the wind, but enjoying the open air, with a blue sky reflected in the ground water.....

In the woods I hear the hopeful chant of the Chiffchaff:

 In the trees I spy a Nuthatch:

And then a busy little Treecreeper:

There was action all around. Birds displaying, and birds hunting, feeding, perhaps providing for the family:

Barn Owl

Marsh Harrier

Buzzard

Red Kite

Mallard

Birds everywhere.  At Titchwell RSPB I saw a distant  Spoonbill:

And Avocets combing the water:

A Redshank in the mud:

And a Meadow Pipit on a post:

And at home, in my garden, the Rosemary is in flower:

And the Cherry trees are blooming:

In this resurrection life is affirming, and the depression of winter begins to lift. My personal grief is nothing compared to others. It is very sad, for me, that I cannot walk across the land with Amanda as we did a year ago, and all the past years that we shared. But she is being looked after, and still has moments of cheer:

Things could be worse, and, I guess, it's best not to think too much about the future. I don't know how many more  Springs there will be - for you, for me, for the planet itself - so we must make the most of what we have today, and be grateful for the wonder that is this resurrection:

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf 
Like something almost being said; 
The recent buds relax and spread, 
Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

Is it that they are born again 
And we grow old? No, they die too, 
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain. 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh 
In fullgrown thickness every May. 
Last year is dead, they seem to say, 
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

A Norfolk Rhapsody

 A Year in Norfolk

It is exactly a year since we agreed to buy our new home in Norfolk, leaving Hertfordshire after eighteen years and some, and uprooting ourselves to the wilds of East Anglia, where locals say we are cut off on three sides by the sea and on the fourth by British Rail.

Regrets?  I will always have some, though I know they are futile.  Every day is a point of no return, and there are three choices:  live in the past, in the infinitely expanded present, or in dreams of the future.

Watch the oyster catcher.  He does what he does, and that is it.  Muddy beak, bloodshot eyes and scraggy pink feet.  He is what he is.

Or watch, and hear, the straggling skeins of Pink-footed geese as they fly out of gunshot to and from their roosts on the Wash and its mudflats.  I love their plaintiff honkings as they encourage each other, flying over my house, east in the morning and west in the evening, sometimes in gusty winds, and sometimes in thick dark cloud.  It is a winter treat that gladdens my heart when much else is glum.

That Norfolk National Treasure, Stephen Fry, said of his home county, You either get Norfolk, with its wild roughness and uncultivated oddities, or you don't. It's not all soft and lovely. It doesn't ask to be loved.  I think he is right.  I have made friends with one or two uncultivated oddities, and I have grown to admire its wild roughness.  

To the best of my remembrance I first came here with a couple of friends around fifty years ago, but since then have returned time and time again, highlights including being a residential volunteer for the RSPB at Titchwell Marsh and Snettisham on two occasions.  It was at Snettisham that I saw my first tangle of Knots, crowding the sky at dusk as the tide drives them off the Wash and to roost in the lagoons:

And it is here that you can now see breeding Avocet, which became the symbol of the RSPB in recognition of the success of conservation initiatives after its return, in 1947, after 100 years of exile from these islands:

Norfolk is the fifth largest county in England, and the driest.  It has more than 150 deserted villages, and 659 medieval churches, of which 125 have round towers.  Its coastline is 100 miles long, and its highest point is 338 feet above sea level.  I live at about 20 metres above sea level, but Ken Hill, between me and the Wash, reaches 60 metres.....  King's Lynn, at the mouth of the Great Ouse, was a Hanseatic Port, and at one time was the third busiest trading port in the country.

Apart from churches, the county has some exceptionally fine ruins, such as Castle Rising:

Castle Acre Priory, 

Walsingham (the most popular pilgrimage site after Canterbury), and Binham Priory, of which the church remains intact:

throughout the seasons.....

Practically every village has its Hall, like this in Old Hunstanton, where the Le Strange family settled after the Norman Conquest, with still extant rights over the shoreline for as far as you could throw a spear:

The Le Strange dynasty has now ceased in name, but they created the resort of Hunstanton, and their heirs still hold extensive rights over properties and lands around here.....

Amanda and I, or Amanda and her carers, walk every day, pacing her progressive demise over this landscape, and along her shores.  Her shadow lengthens every day.....

In sunshine, and in cloud (such as here, at Holkham, where Gwyneth Paltrow walked - there walk we):

Sometimes we stop to admire a plant, such as this Sea Holly:

Or we might see a bright cock Linnet watching us:

Another day we might chase dragonflies:

Or perhaps stroke a wild pig (on Wild Ken Hill):

By and large there are fewer people around, out of season.  Our village has its share of holiday lets which burst their seams in the school holidays.  At other times there is a steady flow of grey tourists - bird watchers and dog walkers - but in general there is space.  No longer do we have to shrink into hedges to avoid being mown down by lycra-stripped dog-runners or two grand carbon fibre bikers ignoring footpath signs.....

Off season the beach huts at Wells-next-the-sea are padlocked and sad.  The houses on Snettisham Beach are mostly shuttered up:

And the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club (founded 1892) lacks its summery infection of red-corduroy trousers:

The beaches are full of empty shells......  not wholly unlike us:

The wide skies fill with birds - geese everywhere and kites here and there:

At Thornham the old coal shed is locked.  Here fuel supplies were brought in by wherry to shield the treeless locals from winter winds:

At Snettisham the jetty, from which shingle was ferried to Lincolnshire to make concrete for the bomber squadron airfields, slips slowly into the sea:

And as the layer cake cliffs of Hunstanton crumble into the sea at high tide the sun sinks over the distant fens.....

Going, going......

And at low tide there is nothing but mud and the temptation of King John's Jewels under a fuzzy grey sky  patrolled by squawking geese:

Norfolk has become our home.  Sadly Amanda is unable to communicate her feelings about this, but she has adapted and seems to enjoy our wanderings.  The variety of scenery, light and weather is stimulating and our home is comfortable.  We could not wish for much more....  Enough is, for us at least, enough......

So, for the moment at least, we will follow the rules, irrespective of from whosoever's  moral authority they emanate.

And I recommend you do likewise......

Happy Times!

*   *    *    *

And as a footnote, I found this.  I don't know David Callin (from the Isle  of Man), but would like to, and in the meantime hope he will not mind me reproducing this poem.  You can add your own pictures.....

Snettisham

by David Callin

This is the Wash it seems -

a last exhalation

of the dying land, or something

the sea's been working on

for ages: sketching it in,

rubbing it out,

redoing and redoing it,

never satisfied.

Look at you, all wrapped up,

hat and scarf and

gloves, and those wild eyes

made weak by medication

and hopes confounded so

so many times.

Never this thin before.

Going slowly, in this

flattest part of England,

going slowly downhill.

The birds rise

like a handful of rain

thrown upward,

and the Great Twitcher

in the sky misses

nothing. His fondness

for sparrows is well known.