Autumn gets ready for Winter

The sun was bright this morning but the wind was cold. The last of the beech leaves whirled about the house, like giant golden snowflakes. Elder son had stayed the night and was up early to go back to Manchester. Ian made him poached eggs on toast for breakfast with our bantam eggs and home made bread. The eggs poach really well, the white keeping together instead of flying off like a jellyfish. By the time I came down in my sheepskin slippers and big dressing gown he was ready to go.

Afterwards we pottered about, enjoying being home together after a week where Ian had come home only to go to bed. A trip to the village for the paper made me realise how we much we are beginning to be settled into life here. We chat, in the post office, at the deli buying homemade black pudding, in the newsagent. I rarely go to the village now without seeing someone I know. In the newsagent I meet a friend in her seventies (would I have crossed the generations in the same way in the city? I don't think so) who encourages me to join a choir. We have a male voice choir in the village, a serious one which enters competitions and has just been on a visit to Ireland. Every Christmas they invite women to join and make a mixed choir. I'm not a singer, can just about hold a tune if everyone else around me is doing so, but don't regard myself as having a singing voice at all. "Can you read, open and close your mouth and stand still?" she asked me. "Yep, I can do all of that." "Then you'll be fine." So that is Monday evening spoken for until Christmas. I've never done anything like that before. I am not a church goer. I am not a joiner of things or a member of clubs. I didn't even do Brownies or Guides. But it is part of what I promised myself when I sat for hours in my garden as I got better last year: more saying no to the familiar strident demands of work; more saying yes to family, friends and a wider community, more doing things I haven't done before.

For lunch we have bacon, egg and black pudding. This is perfectly in accord with the diet. Then the weather says that the afternoon is for outside. Although the sun has gone and the wind is cold it is dry and there are more bulbs to plant. Ian fixes chicken wire to the gate to the field. Theoretically when the chickens are out they stay in the side garden but actually they like to roam and can sometimes be found standing inquisitively on the kitchen step or striking out down the field towards the big apple tree. By the end of the afternoon I have another nine pots of tulips and only fifteen Orange Emperor still waiting to go in. They are the perfect excuse for buying another big terracotta pot.

Now there is chicken (not one of ours, they've got names) roasting in the oven with a pot of red cabbage. I had been intending to save the red cabbage for Christmas. It was huge and glossy and had survived when most of the cabbages I sowed had fallen prey to slugs and snails. This afternoon I found that something, probably still slugs but with massive jaws, had decided to have another go so Ian lifted it and brought it inside. The outside leaves caused gentle excitment to the chickens in their run. Now it is cooking slowly with red wine vinegar and brown sugar. The woodburner is lit and Ian is snoozing. It is too easy to look back and realise that you were happy once and did not know it. I'm happy today, right now, sitting here.

Comments

  1. How lovely, Elizabeth. Rural life is so inviting and comforting. I had forgotten that after so many years living in a city. Isn't it wonderful to discover that life and try something new?

    ReplyDelete
  2. im happy reading your post.
    and you're making me hungry.... i can smell the roasting chicken, and the brown sugar and the cabbage... and it smells very homey and wintery.

    joining a choir is something i would love to do. i cannot carry a tune and so would only be allowed to join if i mouthed the words without uttering a sound. so i hope you do it instead, and tell me about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like a lovely life. Oooh I dream of eggs so fresh they 'stand' in the pan. I'd like to keep bantams but our garden is too small and the allotment to full of foxes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. To be happy and to realise that you are happy, to make the most of the moment, that is the thing. Your happiness rubs off on the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh that was lovely Elizabeth. A gentle reminder to enjoy what we have and I, like you, have plenty xxx

    ReplyDelete
  6. Those moments of 'realisation' are so special. So easy to miss it all. I used to have those moments surrounded by people; as I'm getting older I have them more and more with just the family, or on my own, pottering. Good luck with the choir - in my next life I want to be able to sing!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A lovely blog - full of those things which enrich our lives - family, home, community - eating meals together with food you have grown yourselves, the warmth of a fire on a winter's evening.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I feel more content just reading your post. Lovely:-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Stumbled across your blog by a round-about route and it's great to hear of someone so happy with their lifestyle. Hope the trips to London don't take it out of you too much.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a wonderful blog, you paint a very idyllic picture, glad I'm not the only one with a new Monday night hobby, mines ladies football, oxymoron if there ever was

    ReplyDelete
  11. I stumbled upon your blog recently and am so glad I did. I get a nice lift to the heart when I see you've added a new entry. I think you'll find your choir very therapeutic. Singing is much more than having a good voice.Enjoy it all and please keep writing....

    Deb (currently in London, but contemplating a move with family to Shropshire!)

    ReplyDelete
  12. it is one of the most important things isn't it? to realise you are happy now and that life is now and not at some future point.
    Adding you to my blogroll, I love your blog, it needs to be on my list!
    Pigx

    ReplyDelete
  13. I sense a kindred spirit...beautiful post Elizabeth, I read it several times just to savour it properly...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oooh, Elizabeth - it sounds as though you've really 'come home'. We, too, are in a similar position having come a few years ago from the city, and I wouldn't go back. Apart from the beautiful natural surroundings, it's also surprisingly lovely being part of a community, and I know just what you mean about crossing the generations - age seems almost an irrelevance sometimes.

    PS Thanks for your lovely comment. And I was tempted by your talk of a holiday cottage...

    ReplyDelete
  15. what a wonderful description of simple happiness. I feel relaxed already!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I loved that blog, so cosy and homely. Makes me want red cabbage and the fire on and tulips in pots outside. Mine are all in now, but sadly no Orange Emperor, which sound so lovely.

    I know what you mean about crossing the generations, I have friends who are much much older than me, and with whom I have a more relaxed and intelligent friendship than with many friends of my own age.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are the best thing and the conversations they produce are the whole purpose of blogging for me. Do tell me what you think!

Popular posts from this blog

I love November

New house, new world, new garden

Making lined curtains