Marshlands

A hectic few weeks and suddenly everything has changed. We’re no longer wanderers. We’re settlers with a couple of acres of overgrown land, a sound (we think) cottage in need of serious renovation, three milk sheds and various tumbledown outbuildings bodged together from corrugated iron, random bits of wood, old doors, salvaged windows, nails, string and sackcloth.

We share this place with badgers, foxes, Little Owls, Barn Owls, moles, voles, shrews, mice, pheasants, rabbits, hares, kestrels, bats, and lots and lots of birds. We’re told there are Muntjac and roe deer around but I haven’t seen any yet.

Our stuff arrived out of storage yesterday. Furniture, and many big boxes whose contents we’ve long forgotten. Having lived comfortably with much less stuff for so long, it’s a culture shock. Possessions weigh you down. They feel like too much gravity. We’ve become unused to it. But some things are welcome – a proper fridge-freezer, a washing machine, all our tools, certain things of sentimental value.

Living in a van for so long, we learned that you don’t need much indoor space if you have the outdoors, and that you don’t need a lot of possessions to live comfortably and well. I worry that I’ll gradually unlearn this lesson. I hope not, because it’s a valuable one.

We’re like rabbits caught in the headlights. So much to do that we barely know where to start.

Mixed feelings, but also excitement and wonder. These are the flatlands, the Marshlands, ancient and mysterious. The skies and horizons are vast. I saw the pale orange supermoon rise through a drift of pale cloud. I saw a barn owl hunt in the field across the lane. I saw a tiny shrew emerge from the long grass and snuffle around. I saw early morning mist fading as the sun rose. The air is full of lark song, sparrow chatter, the two-note calls of pyewipes.

And all is well.