Adjustments

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on 22^nd September 2023.

Whenever we leave Olivia Rose behind and head back to Le Shack there is a period of adjustment, a letting-go of an exciting life where we are continually on the move and exploring new areas, and a beginning of the process of re-tuning ourselves to a static life where things are familiar and we are grounded. Both of these lives are fulfilling, but in different ways, and it is to be expected that it might take a while to settle from one into the other.

This year this adjustment has taken a bit longer than usual, not least because the wilderness that awaited us had surpassed itself during a summer of hot weather broken up by periods of heavy rain and thunderstorms. We literally had to fight our way in through the front door as, for the first time ever, the vine had grown over it completely. It was also replete with grapes, much to the delight of the hornets who descended upon it in numbers and didn’t appreciate us cutting it back and doing our best to rescue the grapes that they had not already despoiled.

The thunderstorms over the summer had been so bad that the rain had washed away part of the road up the hill and so we arrived to find a ‘Road closed’ sign at the lane leading to the house. Thankfully there is another way in for vehicles, and we could still just about get up the hill on our bikes, dodging the fissures and keeping away from the edges, so it saved us a long detour. The road had been closed for most of the summer but within two weeks of us arriving home it had been repaired, so that was a plus.

We also arrived at the beginning of an unusually late and intense heat wave that lasted for just over a week, with hot, humid days and nights that weren’t a great deal better. It was a case of do what we could before midday, and then collapse in a heap indoors. The mosquitoes found the weather much more to their liking, to the point that we could hardly spend any time outside at all, and if you wanted to avoid being feasted upon it was a case of long trousers and sleeves, just wonderful in 35 degrees. Sprays and citronella candles helped a little, but everyone was agreed that this was an extremely bad year for mozzies, at least from a human point of view.

However all trying interludes come to an end eventually and the temperatures this past week, whilst still warm, have been much more comfortable. Michael is waging war on two acres worth of brambles, bracken, and gorse mixed in with grasses and dead wildflowers that are waist high and so thick it is an effort to push through them. We have decided that it is pointless buying trees for them to die each summer and instead we will let the edges of the field in which we live revert to nature as we simply can’t keep on top of it when we are here for such short periods of time. These borders are already full of young oak saplings in their hundreds and so we shall have a forest before long.

My project for the next week is our outside composting loo, which I have decided is too drab and needs to be turned into a bright and sunny place. More on that in the next blog.

Interspersed between all this activity, we also need to find time to appreciate what we have here: the sunflowers in the field across the lane, spent now, their heads hanging down but still something about them draws the eye. There are the lizards, darting up the outside of Le Shack or along the side of the pond, primeval with their scales and darting tongues and yet still endearing. Then there is the special quality of the evening sunlight, the utter peace, the birdsong, the simple pleasure of a pot of flowers by the front door and the owls hooting at night in a sky peppered with stars. I repeat this list of things that I love, like a mantra, and it helps me settle, helps calm my naturally restless disposition.

The icing on the cake, the final thing to make this feel like a home once more, has four legs. After three years of spending so little time here we thought she’d finally left us, but two weeks after we arrived Spot, the black and white cat who came with the property, turned up again and is now our constant companion, purring like a train and running up to say hello as soon as she sees us.

I have just a few pictures for you this week. They’re not particularly startling, just a snapshot of a moment in time, but they’re on my list of favourite little things that make the world a good place to be in.

Hope all is well in your world wherever you are. See you next week when it will be time for our annual chat about composting loos – I know how much some of you love this subject ….. or perhaps not!

MJ